160
CHINESE CHARACTERS THROUGH SIMPLIFICATION AS A
JAPANESE STRATEGY
XUEXIN LIU
SPELMAN COLLEGE
Introduction: Beyond linguistic borrowing1
‘Linguistic borrowing’ is generally defined as transference of linguistic elements from
one language into another, and it has been recognized as a universal linguistic phenomenon.
Whenever a speech community incorporates some linguistic element into its contemporary
language, linguistic borrowing occurs. Such a phenomenon has been long studied by scholars in
various fields of linguistics, such as sociolinguistics, contact linguistics, anthropological
linguistics and historical linguistics (e.g., Haugen 1972; Weinreich 1979; Poplack, Sankoff &
Miller 1988). As most frequently observed in all studies of linguistic borrowing, linguistic
transferences are most common in the realm of vocabulary, and this type of borrowing is
specifically referred to as ‘lexical borrowing’.2 As the term suggests, the borrowing language
may incorporate some cultural item or idea and the name with it from some external source, that
is, from some other language, to meet its lexical-conceptual needs. As a linguistic principle,
when lexical items are borrowed, they are generally made to conform to the existing structural
configurations of the borrowing language, including phonological structure, morphological
structure, syntactic structure, and semantic structure. In addition to sociolinguistic and
sociocultural motivations for lexical borrowing, one of the most significant findings of the
previous studies is that lexical borrowing is one of the primary forces behind changes in the
lexicon of many languages (cf. Romaine 1995; Myers-Scotton 2002).
Although there have been numerous studies of lexical borrowing involving various
borrowing languages and source languages, there have been few studies which have investigated
and explored the idiosyncratic nature of Japanese3 in relation to its borrowing of Chinese
characters. This paper specifically describes and explains the effects of Chinese characters
borrowed into Japanese through some necessary morphological change (i.e., change in word
form) and semantic shift or modification (i.e., change in word meaning). In order to do so, it
introduces a comparative study of simplification of Chinese characters in Japan and China with a
focus on the Japanese linguistic and sociolinguistic motivations for such a particular linguistic
strategy.4 Accordingly, this paper discusses several specific questions: What makes Japanese
lexical borrowing of Chinese characters different from the traditional notion of lexical
borrowing? What are the particular motivations for simplifying Chinese characters in Japan and
China? What are the orthographic effects of simplified traditional Chinese characters in
contemporary Japanese? What are the most important implications of the Japanese simplification
of Chinese characters for understanding linguistic borrowing in general and lexical borrowing in
particular? To answer these questions, some representative orthographic records are cited as
161
linguistic evidence, the findings and assumptions through the comparative study will be
presented, and some tentative implications will be offered.
As also observed, some Chinese characters once borrowed into the Japanese language
(i.e., Japanese kanji) show some semantic shift or semantic change (i.e., certain borrowed
Chinese characters no longer contain their original lexical content as in Chinese but carry
different meaning).5 This becomes an issue of the relationship between lexical borrowing and
semantic shift or semantic change. In addition, a few wasei kanji/kokuji, such as 峠、働、榊、
畑、and 辻, though they look like Chinese characters, were actually made in Japan. Furthermore,
since Meiji period, many Japanese kango were created through word combination, such as 衛星、
科学、銀行、弁当、寿司、人気、写真、and 物語 or through translation of Western
documents to fit its culture and modernization needs, and such newly formulated phrases now
appear in Chinese as its recently borrowed lexical items (cf. Chen 1999; Zhou 2003). Such
linguistic phenomena involving lexical borrowing, lexical shift or creation, and new word
formation need to be explored and described systematically; however, these topics are beyond
the scope of the main interest and focus of this paper.
Kanji as a component of the Japanese linguistic system
Different from most languages in the world, Japanese has its own peculiar componential
linguistic system, and different from most types of and motivations for linguistic borrowing,
Japanese borrows linguistic elements from other languages for its special reasons. All this is
determined by the componential nature of the Japanese language itself. Japanese consists of three
distinctive but related components: hiragana, katakana, and kanji, each of which plays its special
role in the Japanese linguistic system (cf. Kindaichi 1978; Nakama 2000; Yokoso 1998). Let us
take a brief look at each of these components and its role in structuring the Japanese language.
Hiragana is a Japanese syllabary, one of the components of the Japanese writing system.
