Will Japan convert to the English alphabet?

Question

I don't remember where or when, but a while ago I heard that Japan was going to start using the English alphabet in and that it was possible that kanji (or whatever those characters are called) might be left unused after this movement.

But since I have heard nothing of it. I have strong doubts about the truth values in this story, but I'm still looking for varification. Thank you.

Answer 1

I doubt it will happen because the Japanese language has far more homonyms than the the English language. So a simple word like "goji" could have various meanings ranging from "five o' clock" to "misprinted word." With their current system, the meaning is quite clear (kinda like "night" vs. "knight" or "hole" vs. "whole" or even "there" vs. "their" vs. "they're").

The three alphabets used in the Japanese (hiragana, katakana, and kanji) work as a cohesive system. Generally speaking, the hiragana shows you the grammatical portion of the phrase (whether the word is the subject of the sentence, verb tenses, etc.), the kanji identifies the core meaning, and katakana shows foreign derived words or emphasis. Take this system away and Japanese becomes a lot harder to read because you lose these subtleties.

Lastly, there's the cultural aspect of this writing system. The Japanese take pride in their writing system and it's expressiveness. It would be a lot for them to give all this up.

Answer 2

Not very likely. Japanese has a lot of words that share the same pronunciation; I'm studying Japanese myself, and I've run into several words that share a pronunciation like "i," "go," or "shou," to name some. The kanji are a great help in knowing which word someone is using. Without them, you'll end up guessing a LOT more often. So unless some radical change in the language itself somehow eliminates the homonym issue (which, even in the unlikely event that it does happen, would still take a lot of time), the current system is here to stay.

Answer 3

I don't think it'll happen for a long time, though some kanji are gradually disappearing, but then you still have the 2 syllabaries to contend with. They do use more English words now, & often use the English spelling (Roman alphabet), . The problem is there are several 'Romaji' systems in operation at the moment

Answer 4

Frankly, NO.

I think that someone, somewhere along the line, has been confused and muddled up Romaji - which is Japanese words written in Roman letters so that foreigners can pronounce it more easily - with hiragana.

There was a prominent attempt in the 50's or 60's to stop using kanji for printing, and to use hiragana instead - with katakana for the foreign words.

This was for a very simple reason, which is no longer valid - that's why I say NO!
; )

You know how they print books, by putting little stamp blocks with letters on them in the correct places, and then putting ink on them to print ... and can you imagine the horrors involved when you have to do that with not just 26 capital letters, 26 lower case letters, and lot's of punctuation to choose from but THOUSANDS of kanji, 134 (using my kana palette as a guide) hiragana, 134 katakana, and assorted punctuation too...!

Then there were the typewriters ... you know how to type of course, and you have 26 letters, which you can capitalise by holding space or using caps lock. You also have easy access to several simple methods of punctuation.

Now imagine a keyboard with lots of tiny keys, including kanji, hiragana etc....!
http://karen.collapsar.net/japan_journal/pictures/schools/i004_0A.html
That is why people wanted to just use hiragana & katakana! A nice 'little' keyboard with 134 hiragana on it, using caps lock or shift to change to katakana ... much easier to use than a horrible thing with kanji all over it...!!

Anyway, as I said, that reason no longer exists - because of computers and word processors! Using a standard Qwerty keyboard with 26 main characters you too can type in any goddam kanji or kana you want!! Very handy...!
; )

Oh yes, I agree that it would be a total cultural disaster to stop using kanji, hiragana & katakana!

Answer 5

I speak some Japanese and know both katakana and hiragona. Part of the Japanese alphabet is Romangi, a blocky form of the Roman alphabet. However, it is used only on words such as DVD and CD. I doubt they will switch the conventional Chinese Kangi to Romangi, but the Japanese are using more and more of the other alphabets. They are easy to write and read, and are more like our alphabet. Hope I helped you out.

Answer 6

katakana are actually transformed from english words. and hiragana could be written and said as english. I hadn't heard of that rumour, but if they really want to it is quite possible. And kangi is basically chinese characters and is used quite a lot but it could be left unused because of the amount of strokes in the character and how it is hard to translate to english characters...

Answer 7

I have lived in Japan long enough by now and though I heard some people mentioning this, I never heard anything from officials regarding this problem.
My opinion is that it won't happen. Not now, not later.

Answer 8

That's just plain dumb. I hope not. I would be very angry if something like that was happening to English.

Answer 9

you better go computer section and ask. they do know about japanese alphabet setting too. good luck!

Answer 10

i dont think they will, that will be changing everything and people will have to learn all over