KMDES Wrote:

kainzero Wrote:so uh

is the house of representatives a real house?

what if they have a party and they bring down the house of representatives?

Then they'll have to fight, for their right, to party.

but what if the party is on the left?

cntrational Wrote:

nest0r Wrote:I believe SignWriting could be thought of as a logographic system with certain advantages for deaf learners over an orthography and teaching system more heavily based on grapheme to phoneme mapping.

No, SignWriting definitely not logographic. It represents the "sounds", signs, of sign language, just like any other alphabetic writing system. Simply because it uses pictures doesn't make it logographic.

You shouldn't use phrases like ‘definitely’ if you don't understand SignWriting or logographs. SignWriting is logographic, or even pictographic. From Wikipedia: “In SignWriting, a combination of iconic symbols for handshapes, body locations, facial expressions, contacts, and movement are used to represent words in sign language. Since SignWriting is pictographic, in the unusual sense of being an iconic featural script, no phonemic analysis of a language is required to write it with SignWriting.”

Logograms: “A logogram, or logograph, is a grapheme which represents a word or a morpheme (the smallest meaningful unit of language).”

The key issue is the visuospatial nature which is mapped to semantic meanings rather than phonetic. If you understand how the reading process works through models such as dual route cascades or parallel processing or multiple interactive activations, etc., where the text maps to both sound and meaning and various interactions thereof, then you'll understand how such icons trigger directly the semantic meanings that have been mapped to them during the learning process in a way that relies more on visuospatial and sensorimotor skills than phonological, operating in different areas of the brain. This has been demonstrated across multiple studies over the years, see ‘how the brain processes kanji’ thread (which, by the way, I put together in a short time years ago, the support in that thread is only the tip of the iceberg now).

bertoni Wrote:I don't believe that kanji "separate meaning from pronunciation" when reading at speed. I think there's evidence that the kanji are processed for sound in that situation.

Actually evidence tends to point in the other direction. There is less phonological activation during reading ‘at speed,’ for meaning, including in the alphabet; don't think of semantic access as separate, think of it as ‘in parallel’.

KMDES Wrote:I think it was the American government who found out about the high literacy rates when they figured they'd abolish kanji becasue 'Well even the natives can't even read their own damn langauge! I think Douglas MacArthur made a quote about it too, but I can't remember where I can find it.

Khatz wrote a rather long and opinionated piece about this: http://www.alljapaneseallthetime.com/blo...cy-problem

pudding cat Wrote:I'd be very annoyed if the writing system I'd been using all my life was changed.

I believe that this is the main reason why Japan never got rid of kanji, unlike Vietnam or Korea. In these two countries literacy in Chinese characters was much more limited, so the changes in the writing systems annoyed a much smaller percentage of the population.

@Myrddhin

I think people who seek efficiency in learning written language should be pro-kanji, or at least pro-logograph. With the proper methods, learning the scripts themselves is quick and easy, taking advantage of their feature-rich nature to engage with and internalize them in a robust manner, and using that same nature to acquire a vocabulary. The more I learn about lexicogrammatical concepts as they're being worked out through neuroscience and functional grammar, I believe it's useful for syntax as well, but that's another area of the puzzle I'm still working out (different from the other puzzle piece I keep referencing, which I should stop now, actually). ;p

Syllabic and alphabetic writing is brilliant, very useful, but needs to be wed with logograms. The rest of the issues, as they are, need to be worked on using this principle in an organic fashion, not fussed over by scholars with obsolete and imperfect information still stuck in decades past. ^_^

"Next time someone tells you Kanji is stupid to learn"...show them this article. It tears apart a lot of the common anti-kanji arguments.

nest0r, in sign languages, a sign is not a self contained unit of meaning. In a spoken language, sounds are combined to create words. In a signed language, signs are combined to create words, most of them arbitrarily, just like a spoken language.

SignWriting represents the signs, just like an alphabet represents sounds. SignWriting is just more obvious about what it represents. Think of Korean's hangul, which is shaped like the sounds it represents.

