Toyo kanji

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Japanese writing

Uses

Rōmaji ローマ字

The tōyō kanji (当用漢字, "kanji for general use") are the result of a reform of the characters of Chinese origin in the Japanese written language. They were the first kanji declared "official" by the Japanese Ministry of Education (文部科学省) on November 16, 1946 (Shōwa 21).

1 History
2 Reform
3 Applications and limitations
4 A problem: "mazekaki"
5 List of the 1850 tōyō kanji
6 External links

[edit] History

Thousands of kanji characters were in use in various writing systems, leading to great difficulties for those learning written Japanese. Additionally, several characters had identical meanings but were written differently to each other, further increasing complexity.

Prior to World War II, language scholars were concerned with these problems in learning fluent Japanese. One of their more radical proposals was to abolish the Chinese kanji characters entirely and make use of an entirely phonetic system. When the Ministry of Education tried to implement this reform, however, it encountered savage opposition from scientists, writers and the general public, and the idea was finally dropped.

[edit] Reform

After the end of war in Asia, Japan rejected some traditional values and a state of general upheaval allowed scholars to bring about written language reforms, principally the tōyō kanji.

The Ministry of Education decided to minimise the number of kanji by choosing the most commonly used kanji, along with simplified kanji (see Shinjitai) comonly appearing in contemporary literature, to form the tōyō kanji. This was an integral part of the postwar reform of Japanese national writing.

This was meant as a preparation for re-introducing their previous unsuccessful reform abolishing Chinese characters. Although the postwar timing meant no public debate was held on the future of the Japanese written language, the defenders of the original kanji system considered and accepted the tōyō kanji as a reasonable compromise. Since this compromise could not then be withdrawn in favour of more radical reform, discussion of kanji abolition ended. Thirty-five years passed before further reforms were brought to the Japanese written form.

The table of the pronunciations of the kanji was published in 1948 and the list of characters in 1949.

In 1981, the Ministry of Education decided to replace the tōyō kanji with a more flexible system, leading to the publication of the jōyō kanji. This rendered the tōyō kanji obsolete.

[edit] Applications and limitations

Rather than being a simple list of the kanji, the reform published by the Ministry for Education also contains clear rules for the use of the tōyō kanji.

The foreword of the document states that:

Tōyō kanji must be used in legal and governmental documents, newspapers, magazines and by the public in general.
To write a word whose kanji do not form part of the list, write it in hiragana (or use a different word).
It is preferred to write pronouns, conjunctions, interjections, adverbs, verb auxiliaries, articles and postpositions using hiragana.
Words of foreign origin must be written in katakana.
In general, the furigana should not be used.
For technical terms, tōyō kanji are preferred to other kanji, but non-tōyō kanji are preferred to hiragana or katakana.
Proper names may use non-tōyō kanji.
Names of animals, plants and the names and places of another country are changed to match the pronunciation of the original language in question and are written with katakana. An exception is made for the names of certain countries whose kanji are in traditional use, including China, the United States, and the United Kingdom.
The list of characters is standardized.

[edit] A problem: "mazekaki"

Because the majority of character-based words are composed of two (or more) kanji, many words were left with one character included in the Tōyō kanji, and the other character missing. In this case, the recommendation was to write the included part in kanji and the excluded part in kana. These words were called mazekaki (交ぜ書き, "mixed characters"). This manner of writing was considered by conservative critics as characteristic of the liberals brainwashed by the policies from the American occupation, and proof of the destruction of Japanese traditional culture. Framed from a less judgemental perspective, this problem of mixed characters can be seen as due a lack of sufficient preparation of the list, as well as insufficient thought to the implications of the simplifications; perhaps it was because of a hurried timeframe for promulgating the Tōyō kanji after the end of WW II.