Along with the other two components, katakana and kanji, hiragana has its own particular forms
and functions. Hiragana are used for words for which there are no kanji, including particles such
as kara ‘from’ and suffixes such as ~san ‘Mr., Mrs., Miss, Ms.’ Hiragana are also used for
Japanese inflectional morphology, such as verb and adjective inflections. For example, in
tabemashita (食べました‘ate’), BE MA SHI TA (called okurigana) are written in hiragana. In
this case, part of the root is also written in hiragana. In addition, hiragana are used in words for
which their kanji form is not known to the writer, is not expected to be known to the reader or is
too formal for the writing purpose. Furthermore, hiragana are used to give the pronunciation of
kanji in a reading aid called furigana. For example, 日本語 ‘Japanese language’ is given ‘にほ
んご’ as the reading aid (cf. Makino, Hasata & Hasata 1998; Tohsaku 1994).
Katakana is also a Japanese syllabary, another component of the Japanese writing system
along with hiragana and kanji, and in some cases the Latin alphabet. The word ‘katakana’ means
‘fragmentary kana’, as they are derived from components of more complex kanji. In modern
Japanese, katakana are most often used for transcription of borrowed lexical items from foreign
languages, called gairaigo (cf. Makino, Hasata & Hasata 1998; Tohsaku 1994). For example,
162
‘television’ is written テレビ. In a similar way, katakana are usually used in writing country
names, foreign places, and personal names. For example, ‘Canada’ is written カナダ, ‘Atlanta’
is アトランタ, and ‘John’ is written ジョン. In addition, katakana are used for technical and
scientific terms, proper names, loanwords, and so on. Katakana are also used instead of hiragana
to give the pronunciation of a word written in Roman characters, or for a foreign word, which is
written as kanji for the meaning, but intended to be pronounced as the original. It is very
common to write words with difficult-to-read kanji in katakana in modern Japanese. To put it
simple, katakana are used mainly for all such transcription purposes.
Kanji,6 which literally means ‘Han characters’, are the Chinese characters that are used in
the modern Japanese logographic writing system along with hiragana, katakana, and the Arabic
numerals. Unlike the most commonly observed phenomena of lexical borrowing, Chinese
characters were actually ‘introduced’ to Japan. Classical Chinese characters first came to Japan
on articles imported from China. One instance of such an import was a gold seal given by the
emperor of the Eastern Han Dynasty in 57 AD. At the time the Japanese language itself had no
written form. It has not been documented when Japanese people started to command Classical
Chinese by themselves. What is known is that approximately from the 6th century onwards,
Chinese documents written in Japan tended to show interferences from Japanese. This suggests
the wide acceptance of Chinese characters in Japan (cf. Makino, Hasata & Hasata 1998; Tohsaku
1994).
In modern Japanese, kanji has become a significant component of the Japanese linguistic
system. While kanji are essentially Chinese hanzi used to write Japanese, they have gone through
some significant Japanese local developments, including difference between kanji and hanzi, the
use of characters created in Japan, characters that have been given different meanings in
Japanese, and post World War II simplifications of the kanji.7
It should be clear that the three components of the Japanese language are distinctive but
related, each of which plays its designated role in the Japanese writing system. While hiragana
are used to write inflected verb and adjective endings, particles, native Japanese words, and
words where the kanji is too difficult to read or remember; katakana are used for most if not all
foreign loanwords; kanji are used to write parts of the language such as nouns, adjective stems
and verb stems. Different from the traditional notion of lexical borrowing, Chinese characters
‘borrowed’ into Japanese are not simply for the so-called lexical-conceptual purpose but for the
linguistic needs of the Japanese language itself. In other words, Chinese characters, whether they
have gone through Japanese local developments or not, have become a fundamental component
of the language (Seeley 1995).
Motivations for simplifying Chinese characters in Japan and China
Any language reform in any society is driven by particular motivations of a speech
community, and such motivations may be linguistic, social, cultural or educational. There must
be various factors involved in any language reform. One of the most important factors must be
the government’s language policy and planning. It is in this sense that we say all language
reforms are intentional, well planned, and highly regulated in order for the society to establish a
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relatively standard and stable linguistic system. For particular purposes and needs, language
reform in a particular society can be gradual or drastic.8 Both Japan and China have witnessed
some significant language reforms for some similar but not same purposes. The simplification of
traditional Chinese characters (often also called ‘classical’, ‘complex’ or ‘non-simplified’
Chinese characters) in Japan and China, to whatever extent it may be (i.e., partial or complete),
can be recognized as a typical example of highly motivated and drastic language reforms. This
paper assumes that the effects of any language reform are the outcomes caused by particular
motivations. Below is a brief review of motivations for simplifying Chinese characters in Japan
and China. Their respective effects are introduced in the next section. Let us first take a look at
the complexity of Chinese characters.