Logographic scripts, on the other hand, are scripts where each character represents meaning, or meaning and sound combined. Chinese characters and hieroglyphics are this. SignWriting is not.

cntrational Wrote:nest0r, in sign languages, a sign is not a self contained unit of meaning. In a spoken language, sounds are combined to create words. In a signed language, signs are combined to create words, most of them arbitrarily, just like a spoken language.

SignWriting represents the signs, just like an alphabet represents sounds. SignWriting is just more obvious about what it represents. Think of Korean's hangul, which is shaped like the sounds it represents.

Logographic scripts, on the other hand, are scripts where each character represents meaning, or meaning and sound combined. Chinese characters and hieroglyphics are this. SignWriting is not.

In sign languages, signs may represent morphemes or multiple morphemes, amongst other things. The articulatory rehearsal process is more sensorimotor/visuospatial than phonetic, in the brain. SignWriting is a logographic or pictographic script that visually represents, iconically, these meaningful elements. When these scripts are learned, they are processed directly and meaningfully as wholes. This lack of reliance on phonology may be useful to deaf learners due to pedagogical constraints and the high reliance on phonology of the alphabet.

Now, as to the merits of SignWriting itself as a logographic or pictographic script, that's another matter.

...

nest0r, do you know what "morpheme" means?

cntrational Wrote:...

nest0r, do you know what "morpheme" means?

Are you... April Fool's trolling me? You're pretending to be someone who has no idea what these concepts mean, and refuses to understand them, and then proceeds to argue and accuse the other person of not understanding? This is very strange.

I'm completely confused by your argument. Signs/sounds represent morphemes in both signed and spoken languages!

An alphabet represents these sounds and signs, or more precisely, "phonemes". Whether the alphabet is an arbitrary symbol like "a" in Latin or a picture of a hand in SignWriting changes nothing! They represent a single "meaningful element", in both spoken language and sign language.

You say that users of SignWriting will parse the words as "wholes" but I don't see why. SignWriting symbols each represent sign phonemes, which are interpreted as signs and combined to form morphemes and words, in the same way alphabetic scripts represent phonemes that combine into morphemes and words. What you're saying has to apply to both, or it doesn't make sense.

cntrational Wrote:I'm completely confused by your argument. Signs/sounds represent morphemes in both signed and spoken languages!

An alphabet represents these sounds and signs, or more precisely, "phonemes". Whether the alphabet is an arbitrary symbol like "a" in Latin or a picture of a hand in SignWriting changes nothing! They represent a single "meaningful element", in both spoken language and sign language.

You say that users of SignWriting will parse the words as "wholes" but I don't see why. SignWriting symbols each represent sign phonemes, which are interpreted as signs and combined to form morphemes and words, in the same way alphabetic scripts represent phonemes that combine into morphemes and words. What you're saying has to apply to both, or it doesn't make sense.

When you have text that is mapped to meaning and sound, the paths to the meaning and sound are accessed in varying ways. With text that features iconic elements, symbols which are processed as wholes, they are triggering both more of the visuospatial and sensorimotor aspects of mental processing, and activate semantic meaning more directly and strongly than textual elements such as letters which are mapped more directly to sounds and are processed less as wholes and more as constructions.

Sign Languages are processed differently than spoken languages. The rehearsal that occurs in working memory is more visuospatial/sensorimotor than phonological. There's even a word to replace phoneme for sign language, the chereme, which could be said to make up the morphemic signs. A sign can be monomorphemic or polymorphemic. These meaningful signs are represented in SignWriting in a ‘pictographic’ fashion. Because they are symbols that represent morphemes in representing signs, they are logographic by the definition of logogram that says a logogram is a symbol that represents morphemes. It might be more accurate to say it's a pictograph, though. Regardless, if you're learning these symbols, you're not associating their meaning with phonology, you're mapping it to signs, to visuospatial/sensorimotor elements. In my understanding literacy can be difficult for deaf learners when teaching methods are (often) from non-deaf instructors who are relying on phonemic analysis and association of the alphabet. Logographic systems are more suited to those who have such differences in modality in how they process language.

At any rate, I'm not convinced of the utility of SignWriting or anything, I'm just speculating on why it was created and why people use it.

