Betelgeuzah Wrote:eah, maybe hiragana is? I haven't thought about that much. But kanji help to distinguish meanings when a word is pronunced similarly to other words which romaji can't do, so at least by my logic they are hardly unnecessary. Now can you finally tell me what is the similar characteristic about katakana that makes replacing them with romaji impossible?

If I remember correctly the government tried to romanize the language after WW2 but couldn't. So they seem to be open to the idea but its clear at least kanji has to stay.

This is a long-standing myth; the government never seriously tried to romanize Japanese, although the idea has been proposed since the Meiji period. It's definitely possible to do so, but such a major overhaul is hard to pull off because you have to overhaul not only the educational system but the entire printing world and technology sectors as well. It's not really a factor of "they can't get rid of kanji because of homonyms" or "katakana must be kept because they have to represent loan words." Few people believe that the Japanese writing system is perfect, but it requires more than theory to make changes.

Betelgeuzah Wrote:So what? Romaji and/or hiragana can't bend to represent anything but foreign words?

So let me get this straight....you think A is better than B?

A - Punkurokkuの歌詞にはradikaruなものが多いが一九七六年に英国でdebyuuしたsekkusu・pisutoruzuはいまだにその最右翼である。

B- パンクロックの歌詞にはラディカルなものが多いが一九七六年に英国でデビューしたセックス・ピストルズはいまだにその最右翼である。

we're all gonna have to learn chinese anyway may as well start writing English in hanzi...

hiragana/katakana are both fine for writing japanese words, and foreign words when they are rendered into japanese.

If you really want to retain the pronunciation of the source word better, you could do it by just adding extra katakana spelling conventions. For example "cat" could be キャットッ or something. There are existing conventions for rendering 'th' 'l' etc in katakana, just no one uses them.

@jimmyseal
ai bribouz raitiŋ iŋgliβ laik θ'is iuziŋ θ'ə volouiŋ 21 led'ə ælvəb'ed:

aiueoəæbcdvkhlmnŋrsθβ'-

ru-ls':

ə='er' in her
æ='a' in cat
'=濁音
- ridən a-vtə a v'aul ekstend's' it
b=p b'=b
c=ch c'=j
d=t t'=d
v=f v'=v
k=k k'=g
s=s s'=z
θ='th' in thick θ'='th' in the
β=sh β'= french j

u invrant ov' oθ'ə v'auls' b'ikams' w.
i invrant ov' oθ'ə v'auls' b'ikams' y.

Betelgeuzah Wrote:I see. Well, STILL NOTHING as far as stating what makes katakana so precious compared to romaji is concerned. I do agree that it's not for Obama to decide.

How about....

It's easier to read?

And has many applications beyond representing Japanese words with foreign origins. For adding nuance and emphasis, for starters.

Honestly there's nothing inherently superior about B, it's just that we're more used to it so it's easier for us to read. It's not so much that A is worse, but it's not better either so there's no point in changing things. Getting rid of katakana to save Japanese people from learning 46 extra symbols isn't worth the trouble.

That's interesting. Thanks for correcting me. Well, they could start from katakana and work their way from there. If in fact there is nothing but logistics stopping them.

Quote:So let me get this straight....you think A is better than B?

A is more efficient. B means you'll still have to learn both katakana and romaji.

Whatever stylistic issues you might have are easily taken care of over time as people get used to it.

It's not only logistics, but cultural factors as well. There's simply no motivation or political will to force such a change, and that's likely to remain so for the near future, at least.'

But we're talking about two different things here. Replacing katakana with romaji isn't really that useful, although as I've said in the past, I am at least theoretically in favor of Japanese switching entirely to romaji.

Replacing the loan words with the words from the source language is just silly, though.

kitakitsune Wrote:

Betelgeuzah Wrote:I see. Well, STILL NOTHING as far as stating what makes katakana so precious compared to romaji is concerned. I do agree that it's not for Obama to decide.

How about....

It's easier to read?

And has many applications beyond representing Japanese words with foreign origins. For adding nuance and emphasis, for starters.

You are making up stuff. Easier to read?? They are the same kind of squiggles as what we are writing, geez.

I dont really care to hear about its applications. Just tell me something that romaji can't replace.

