Japanese Writing is the Craziest Bastard in the Language Nuthouse

In the literate world, the Japanese writing system is the no-good, ugly-duckling step-son. Nobody really likes it, it makes more problems than it solves, and the rest of the family keeps wondering why it’s got to make everything so damn complicated. But don’t expect this unwanted little sibling to get kicked out of the house anytime soon. All signs suggest that we’re stuck with it. As badly as Japan needs to make an appearance on the new hit reality TV show “Please Do An Ultimate Makeover On My Country’s Written Language! It’s A Nightmare!” it’s just too late to kick to the curb this plague on the family’s otherwise decent image.

The Japanese written language is the poster-child for this country’s secret obsession with ineffectiveness. Despite what you’ve heard about dedicated working-stiffs churning out Toyotas faster than Fidel Castro spits out propaganda, this country loves to make things as complicated and time-consuming as possible. And the Japanese written language takes the cake when it comes to inefficiency- narrowly beating out the maze-like roadways, which snake through the rice-fields of my town like winding tunnels made by chemically imbalanced gophers under a former Chernobyl power plant.

How could the Japanese written language be any worse than English- that wretched tongue that has been confusing immigrants and conquered peoples for centuries? Well, there’s no disputing that the English written language is one of the stupidest inventions after the automatic turkey carver, but the Japanese written word has it beat in terms of difficulty to learn, complexity, and general ridiculousness. Allowith me to explain.

The Japanese written language is made up of not one, but four separate writing systems, each more difficult than the next. These include:

1. ‘Kanji’- the most complicated of the four- this strikingly beautiful yet insanely complex syllabary was borrowed from the Chinese and includes thousands upon thousands of intricate and difficult to replicate characters

2. ‘Hiragana’- a syllabary that can be used to write any word in the Japanese language; it was initially intended for words which can’t be written in Kanji, words for which the author doesn’t know the Kanji, or when the reader isn’t expected to know the Kanji

3. ‘Katakana’- a system used not only to write foreign loan words such as ‘kohii’ (coffee) and ‘doa’ (door) which pervade the Japanese vocabulary like gaps in an Appalachian mountain-man’s mouth, but, if so desired, can also be used to write any word in Japanese

4. ‘Romaji’ - the English alphabet used to spell out Japanese words- strictly for the benefit of foreigners

Each of these systems, on its own, is quite good. However, the problem lies in the fact that all four systems are often combined in sentences to create one dastardly abomination of the written word. Moreover, most words can be written in any one of the four syllabaries, causing this outsider to suggest that- and call me crazy if you wish- keeping all four writing systems is as unnecessary as nipples on a Pygmy White-toothed shrew – the tiny creature’s miniscule teats are so hard to get a handle on, and the milk, so bitter and tasteless.

Rather than choosing one syllabary at some point over the past hundred years ago and deciding to stick with it exclusively, the Japanese, in their endless quest to complicate matters, said “what the hell- let’s just keep ‘em all! How bad could it be?” Well, let me tell you – it’s bad. My own personal conspiracy theory is that the Japanese deliberately kept each system in order to further thwart an outsider’s penetration of their culture- but that’s just me being crazy. Or is it? Today, in order to become truly literate in Japanese, one must be able to read and write all four alphabets.

Now, learning the majority of the writing systems is not difficult at all for English speakers. Romaji is the first to be conquered. Being that it uses the English alphabet, it comes more naturally to an Anglophone than urine to a homeless man’s pants (and I don’t mean that in a derogatory manner- it’s just a sad fact of homelessness). Hiragana and Katakana come next. Any primate with a heartbeat, 60 flashcards and a pot of coffee can learn these cute little characters in less than a day. By this point, your eyes may be bleeding, your mind may be spinning, and you may be seeing furry little leprechauns dancing across the walls of your room - but rejoice! You’ve learned three-quarters of the syallabaries! Just don’t get too excited though, Rain Man. Forget not Kanji, a system of writing that even the average Japanese person can’t master.

Yes, you read that correctly. Japanese people can not even read the entirety of their own Kanji syllabary! Not even close, in fact. Of an estimated 11,000 or more characters, the average, well-educated Japanese person can only read roughly 3 or 4 thousand. And naturally, reading characters is easier than replicating them- the average Japanese person would not be able to write more than a quarter of the Kanji from memory.

Technological programs in devices such as e-dictionaries and cell phones are further accelerating the average Japanese person’s loss of Kanji writing ability. One simply has to type what they want to say in Hiragana, and the clever Japanese gadgets change it to Kanji – thus eliminating the need to write the most difficult of the syllabaries. With the growing use of cell phones and computers, more and more people don’t know how to write anything but the basic Kanji (and by that, I mean the first few thousand characters or so – a damn impressive feat in itself, if you ask me).