Quote:Actually evidence tends to point in the other direction. There is less phonological activation during reading ‘at speed,’ for meaning, including in the alphabet; don't think of semantic access as separate, think of it as ‘in parallel’.

I don't believe it just yet. Pointer? If this is more Japanese research, I'm exceedingly skeptical, sadly. Some of their self-described "scientists" in the area have been known to blame irreproducible results on the phase of the moon. That comment was from the man who claimed that kanji are processed in a different area of the brain a long time ago. That statement might be true, but his "experiments" were silly.

Logographic languages are efficient? I don't think so. The training time is very high, as evidenced by the Japanese education system, and how long it takes students to be able to read the newspaper, etc.

Logographs are in some sense the basis of all writing systems, but most writing methods developed into phonetic systems or mildly hybrid systems fairly quickly. Hmm, Egyptian, cuneiform, and Mayan come to mind. Our alphabet has some relationship to Egyptian via Phoenician, for example.

nest0r Wrote:Because they are symbols that represent morphemes in representing signs, they are logographic by the definition of logogram that says a logogram is a symbol that represents morphemes.

By this definition, all scripts are logographic. That's clearly not the definition of logographic.

What I'm trying to say is that signs are composed of phonemes (or "chereme", which is terminology no longer used. It doesn't matter what you call them, it doesn't change my point.)

The phonemes combine to form a sign, these signs represent morphemes and words. The SignWriting symbols represent these phonemes. Writing for spoken language works in the same way. SignWriting is thus an alphabetic script, representing phonemes, not a logographic one. You say that writing is mapped to sound, which is true, so why can't you see that writing can be mapped to (units of) sign?

Morphemes are composed of phonemes in both sign and spoken language. SignWriting doesn't represent anything but the phonemes of the sign language, which means it represents morphemes only indirectly. If you consider that as representing morphemes, then your reasoning would apply to spoken language as well.

Quote:Regardless, if you're learning these symbols, you're not associating their meaning with phonology, you're mapping it to signs, to visuospatial/sensorimotor elements.

I should note that your use of "phonology" is inaccurate. The system used to interpret the phonemes of sign language is referred to as the "phonology" of the sign language.

cntrational Wrote:

nest0r Wrote:Because they are symbols that represent morphemes in representing signs, they are logographic by the definition of logogram that says a logogram is a symbol that represents morphemes.

By this definition, all scripts are logographic. That's clearly not the definition of logographic.

What I'm trying to say is that signs are composed of phonemes (or "chereme", which is terminology no longer used. It doesn't matter what you call them, it doesn't change my point.)

The phonemes combine to form a sign, these signs represent morphemes and words. The SignWriting symbols represent these phonemes. Writing for spoken language works in the same way. SignWriting is thus an alphabetic script, representing phonemes, not a logographic one. You say that writing is mapped to sound, which is true, so why can't you see that writing can be mapped to (units of) sign?

Morphemes are composed of phonemes in both sign and spoken language. SignWriting doesn't represent anything but the phonemes of the sign language, which means it represents morphemes only indirectly. If you consider that as representing morphemes, then your reasoning would apply to spoken language as well.

Quote:Regardless, if you're learning these symbols, you're not associating their meaning with phonology, you're mapping it to signs, to visuospatial/sensorimotor elements.

I should note that your use of "phonology" is inaccurate. The system used to interpret the phonemes of sign language is referred to as the "phonology" of the sign language.

@cntrational

Chereme is a superior term because it represents the different processing of the language, the lack of sound, the less phonological process which ought to constitute a lack of the prefix phono-. Regardless, we're speaking of the processing of the language and its structure, which speak for themselves, as it were.