Quote:Replacing katakana with romaji isn't really that useful, although as I've said in the past, I am at least theoretically in favor of Japanese switching entirely to romaji.

Well, lets say that they gotta start from somewhere...why not katakana?

Yes, easier to read, for Japanese people.

Not after the first generation that uses them. Even then they are familiar with it. They are taught how to write in romaji in school. They are taught how to write English. They encounter romaji in everyday life. It's not as large of a change as you make it out to be.

It's kinda sad that they seem to know that their language could be vastly improved but they lack the willpower and resources to give enough of a damn.

Well, to support Betelgeuzah at least on this point, it's not like there's some racial genome that makes Japanese people read katakana easier than romaji, nor is there any inherent superiority to katakana. Of course everyone can read katakana better now because it's what they're used to (not just Japanese people, that includes foreign learners as well).

Quote:It's kinda sad that they seem to know that their language could be vastly improved but they lack the willpower and resources to give enough of a damn.

I think you vastly underestimate the difficulty of changing a writing system. That's why I said I am theoretically in favor of romanizing Japanese. It's not just "lol they're too lazy".

Seriously, have you ever been to Japan? Been inside a school there?

Every single living Japanese person who went to school in the last 65 years has learned romaji and studied English for a minimum of 3 years and had a lifetime of exposure to romaji and other blasts of random English....and yet they still suck ass at it.

The younger generations who studied English for 6 years still suck at it. College educated people who had 9 years of study? No better.

Katakana is easier to read than romaji.

Of course there had to be some kind of a hindrance since they haven't done anything about it. And that hindrance seems to be the vast scope of the changes that would have to take place, the lack of willpower and the lack of giving a shit. I think that was fairly obvious from the get-go, which is why I wasn't claiming against that being the case.

Still, none of those points doesn't retract from my claim that it would improve the language. However it seems that the change can go much beyond just getting rid of katakana.

Quote:Katakana is easier to read than romaji.

They still encounter more katakana than romaji, plus most obvious issue is that they haven't formed the same kind of links between the letters to form words like we have. We don't read letter by letter, but word by word. Meanwhile I don't read katakana word by word, but letter by letter.

Its easier because they see it more often. That's it.

Betelgeuzah Wrote:It's kinda sad that they seem to know that their language could be vastly improved but they lack the willpower and resources to give enough of a damn.

Converting katakana to romaji will not improve the Japanese language.

kitakitsune Wrote:Converting katakana to romaji will not improve the Japanese language.

51 less letters to learn. Higher presence of alphabet leads to better comprehension of it when learning other languages.

Betelgeuzah Wrote:I dont really care to hear about its applications. Just tell me something that romaji can't replace.

Individual roman letters can't represent sounds as discrete morae, which are the conceptual building blocks of the Japanese phonological system.

Betelgeuzah Wrote:It's kinda sad that they seem to know that their language could be vastly improved but they lack the willpower and resources to give enough of a damn.

"Vastly improved" by replacing katakana with roman letters? And I thought you were being ridiculous before.

Betelgeuzah Wrote:51 less letters to learn. Higher presence of alphabet leads to better comprehension of it when learning other languages.

46, actually. I don't know where you got 51. And removing 46 from the ~3100 characters that they do use would result in an overall difference of about 1.4%. Wow, what a vast improvement! It's also pretty arrogant and patronizing of you to think that Japanese can't handle roman letters just fine right now.

Betelgeuzah Wrote:51 less letters to learn. Higher presence of alphabet leads to better comprehension of it when learning other languages.

Katakana are not letters. If you are looking at romaji as mere symbols than sure, you have to learn only 26 versus 46 for katakana. Representing a grand total of 20 less symbols to learn. You still have to learn 45 individual pairs of letters to get romaji right. Actually far more pairs when you take into account dakuten. Kind of makes teaching katakana more efficient actually now that I think about it.

As for comprehending other languages. This would only help in comprehending languages which use the Roman alphabet and not for comprehending the languages of Japan's immediate neighbors and largest trading partners, none of which use the Roman alphabet.

JimmySeal Wrote:"Vastly improved" by replacing katakana with roman letters? And I thought you were being ridiculous before.

Nah, by replacing the whole system with roman letters. That's what was claimed (not by me, though).

