N. Gottlieb, Kanji Politics: Language Policy and Japanese Script (London: Kegan Paul International, 1995. Pp. ix & 245. No price given.)
The contemporary Japanese writing system is arguably the most complex in use by any modern nation and economy. Daily use Japanese consists of thousands of kanji ("Chinese" characters), 47 hiragana (cursive syllabary), 47 katakana (angular syllabary), and the "Roman" alphabet. The vocabulary represented by these several thousand symbols ranges from ancient Chinese coinages to trendy argot and slang derived from European languages including English, French, and German.
Since the mid-nineteenth century, both Japanese and foreigners have been arguing the case for simplification and standardization of the Japanese writing system, primarily that portion derived from Chinese sources. Major issues have included the total number of characters to be used, the number of different pronunciations to be attached to any one character, the division of labor between kanji and the kana that supply declensional elements and prepositions, etc. This book is essentially a chronological history of these debates and recommendations concentrating on the period 1902-1991.
Script reform in Japan has been a matter of controversy for a variety of reasons, perhaps the most important being the degree to which some link the peculiarities of the Japanese writing system to a sense of Japanese identity, even Japanese uniqueness. For some simplification amounts to an attack on what it means to be Japanese even though the basic and distinctive kanji are not Japanese at all. Others have seen the complexity of the writing system and its dependency on foreign elements, as barriers to development of a more natural and truly Japanese identity. One of the fascinations of this book is seeing how different contestants have taken the same material and worked it into completely opposing conclusions. Another is discovering how agencies with radically different purposes have championed script reform in Japan. After initial opposition to the idea, the 1940s Japanese military accepted and then encouraged script reform in order to more rapidly teach Japanese to subject peoples in the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere. Script reform also appealed to the New Deal liberals in the American Occupation who believed it necessary to the democratization of Japan.
These and other elements of the history of script reform in Japan are well narrated by Ms. Gottlieb although non-specialists may find the narrative a bit tedious. Specialists on Japan will know some of the major figures in the script reform debates, but for non-specialists there will be a long succession of rather colorless figures who seem to be endlessly rehashing the same arguments and counter arguments. This book might have had a more general appeal had the author not ended her coverage of the subject in 1991. Contrary to the impression given by this book, the issue of script reform is still very much alive and the National Language Research Council (Kokugo shingikai), the government advisory committee on the subject, is still meeting and making pronouncements that are widely reported and debated in the popular press. Moreover, while the old issue of national identity remains alive, script reform is increasingly linked to issues of computerization and information technology.
Ironically, in the early days of computerization, it was argued that Japanese would have to be simplified because early software and hardware could not handle kanji. Now that hardware and software easily handles Japanese, a different problem has emerged. Able to rely on a word processor to recall kanji rather than their own memories, some Japanese now write in a peculiar style laced with obscure and unusual kanji. The use of high technology to instantly recall and reproduce the thousands of ancient Chinese characters cannot but alter the nature of the debate on script reform. It is unfortunate that the potential for technology to shorten the publication cycle was not used to carry the chronological coverage of this book closer to its publication date and to include elements of the on-going debate concerning script reform.
Earl H. Kinmonth Centre for Japanese Studies University of Sheffield