I referenced the term chereme because it represents the idea that sound does not comprise the units of sign language. Phonology refers to the sound of the language, yes, and regardless of whether you wish to apply the term to sign language, sound is not used in SignWriting, the articulatory visuospatial/sensorimotor elements, however, are. SignWriting symbols do not represent phonemes or cheremes, they represent morphemes or words. In other words, a given symbol in SignWriting does not represent a phoneme. Phonological activation and phonemic analysis is not required to map a given symbol to an equivalent signed meaning. The articulation is not aural. Likewise for logograms. It speaks to the content and orientation of a given symbol. Letters are graphemes that correlate with phonemes. When we speak of logographic and phonographic writing systems we are referencing this focus on morphemes and phonemes or syllables, respectively (we are not speaking of a total lack of sound/meaning, but differences in dominance, as it were, but in the case of signed languges and their written representations I think a more non-aural differentiation must be more explicitly made). An icon in SignWriting will by itself contain multiple elements that comprise a meaning, this makes it a logograph rather than a phonographic symbol where multiple symbols are often required and must be assembled to trigger a meaning during reading and which activate different areas of the brain as part of lexical access, and once you've mapped a meaning to the SignWriting symbol, once you've internalized its features into an iconic whole, reading it will, even if it triggers other cherological associations you've associated with its composite signs, instantly trigger its meaning in parallel and more strongly.

Edit: I've been reading up on SignWriting. Totally a logographic system! I like it. In fact I think this is the most logographic system I've ever heard of. To loosely equate with Japanese, the featural constituents and combinations thereof are like strokes and radicals that comprise kanji, and as you learn them they form words as iconic wholes, and the spatial grid layout and flexibility of its pictographic notation allows for amazing levels of complex yet easily parsed visual/motor combinations. It makes a lot of sense, I'm surprised it's not more popular as it obviates the need for thinking in terms of binary oppositions, really, with articulatory components integrated into the visuospatial representations more literally.

@bertoni - I have never seen any research that suggests reading faster requires more phonological activation. Also, disparaging Japanese scientists based on some vague reference is meaningless and insulting, I feel. Likewise, once you stop attempting to connect the orthography with literacy levels in a culture, and look at the properties of kanji and various techniques for learning that can be applied, it should be clear that both learning kanji is easy and so is picking up words with kanji. On a purely abstract level, learning logographs and becoming literate in a mixed phonographic/logographic system is superior. But for the same reasons you can't say the kanji are to blame for any supposed literacy issues, you can't disparage English and the alphabet in a comparative fashion that ignores sociocultural concerns. For more on reading quickly and how the brain processes the language, I've posted hundreds of links, but here is something more specifically relevant: http://forum.koohii.com/showthread.php?p...8#pid94408 Edit: Most of those papers on reading letters speak of levels of phonological activation that diminish when reading silently/fast. It's important to note the point of that thread or my arguments therein is that when you've mapped sound to letters/kana, you'll likely always be triggering sound when reading, no matter how unaware. Likewise, kanji is more semantic/less sound-based, from the onset. To put it another way, you sound things out more, subvocalize more explicitly, when you're reading more slowly or reading aloud rather than for meaning. This is in addition to the preexisting biases in kanji vs. kana/letters for meaning and sound.

Frankly I don't want to spend all night sitting here and cycling through almost precisely the same arguments we've all had in 2009-2010.

nest0r Wrote:At any rate, I'm not convinced of the utility of SignWriting or anything, I'm just speculating on why it was created and why people use it.

It was developed for a few reasons. One is that it really is practical. If you know the system you can read it and sign what is written without actually having to previously know the signs, whereas if you write ASL in English, you have to know how to sign each English word. It's very practical, and prevents details from being lost in translation.

The reason it's scarcely used though is because as a minority living in the hearing world, Deaf people have to learn English anyways to communicate with hearing people. If they're already learning the a written language anyway, why bother learning another that hardly anyone uses? Not to mention, just getting Deaf people into an environment where they can learn ASL is tricky enough, adding SignWriting on top of that would make it much more difficult.

That all said, when it comes down to it, I don't think arbitrarily changing a language that has been in use for hundreds of years is a good idea. If it didn't work it wouldn't still be around. If it isn't broke, don't fix it.

In regards to homophones, Japanese does have a lot, and I think the kanji is necessary for clarification. Look at English, we have two, to, and too, their, there, and they're, for, four, and fore, as well as others, but with just those think about how many people mix up "their" and "they're" or "to" and "too" you see it all the time, and that's with just this small number. In conversation you're often able to understand which word it is from context, true, but more importantly, with conversation you can always ask for clarification. When you're reading something that has been written, you don't have that luxury. If you can't figure out which word was intended you can't ask the writer what they meant because they may not be available.

