Talk:Japanese writing system

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WikiProject Echo has identified Japanese writing system as a foreign language featured article. You may be able to improve this article with information from the French language Wikipedia.

I can't read French very much, so can someone explain how an article only five paragraphs long qualifies as a featured article? Is it referring to the page plus sub-pages, or something? Most of it is clearly translated / copied from the English pages anyway. --DannyWilde 06:57, 24 October 2005 (UTC)

It seems like it might be the entire collection, which is odd: "l'ensemble d'articles est complet et (presque) en position pour postuler ici." They seem to have featured WikiPortals as well. On the other hand, I had a look at some of their other featured articles and they appear to be similar to ours (ie: longish, illustrated, complete). Exploding Boy 17:26, 24 October 2005 (UTC)

Actually, the listing seems to be wrong, now. The French page has no star in the right hand corner to show it as a featured article. Looking through the history, it was a featured article on April 15th, 2005 (probably when the project was still small), but had it put up for removal on December 14th, which was of course passed. The German article is a featured article, but I don't speak German. It seems to be substantial, however, so maybe there's been a change since Danny made his statement 9 months ago. — ዮም | (Yom) | Talk • contribs • Ethiopia 01:02, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

WikiProject Echo has identified Japanese writing system as a foreign language featured article. You may be able to improve this article with information from the German language Wikipedia.

The German version has less material in it that the Japanese writing pages here and the material seems to be mostly translated or copied from the English pages. --DannyWilde 06:57, 24 October 2005 (UTC)

Contents 1 Early writing system 2 Borrowings from Korean 3 Which of the four scripts is the most popular? 4 Scientific names 5 Scripts - romaji 6 References 7 Written Language Reforms 8 Scripts section 9 Gojuon 10 Japanese typewriters 11 External Links 12 Rōmaji is the name of writing system also

[edit] Early writing system

I'm changing the given pronunciation for 神代文字 from shindai moji to how it is actually read, kamiyo moji. There are also numerous kinds of kamiyo moji, so I am slightly reworking the text of this area to reflect that. --- Eirikr 02:17, 4 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Also, the bit on pronunciation and on-yomi and kun-yomi appears out of place here, but I'm not sure what else to do with it, so I'm leaving it where it is. --- Eirikr 02:55, 4 Apr 2005 (UTC)

It's a year late, but the actual pronounciation is actually "jindai moji", although "jindai" can also be read "kamiyo" on it's own. I changed the articleMackan 02:12, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

I concur. 神代文字 is read as "jindai moji". Bendono 05:39, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Borrowings from Korean

チョンガー (Japanese: chongaa, Korean: 총각 — chonggak, meaning 'bachelor')

ビビンバ (Japanese: bibimba, Korean: 비빔밥 — bibimbap, a rice bowl with vegetables)

Of course they couldn't be written in Han-geul in Japanese. The only non-kana spelling Japanese could possibly borrow from Korean would be Hanja. Any Korean-speakers out there to replace Han-geul with Hanja here ? Taw 00:17, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC)

While I agree that Japanese wouldn't use hangeul to write these words, 비빔밥 is tricky, because as far as I know there is no hanja for this word; it's a native Korean word. There is a literal translation for the same food ("mixed meal/rice") in Chinese (拌飯 in Traditional Chinese or 拌饭 in Simplified) but I believe these are not considered hanja, since they're read differently (my dictionary says both characters are read "ban" in Korean). The main point of this section was originally to refute a mistaken "fact" posted declaring that katakana are never used for Chinese or Korean loanwords, but I see your point as well. --Che Fox 01:28, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Which of the four scripts is the most popular?

The article is vague on this point, I'd like to clear it up but i have no idea of the answer to this question. -- AS Artimour 17:24, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

Written Japanese uses multiple scripts, simultaneously, to compose sentences. The absolute most important ones are 1) kanji, 2) hiragana, 3) katakana, and to a much lesser degree 4) Latin. Bendono 05:44, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Scientific names

This is addressed to whoever put "scientific" names of plants and animals.

In Japan, as in everywhere else in the world, scientific names of plants and animals are written in Latin, of course, so not in katakana, in romaji.

