A History of Writing in Japan

by Christopher Seeley

This book deals chronologically with the history of writing in Japan, a subject which spans a period of 2,000 years, beginning with the transmission of writing from China in about the first or second century AD, and concluding with the use of written Japanese with computers. Topics dealt with include the adoption of Chinese writing and its subsequent adaptation in Japan, forms of writing employed in works such as the "Kojiki" and "Man'yoshu," development of the "kana" syllabaries, evolution of mixed character-"kana" orthography, historical "kana" usage, the rise of literacy during the Edo period, and the main changes that have taken place in written Japanese in the modern period (ca. 1868 onwards). This is the first full-length work in a European language to provide the Western reader with an overall account of the subject concerned, based on extensive examination of both primary and secondary materials.

Genres: Japan, Nonfiction, History, Language

Paperback

First published January 1, 2000

Reviews

[Leanne]

Japan is unique in the world to utilize three difference writing systems--Chinese characters, plus the two kana. It also uses Arabic numerals and roman numerals, plus quite a lot of roman letters. It's an exciting language to learn—partly for that reason, since these different systems allow for various different kinds of feelings and nuance. It's stimulating.

I thought this was a great book for the standard history of how the writing system came into being. I especially liked the early chapters on the initial borrowing of characters from China and how they were used from the beginning both a logograms and phonograms. And then how kana evolved both from cursification of the characters and from the early notations of text written in Chinese style (using the Chinese syntax and word order) with notes often giving phonetic clues to the native Japanese soundscape. In the early centuries, kanji were used to write a version of Chinese as well as to write in the Japanese syntax. The characters were also used for sound alone (manyogana).

I also was fascinated to read about the actions on the language taken in the post WWII period as early as 1945 the government was tasked to bring the list of characters down to under 2000. This led to massive standardization in characters, on and kun pronunciation, as well as to kana. The book was engaging and a perfect primer!

[m.]

Interesting, quite technical so it does help to have a somewhat working knowledge of Japanese and the kanji/katakana going in - the final chapter is a bit of a slog, dealing with ministries formalising kanji usage in the post-war era.