Quote:
Originally Posted by Nyororin
I read a LOT. In both Japanese and in English.
I cannot imagine trying to muck through kana only text... Nor can I imagine trying to muck through English devoid of spaces, capitalization, and punctuation.
justtrytorelaxandreadthroughasentencelikethiswithoutanyhintstowhereanything beginsandsendswithproperpunctuationthereisntmuchofaproblemevenwhenthelevela ndcomplexityofthesubjectmatterincreasesyesiamsurethateveryonewillbeabletore adthisjustasiamsurethatanyonecouldreadajapanesesentencewrittenonlyinkanabut itcertainlyisnteasyanditcertainlyisntsmoothgoingevenastheonewhotypedthisupr eadingoverittocheckfrotyposispainfulworkandthisisenglishjapaneselackingkanj iwouldbeevenmoreofapainasitreliesonthecharactersmuchmoretoconverymeaningeng lishiscompleteaslongasthespellingiscorrect
Yeah, lots of fun to read... 
The presence of Kanji doesn`t slow down or hinder a reader - it does the opposite. Anything above picture book level is a pain to read without it. Sure, for a Japanese learner who only knows one meaning for one sound pattern it may be easy - especially with words split by spaces - but when there are many possible meanings and when you can`t be sure even where one word ends and another begins... I would HATE to read anything in all kana - let alone something with real substance.
こうかかれてるほうがよみやすいとおもってるなんて･ ･･わたしにはりかいできない。かいわじゃたしかにか んじがつかわれることはないけど、そのかわりにいろん なヒント（カタカナはまだつかってもいいよね？）があ ったり、ふめいなてんがあればすぐにきくことができる 。よんでるときはかんぜんにいっぽうてきでめのまえに かかれてるものからすべてのじょうほうをとりだすしか ない。そとからみて「めんどうくさいから」ってりゆう でどこかのげんごをかえたいなんてばかげてるとおもう 。
No fun reading that either. It was a total pain to type out, and just like with the no punctuation English it felt so strange and frustrating that I`m sure I made a number of mistakes that it is too much of a pain to read through to find. |
I agree with you complete. But if one were to truly reform Japanese orthography, I'm sure it wouldn't be limited to just getting rid of kanji. There are a ton of ways you could make Japanese more readable (some Korean-style reform would be scientifically apt, but culturally impossible). You could put spaces between words (but you'd have to define what those are) or do something else.
Hell, you might be able to adapt hangul to Japanese. We know Hangul
works.
But like has been said already
1. this is not going to happen;
2. there are advantages to kanji;
3. getting rid of kanji would be a response to economic and population trends, not to make the language easier
for Japanese people
See
Basic English - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Special English - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
for examples of what could be done to make Japanese more accessible to immigrants (assuming Japan eventually opens up its doors to immigrants in wider numbers due to economic pressure)
Now I'm not an expert, but my understanding based on a couple semesters of Japanese sociology and demography is that there are significant population problems in Japan due to its remarkably low birthrate, and if Japanese guys and girls don't start popping them out, they're going to need a foreign source of labor to support its social programs. Perhaps take in immigrants on worker visas that are good for a decade or five years or something, but deny them social welfare program benefits, to increase what pays out to citizens without having temporary immigrants being a drain.
But I only have a semester of immigration studies under my belt, so I'm a dilettante.
