Differential retention of sinographs across East Asia
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[This is a guest post by J. Marshall Unger]
Well, first of all, the difficulty of learning a language can only be measured relative to the language(s) the learner already knows. Japanese is easier for Koreans than for Americans; I would guess Chinese is easier for English speakers than, say, Arabic speakers. Second, language isn't writing. Learning to write Japanese or Chinese is hardly a snap even for native speakers.
As for Julesy's comments, I would just add that, as DeFrancis pointed out, the thing that really made romanization universal in Vietnam was the determination of Ho Chi Minh and his allies to educate the peasantry so they could be mobilized to drive out the colonialists. In Korea, I suspect that bad memories of the Japanese occupation gave hankul a boost it might not have enjoyed had Korea remained independent. As for why Japan still uses kanji, it started as a class thing. Lots of printed material before 1945 was produced with furigana on practically every character. Ironically, progressives who wanted to limit the number of kanji in general use and the readings kanji could take opposed such furigana use, believing that getting rid of them would force publishers to show restraint. After 1945, in theory at least, the old class structure was eliminated, and the compromise was a limited number of kanji with more or less sensible readings taught to all kids (except the blind) alike regardless of family background. That compromise will probably continue in one form or another until the aging of the population, the need for foreign workers, a severe downturn in the economy, or some other catastrophe rouses the government from its accustomed lethargy. Meantime, in computer environments, most Japanese type in romaji: they throw away the romaji input once (they think) they have the graphic output they need, but they're using romaji passively all the same.
As DeFrancis emphasized, abolishing characters isn't a realistic goal. Rather, China and Japan ought to aim for digraphia: one national standard romanization for putonghua and one for modern standard Japanese; teach that romanization without apologies in the schools alongside traditional writing; and pass laws to make sure that anyone who wants to use that romanization for any everyday purpose is not penalized for doing so.
Selected readings
J. Marshall Unger:
- Studies in Early Japanese Morphophonemics (Bloomington: Indiana University Linguistics Club, 1977; 2nd ed. 1993)
- Ideogram: Chinese Characters and the Myth of Disembodied Meaning (Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2004)
- The Role of Contact in the Origins of the Japanese and Korean Languages (Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2009)
- Literacy and Script Reform in Occupation Japan (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996)
- The Fifth Generation Fallacy (New York: Oxford University Press, 1987)
John DeFrancis:
- "Digraphia", Word, (1984) 35: 59–66
- Nationalism and language reform in China (New York: Octagon, 1972) — many editions and reprintings available
- Colonialism and Language Policy in Viet Nam, Contributions to the Sociology of Language, vol. 19 (The Hague: Mouton, 1977)
- The Chinese Language: Fact and Fantasy (Honolulu: University of Hawaiʻi Press, 1984)
- Visible Speech: the Diverse Oneness of Writing Systems (Honolulu: University of Hawaiʻi Press, 1989)
- plus dozens of language textbooks and pedagogical / reference resources written from the 1960s through the 2000s; JDF was the doyen of Chinese language teachers during that period
- "John DeFrancis, August 31, 1911-January 2, 2009" (1/26/09)
Robert Ramsey said,
December 12, 2025 @ 12:21 pm
This is a great little essay, Victor–but of course I would have expected nothing less from Jim Unger.
And yes, the Korean aversion toward sinographs does owe much to their association with Japan–in North Korea, at least, Kim Il Sung was pretty explicit about that! He hated everything associated with Japan, after all.