I guess how I feel about this is that, people have been reading Kanji for years and doing fine with it. There is nothing wrong with the system. It works, so why do we need to change it? The fact that Korea found it necessary to change their writing system makes me rather sad. I would hope that such a thing wouldn't happen in Japan.

erleg Wrote:The idea isn't that 同意語 is more guessable than "homophone." The idea is that 同意語 is far more easily parsed and less confusing than just どういご written in kana. I understand you were responding to nestor, but your post provides a good opportunity for me to illustrate exactly why I think kanji are indispensable to the Japanese language.

You and some other seem to be getting confused with 同意語(synonym) and 同音語(homophone). Presumedly this wouldn't happen if they were spelt out phonetically...

One more point. If the japanese had a more flexible writing system, using an alphabet (not necessarily roman), then they would likely not have such a problem with homophones. So many imported phonemes that would have been distinct even recognisably so to the Japanese ear have become merged because they couldn't be kept distinct in writing using the 五十音. An example would be syllables like kuai (kwai) and kai both becoming かい and so on.

Other than to point out that I can't really be bothered participating in this thread anymore.

nest0r, you're beginning to frustrate me.

A morpheme is a unit of sound/sign that form a semantic unit. Words like "dance", "smell", "gift", "potato" are morphemes. Affixes like "-er", "un-" and "-s" are also morphemes. So, a word like "gifts" is comprised of two morphemes, "gift" and "-s".

Now, the letters g-i-f-t-s have a separate symbol for each sound, making them an alphabetic phonemic script. The letters indicate phonemes.

The Mandarin word for "I, me" is 我, pronounced wǒ. The Mandarin word -們 men. The Mandarin word for "we" is thus 我們 wǒmen. Each morpheme is written using a separate symbol. Thus, Chinese writing is morpheme based (Technically inaccurate, since Chinese also divides by syllable and has a few conventions to indicate pronunciation...but I digress, you get what I mean).



This is the sign for "SignWriting". Here's Wikipedia's explanation:

Quote:For the top sign, the arrows show that the two '1' hands move in vertical circles, and that although they move at the same time (tie bar), the left hand (hollow arrowhead) starts away from the body (thin line) going up while the right hand (solid arrowhead) starts near the body (thick line) going down. With the bottom sign, the right 'X' palm-down hand moves down-side-down relative to the stationary palm-up 'B' hand. This is overly exact: The ASL sign will work with any downward zigzag motion, and the direction and starting point of the circles is irrelevant.

Just like a letter represents a sound, each SignWriting letter represents an action in sign language. These actions combine to make words, just like how sounds combine to form words. SignWriting is thus a phonemic featural alphabet, representing the phonemes of the language. (Though in this case, it represents more detail than is phonemically necessary).

Now on to the other points: linguistics draws a divide between "phonetics" and "phonology". The former is the the study of actual sounds, their pronunciation and articulation. Phonology, on the other hand, is based on the study of the phonemes and their systems. Sign language phonemes behave in a manner similar to spoken language phonemes. Calling them both phonemes underlines this similarity.

Now do you understand what I'm talking about?

cntrational Wrote:nest0r, you're beginning to frustrate me.

A morpheme is a unit of sound/sign that form a semantic unit. Words like "dance", "smell", "gift", "potato" are morphemes. Affixes like "-er", "un-" and "-s" are also morphemes. So, a word like "gifts" is comprised of two morphemes, "gift" and "-s".

Now, the letters g-i-f-t-s have a separate symbol for each sound, making them an alphabetic phonemic script. The letters indicate phonemes.

The Mandarin word for "I, me" is 我, pronounced wǒ. The Mandarin word -們 men. The Mandarin word for "we" is thus 我們 wǒmen. Each morpheme is written using a separate symbol. Thus, Chinese writing is morpheme based (Technically inaccurate, since Chinese also divides by syllable and has a few conventions to indicate pronunciation...but I digress, you get what I mean).

