Thinking about Japanese II

Watching people write Chinese and Japanese provides a window into their minds and respective cultures about how language is handles. From my observations, Japanese writing is handled like a fragile egg. Characters are written more slowly and with more precision. I have never seen Chinese characters handled this way.

My idea why is simple: Beyond the endless cultural debates one could launch into, this is a matter of reality. Writing Chinese characters is more difficult than Japanese ones. Beyond the number of strokes required for each Chinese character, they is no syllabary available to write the sounds. When I watch Japanese co-workers take notes during meetings, if the speaker is fast and content complex, there is no time to write kanji. Instead, hiragana is substituted for the sounds.

In English, imagine when one listens to a complex science lecture. When new, unfamiliar words are introduced, an approximation is jotted down in note form. As in, it sounds something like...

There are fourty-six regular sounds in the Japanese language, they are available in a set of syllables called hiragana (ひらがな). They are ultra-simplied versions of kanji. Derivations for the curious exist in most study manuals. If we return to my prior post, the Japanese term for train is den-sha (電車). Written using hiragana, this becomes でんしゃ. For many, the latter is simpler and faster to write than the former.

Back to written Chinese. When text must be written in an informal setting, two things occur -- simplification and sloppiness. I have rarely have seen this kind of sloppiness from native Japanese writers. Most Chinese writers learn an italicised short-form of writing for informal notes. Thus, watching someone write Chinese is a wholely different experience than watching someone write Japanese.

While the art and appreciation of calligraphy is alive and healthy in Chinese-influenced cultures, including Japan, its use in informal settings varies widely.