Quote:46, actually. I don't know where you got 51. And removing 46 from the ~3100 characters that they do use would result in an overall difference of about 1.4%. Wow, what a vast improvement! It's also pretty arrogant and patronizing of you to think that Japanese can't handle roman letters just fine right now.

Once again it was not me who claimed that Japanese can't handle roman letters. Seemingly they have trouble with them when compared to katakana even after a lifetime of being around them. But if that's not true, fine with me.

It's not much, but it's a start. Better than "don't do anything about it because hurrdurr purity" though.

Quote:Katakana are not letters. If you are looking at romaji as mere symbols than sure, you have to learn only 26 versus 46 for katakana. Representing a grand total of 20 less symbols to learn.

So I take it Japanese don't need to learn romaji? Of course they do. It's not a "one or the other", because of katakana. You either learn 72 or 26.

Quote:As for comprehending other languages. This would only help in comprehending languages which use the Roman alphabet and not for comprehending the languages of Japan's immediate neighbors and largest trading partners, none of which use the Roman alphabet.

It seems to have been deemed a more important language than the languages surrounding Japan. Otherwise schools would teach Chinese to everyone, not English.

It was mentioned a few pages back but glossed over.

In ENGLISH, we don't pronounce restaurant with a French accent.
We certainly don't pronounce Karaoke correctly, and if you did in front of other English speakers (who didn't speak Japanese) you'd be looked at funny and called a pretentious prick.

English takes just as many foreign words and butchers them beyond all belief, it's rather arrogant of us English speakers to even say things that katakana loans words are mangled foreign words and so they should just use the English words because it'll help their English (yes they are.. but as we are guilty of it just as much, pot-kettle. black)

Have I found myself tongue-tied in Japanese conversation because I've had to force myself to say the Japanese pronunciation when my brain is desperately trying to correct it for me mid sentence? yes.. trying to pronounce [シートベルト] in class one day took me 4 attempts because as I got half way through the word, my mind auto corrected to English and I said [シートbelt] 3 times. Katakana words, are Japanese words.

But I speak English, so they should too! They should understand me!!!11!

It's a very arrogant system, made for lazy English speakers who don't want to learn another language but want to pretend they have, like all those people who are "fluent" at Spanish because they can order a drink at a bar.

yudantaiteki Wrote:This is a long-standing myth; the government never seriously tried to romanize Japanese, although the idea has been proposed since the Meiji period. It's definitely possible to do so, but such a major overhaul is hard to pull off because you have to overhaul not only the educational system but the entire printing world and technology sectors as well. It's not really a factor of "they can't get rid of kanji because of homonyms" or "katakana must be kept because they have to represent loan words." Few people believe that the Japanese writing system is perfect, but it requires more than theory to make changes.

just like how one of these days the US will switch to the metric system...

Here's the thing. The japanese learning english is optional. No really, *that's* why they on average suck at it. Japan is a big enough country with a big enough economy that Japanese is a world language. In the sense that you could go to any random country as a tourist and expect to be understood? No, of course not. But your average japanese person, in their daily life, has little need for english.

Asia is not like europe. Last time i was in Europe, I was told stories of italians speaking to germans in english as a common language. There are so many major and minor languages there that english just makes sense. There are only 3 languages that count in asia, besides English: Japanse, Korean, Mandarin (you could make an argument for Cantonese). Of these, Japanese has by far the highest status. If you're in asia and you speak another language, guess what, the burden is on you to communicate. If you, as a japanese person, need to do business in china, guess what? They'll give you someone who speaks japanese.

Mangling the japanese language to make it easier for japanese people to learn english misses the point: that's not why their english is bad. And frankly, as an english speaker, i see no reason why they should be forced to learn english. Sure, everyone should be forced to study a foreign language in school, it's good for the brain, and it makes sense that that language be English. But i don't think their lack of success is relevant. I did german in school and can't speak a word.

一つのdonutsを食べた。

kainzero Wrote:一つのdoughnutsを食べた。

Fixed that for you.

touché!
(i pronounced it as "touch," just to piss everyone off. also i had to copy paste the accent mark on the e because i don't know how to write that. i don't know if that's even common.)

Is it too-shay, or is it too-shee?