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en...riting.png

This is the sign for "SignWriting". Here's Wikipedia's explanation:

Quote:For the top sign, the arrows show that the two '1' hands move in vertical circles, and that although they move at the same time (tie bar), the left hand (hollow arrowhead) starts away from the body (thin line) going up while the right hand (solid arrowhead) starts near the body (thick line) going down. With the bottom sign, the right 'X' palm-down hand moves down-side-down relative to the stationary palm-up 'B' hand. This is overly exact: The ASL sign will work with any downward zigzag motion, and the direction and starting point of the circles is irrelevant.

Just like a letter represents a sound, each SignWriting letter represents an action in sign language. These actions combine to make words, just like how sounds combine to form words. SignWriting is thus a phonemic featural alphabet, representing the phonemes of the language. (Though in this case, it represents more detail than is phonemically necessary).

Now on to the other points: linguistics draws a divide between "phonetics" and "phonology". The former is the the study of actual sounds, their pronunciation and articulation. Phonology, on the other hand, is based on the study of the phonemes and their systems. Sign language phonemes behave in a manner similar to spoken language phonemes. Calling them both phonemes underlines this similarity.

Now do you understand what I'm talking about?

@cntrational

Your frustration most likely stems from your own imperfect understanding. Padding your comments with snarky condescension in this context of misunderstanding only detracts from your message and I notice sidesteps from mine, which is to emphasize the non-aural, visual-semantic strengths of SignWriting.

Those highly abstract, non-phonemic featural notations such as indicators of movement, combine with symbols to represent morphemes. If incidentally you want to code some of them as cheremes, that's fine. SignWriting is still working out its terminology and a logogram is not an ideograph. Also, as you can see in the pictographic nature of the components, they combine into meaningful visuospatial icons in a grid layout to form iconic wholes. When you internalize these meaningful symbols as you learn SignWriting, you do not piece them together the way you parse letters forming a word and trigger semantic access. You see them as a single, instantly meaningful shape. I imagine if you stared at them long enough, they would collapse into discrete elements, however, similar to the phenomenon of orthographic satiation in kanji. Edit: And once again, we must highlight that this does not mean that they represent pure meaning. There is a bottom-up process that occurs and as I noted earlier, SignWriting is very fascinating in that the articulatory components are structurally integrated in a way that I feel makes for a new kind of super-logography, dynamic and flexible.

Your misunderstanding and association of these concepts is precisely why, despite the acceptance of sign language as a true and full language, the abstract theoretical articulations need to be referred in a way that is not inaccurately and modally biased. It was too soon to retire chereme and cherology.

For more breakdowns, there is an interesting article I read earlier called Two Notation Systems for Signed Languages, which explicitly states Sutton SignWriting is not an alphabet. It also features interesting diagrams and notes what I have noted about logographic interpretations of SignWriting words (though if you must rely on rare anecdotal comparisons rather than logic and scientific parallels then there's no help for it). Then again, it also made some point that as noted above I disagree with, that it's okay to use terms with the phono- prefix.

...

I'm done. I don't think I can argue like this.

nest0r Wrote:

cntrational Wrote:...

nest0r, do you know what "morpheme" means?

Are you... April Fool's trolling me? You're pretending to be someone who has no idea what these concepts mean, and refuses to understand them, and then proceeds to argue and accuse the other person of not understanding? This is very strange.

lol
For a second, I almost believed it...

Anyway, a drawback of logographic systems is that they are too visual. When writing poetry, it's possible to go on and on because you only hear the words (with your mind's ear), the visual doesn't pop up in your mind. The fact that words lack visual representation allows to focus on what is being described (like an off screen voice).

Maybe it's just me, but anytime I try to think seriously in Japanese, the kanji pop up visually in my mind. That's probably because I'm still a noob, but my free association is really hindered by this visual barrier. I feel it's detrimental to the creative process. Try it and share your thoughts.

Plus historically, logographic systems are anterior to syllabic systems, there is a reason why: syllabic systems are closer to symbolic languages.

nadiatims Wrote:

erleg Wrote:The idea isn't that 同意語 is more guessable than "homophone." The idea is that 同意語 is far more easily parsed and less confusing than just どういご written in kana. I understand you were responding to nestor, but your post provides a good opportunity for me to illustrate exactly why I think kanji are indispensable to the Japanese language.