In Japan, the rule is that plant and animal species names are written in katakana. Perhaps it is because the kanji versions are so unreadable, I do not know the exact reason for this rule. Obviously "dog" and "cat" are written in kanji or kana, but generally speaking you will find that katakana is actually used for the names of most living things.

This information is correctly recorded in the Wikipedia "katakana" page, which seems to be a largely error free effort. The "Japanese Writing" page, on the other hand...

[edit] Scripts - romaji

I have just added a few extra words about romaji. Nothing dramatic. Jimbreen 04:02, 19 Jun 2005 (UTC)

[edit] References

I have added some books and papers which I have found invaluable for this topic. I intend to edit the page a bit and will cite as much as I can back to these references. Jimbreen 05:36, 19 Jun 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Written Language Reforms

I have just replaced the old "Written language reforms and Western influence" section with a complete rewrite. Much of it has been drawn from the references I added a couple of days ago. I'll be delighted to debate (and improve) its contents. JimBreen 06:24, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Scripts section

I'm removing lots of details from here. The rationale is

1. Most of the details already exist on the individual pages for each script, e.g. there is a very detailed description of various usages of katakana on the katakana page. The stuff here which didn't exist I am moving, e.g. to the romaji page.
2. Having lots and lots of qualifications on the usages makes it hard for people coming to the article who aren't experts to read. A lot of the current contents are just distracting for a newcomer I think.

I suggest that details e.g. of usage of katakana or hiragana can go on the katakana or hiragana and the scripts section of this page can be left as a reasonably accessible introduction for people who don't need to know every little detail but just want a quick basic introduction to Japanese scripts. I put the coloured examples right at the top since they are probably the most useful part of the section for a newcomer. It seems to me that this is a general article and it should be intended for people who don't know Japanese writing, not for people who are already experts. --DannyWilde 06:25, 10 September 2005 (UTC)

While I agree with you in principle, I think you may have simplified it a bit too much -- the statement "Some Japanese words are written with different kanji depending on the meaning of the word" doesn't really make much sense, and it would be better just not to mention it at all. I'm going to try to put a little more information on that back in without making it too complicated.

[edit] Gojuon

Gojuon article/section is missing. mikka (t) 21:17, 30 September 2005 (UTC)

I've added a paragraph in "scripts" about word ordering. --DannyWilde 00:16, 1 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Japanese typewriters

Having seen a Japanese film in which someone was typing, I wondered how Japanese typewriters were designed and what writing system they used. I cannot find a Wikipedia article about it, so I wondered if someone could point me in the right direction (or add a paragraph to this article, if that is deemed appropriate)?

they produced regular Japanese (kanji & kana). They had trays of characters and one used a complicated picking system to select and print each character. I saw one being used about 1981. You only find them in museums now. JimBreen 01:32, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

Thanks! Also sorry for not signing my question above. Rachel Pearce 11:20, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] External Links

I have removed the link to the "Romanji-kana converter" (sic). It's not really appropriate to this page, and there are better sites available. JimBreen 01:32, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Rōmaji is the name of writing system also

From Iwanami Kokugo Jiten Fifth edition 『岩波国語辞典 第五版』 (c) 1994

ローマじ【ローマ字】 (1) 古代ローマでラテン語を書き表すために用いられ、現在世界で広く行われている、表音文字。＿「ローマ」は「羅馬」とも書く。イタリアRoma(2) 「ローマ字綴(つづ)り」の略。ローマ字<1>を用いた日本語の表記法。訓令式・ヘボン式など、いくつかの方式がある。

It says Rōmaji is the name of Alpahabet and name of writing system.--RedDragon 10:11, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

Good point. It does also say that as the name of a writing system it is only an abbreviation of the proper term. Some other dictionaries don't even give sense 2, e.g. 大辞林 only says it's the name of the alphabet.

You are right, though, it would be useful to clarify this point. I have edited Romanization of Japanese again - see the new second paragraph. Does that look accurate to you? (If so, similar wording could be added in other places where the term is discussed.) — Haeleth Talk 16:06, 11 October 2006 (UTC)