Exploring the Japanese Writing System

[image error] “BEWARE: Brown bear tracks identified, 26 October 2009. City of Sapporo.” By 野鳥大好き (熊出没注意) [CC BY 2.1 jp], via Wikimedia Commons.

Japanese is a rich and fascinating language. Among its many extraordinary qualities is its uniquely complex script, which combines two parallel phonetic syllabaries (kana) with Roman letters (rômaji), Arabic numerals (Arabia sûji), and of course Chinese characters (kanji). With five scripts used simultaneously, Japanese is often called the world’s most difficult wr...