You and some other seem to be getting confused with 同意語(synonym) and 同音語(homophone). Presumedly this wouldn't happen if they were spelt out phonetically...

One more point. If the japanese had a more flexible writing system, using an alphabet (not necessarily roman), then they would likely not have such a problem with homophones. So many imported phonemes that would have been distinct even recognisably so to the Japanese ear have become merged because they couldn't be kept distinct in writing using the 五十音. An example would be syllables like kuai (kwai) and kai both becoming かい and so on.

Other than to point out that I can't really be bothered participating in this thread anymore.

I know nadiatims said s/he won't be participating anymore but I couldn't stop myself from commenting on this post. I gather from this post that nadiatims is taking a pro-'non-kanji' stance. However talking about changing the writing system in one thing, but to change the spoken language itself in order to incorporate that change? Surely that's an argument to not change the writing system.

I wasn't going to respond to this thread because several people had put in some pretty good arguments for the no-kanji position, but I do want to add a few things.

First off, there are many Japanese podcasts; some of them are here:
http://podcastrank.jp/
Obviously these have no kanji, but Japanese people can understand them just fine.

There are also many audiobooks available for purchase (and have been since the 80s):
http://www.febe.jp/
The JP wikipedia article on audiobooks does not mention kanji at all and the audiobooks are just straight readings of the books like in English.

Also the news subtitles are sometimes used as support for the idea that Japanese people need kanji to understand, but the news is also broadcast on the radio (and via podcast) and there's no kanji there.

Quote:I haven't insulted you, but I disagree, care to explain your position?

My basic position is that Japan would be better off in the long run using romaji instead of the current writing system. I think that many of the purported benefits of kanji are either misconceptions, aren't unique to kanji, or aren't worth the massive time investment it takes to learn them. (And I think there's virtually no support for the position that Japanese would either be unreadable, or otherwise very hard/slow to read without kanji)

However, I generally avoid saying that Japan "should" switch because switching writing systems is a very complicated procedure. It involves factors outside the realm of linguistics. It generally requires some sort of national defeat or humiliation, influence from outside powers, or an authoritarian government. Currently there's no political will or popular support for writing reform (at least not in the "simplification" direction), so for the immediate future, at least, kanji/kana are here to stay.

I don't think I have much to say here, but I have been thinking about this for a long time. While I love the current system, I do not think it is entirely beyond possibility to change to a phonetic writing system. However significant changes would be needed affectively recoup the losses in meaning that the kanji provided and keep homophones separate. This coupled with Japan's aging population makes a change 'effectively' impossible in my opinion.

The real reason I wanted to post was to reflect on my experience and how loss of kanji would be a big loss to Japanese. These are losses that I don't think can be effectively moved to a phonetic style. For one example, 青い、蒼い、碧い each have identical sound and carry essentially the same meaning. However, the emotional response invoked by each is different because of experience: song titles, movie references, books, kanji compounds. Also, I am reminded of the very first Japanese manga I ever read ( 名探偵コナン1). On the very first case that Conan goes on as a little kid, he jumps in the car with the bafoonish detective father of his girlfriend who refers to himself '名探偵,' but child Conan responds '迷探偵.' I laughed, but it would be lost (ironically) on me if it had just read 'めいたんてい.'

yudantaiteki Wrote:My basic position is that Japan would be better off in the long run using romaji instead of the current writing system. I think that many of the purported benefits of kanji are either misconceptions, aren't unique to kanji, or aren't worth the massive time investment it takes to learn them.

I wonder, how the subtle differences in the usage of words would be explained, if Japan would switch from kana and kanji to romaji. My favorite example is atsui. If i have to read a sentence without any further context, that contains atsui instead of 熱い, 暑い, 厚い, 篤い, i would not know the meaning of the word. The first two could have to do with objects and weather, while the latter two could refer to a person being warm (hearted), or cordial, or kind. With only the word in a random sentence, written in romaji, i would not know which is which. So i oppose the idea of changing a writing system in favor of another, just to make it simpler for the rest of the world, to learn the language.