Does this qualify the average Japanese person as being illiterate? Am I living in a society that has made their own written language so difficult that it has actually rendered them incapable of reading and writing great chunks of it? This is like something out of a comedy caper film in which our comic heroes create a bank-heist plan so complicated that they themselves can’t figure it out. This is what great comedy is made of! The funniest result of their over-zealous Kanji syllabary, is that today, on posters, in movie subtitles, and on news program headlines, the Kanji is often subtitled in Hiragana so that the average Joe and Jane can understand what is being written. Even the subtitles have subtitles! Little Hiragana symbols are scrawled over the Kanji characters to clarify the difficult Kanji. If this isn’t a clue that Kanji is redundant, I don’t what is. Yes, history has proven once again that there are definitely flaws in being overly ambitious. Perhaps the Japanese should create a fifth syllabary that acts as a code to decipher the difficult Kanji? Or a sixth syllabary to decipher the fifth syllabary’s codes? Or would this just make things a tad confusing?

Surely you see how the Japanese written language can be a frustrating and tiring ordeal for a native English speaker. At times, it’s more stressful than being a gay Wyoming cowboy in 1963 – or, so I’ve heard. Because I can’t read one of the four syllabaries, it is most often the case that I can’t understand the full meaning of the sentence that I am trying to interpret. Nearly all road signs, school bulletins and police arrest-warrants issued in my name contain at least a few Kanji characters sticking their attractive little heads out at me. I can usually read upwards of three-quarters of the writing on any such notice, but, having three-quarters of the ingredients to make a cake isn’t going to fill your stomach after a night of hard drinking (unless you’re into eating raw eggs and flour). There are times when my knowledge of the first three syllabaries comes in handy, but most days I feel like an elected leader of any of the North American nations – unable to read or write.

Of course there is the option of studying the abundant Kanji characters. This, however, is literally a life-long undertaking. Several of my English teaching friends have studied Japanese since high school or have lived in Japan for years through various exchange programs. Some have studied the language for several hours daily for the past half a dozen years. The best Japanese speaking foreigners that I know have mastered, at most, a few thousand Kanji- giving them the ability to read or write most words in the common vernacular. But none of them could be considered to be fluent in the language.

Several of my ‘less Japanese-inclined’ friends have, in a noble effort, begun studying the first few hundred Kanji- such as the days of the week, and the characters for words such as ‘entrance’, ‘exit’, and ‘person.’ Knowing these very basic Kanji may help you out from time to time, but it is roughly the equivalent of learning the English alphabet up to the letter ‘C’ and then trying to follow along on ‘Sesame Street’ - you may be able to get the general drift, but you probably won’t catch onto the fact that Bert and Ernie are more than just flat-mates. Personally, if I can’t find the exit of a building without being able to read the Kanji for that word, I’m probably not the most brilliant colour in the rainbow, or else I’m somewhere where I shouldn’t be- trapped in Osama’s bunker, perchance? I haven’t consciously studied any Kanji, but I have picked up a few along the way just through constant exposure – most notably, after stumbling into the woman’s washroom on my third day in Japan, I made an effort to remember the symbols for ‘man’ and ‘woman.’ Now every time that I walk into the woman’s washroom, I am fully aware that I’m doing it.

Despite the flaws of the Japanese written language, one cannot deny the fact that their spoken language is fantastic, easily putting English to shame. It is everything that English is not - clear, consistent, uniform. If I see a word written in Hiragana, I immediately know how to pronounce it. There is no Japanese equivalent to strangely-pronounced English words- the pronunciation of which you must know from memory- such as ‘phlegm’, ‘Wednesday’, ‘enough’… the list of ‘exceptions to the general rule’ in English goes on and on.

Now, if only I could get the Japanese to make their written language a bit more practical. But this isn’t going to happen anytime soon. If I could read and write as well as every salary-man passing through Shinjuku Station every day, I would arguably have more advantages than any one of them. And who would that benefit? Certainly not the Japanese identity. Conspiracy, or just a natural protection of the nation’s best interests ? I guess we’ll never know.

Additional Notes about Kanji:

-Students have studied the first 1000 Kanji upon elementary school graduation, and a total of 2000 characters by the time they are finished High School. And you thought the multiplication tables were grueling?!

-The estimated number of Kanji is disputed. In China, where there are a far greater number of characters (but probably not three other writing systems to supplement their primary alphabet!), recent dictionaries contain more than 80,000 symbols! I wonder what the symbol for ‘insanity’ is in China? Perhaps a sketch of a man with a rope around his neck and a thick dictionary in his hands.

Kanji ‘facts’ taken from ‘Wikipedia’ and from the Japanese teachers in my schools.