Most Chinese characters during the initial phase are logographic signs, indicating both
the sound and meaning of the morphemes they represent. In the literature of traditional Chinese
philology, these characters fall into three major groups according to the principles underlying
their graphic structure: ‘pictographic’ (xiàngxíng), ‘ideographic’ (zhĭshì), and ‘compound
indicative’ (huìyì). Pictographic characters bear a physical resemblance to the objects they
indicate. For example, characters like 日 rì ‘sun’, 月 yuè ‘moon’, 山 shān ‘hill’ and 水 shuĭ
‘water’ are pictographic. Supplementary to pictographic characters are idiographic ones, for
which a more diagrammatic method is used to represent more abstract concepts. For example, 上
shàng ‘up’ and 下 xià ‘down’ are such idiographic characters. To make characters more
complicated are compound indicative ones, which combine graphs of pictographic and
ideographic characters based on their semantics to create new characters that imply a
combination of the meanings of the component parts. For example, 从 cóng ‘follow’ is made of
two 人 rén ‘person, with one after the other (Norman 1988; Chen 1999).
As introduced in the preceding section, kanji, since its introduction to Japan, has become
one of the indispensible components of the Japanese language, playing its designated role
together with the other two components in the Japanese writing system. Different from hiragana
and katakana, kanji writing contains a very complex orthographic system. The complexity of
kanji writing is obviously created by the peculiar nature of Chinese scripts, especially traditional
classical Chinese scripts. Chinese characters (kanji) introduced to the Japanese language turned
out to be too difficult to read and write or remember. In order to read and write anything more
than the simplest and most basic text, one needed sufficient knowledge of many thousands of
Chinese characters. In order to make the writing system of kanji less complicated in Japanese
everyday life, especially in popular education, publication, and documentation, in 1946,
following World War II, the Japanese government instituted a series of orthographic reforms,
which were carried out in several targeted areas. First, the Chinese characters in Japanese were
selectively given simplified glyphs (i.e., orthographic simplification), called 新字体 shinjitai
(new character form) (cf. Kobayashi 1989; Takebe 1979).9 Second, the number of characters in
circulation was reduced, and formal lists of characters to be learned during each grade of school
were established. Third, many variant forms of characters and obscure alternatives for common
characters were officially discouraged. All this was done with the goal of facilitating learning for
children and simplifying kanji use in literature and periodicals. Compared to Chinese, the
Japanese reform was more directed, affecting only a few hundred characters and replacing them
with simplified forms, most of which were already in use in Japanese cursive script. What should
164
be noticed is that the 当用漢字 Tōyōkanji were officially declared by the Japanese Ministry of
Education in 1946, and the list of 1850 characters were published in 1949, including
approximately 500 simplified characters, among which some were adopted directly from the
Chinese simplified characters, and others were selectively simplified in Japan. However,
according to a slightly modified version of the 当用漢字 Tōyōkanji, 95 so-called new forms of
characters were added and included in 常用漢字 Jōyōkanji in 1981. Thus, the total number of
1945 official 常用漢字 Jōyōkanji, also called ‘Daily-use kanji’ or ‘Educational kanji’ and
shinjitai simplifications, were established by the Japanese government in 1981 to replace the 当
用漢字 Tōyōkanji (cf. Kindaichi 1978; Kaiser 1991; Seeley 1995; Mitamura 1997; Yoshida
1981).
Although most of the simplified Chinese characters in use today are the result of the large
scale language reform movement launched by the government of the People’s Republic of China
(PRC) in the 1950s and 1960s, character simplification predates the founding of the PRC in 1949.
Towards the end of the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) and early Republican era of China’s history,
there was push towards modernization and language reform. Discussions on character
simplification took place within the Nationalist Government (i.e., the Kuomintang Government)
in the 1930s and 1940s, and a large number of Chinese intellectuals and writers long maintained
that character simplification would help boost literacy in China. In 1935, the Nationalist
Government proposed 324 simplified characters but due to opposition, they were withdrawn. It
was the first time that attention was drawn to the standardization of simplified characters (cf.
Norman 1988; Chen 1999; DeFrancis 2006).
The Chinese script reform attracted serious attention and gained momentum at the turn of
the twentieth century. A process of rebuilding a devastated country after the founding of the PRC
in 1949 brought the chance for the nationwide language reform. It was argued that the traditional
Chinese script was to a large extent responsible for the country’s high illiteracy rate and stood as
an impediment to the process of building a new country. There were several obvious motivations
for the New China’s language reform. First, traditional characters were too difficult to learn. In
Modern Chinese there is an average of eleven strokes per character, and to differentiate between
characters, the configurations of these strokes become necessarily complex. Also, the graphic
shape of the characters provides little indication of their pronunciation. Thus, learning to read
and write thousands of graphically complex characters becomes a massive mnemonic task. The
difficulty was further caused by the graphic structure in which a large number of the graphemes
of the xiàngxíng, zhĭshì, and huìyì categories have lost most if not all traces of the iconicity of
the original shape, and become mere mnemonic symbols (i.e., symbolic marks). Furthermore, a
large number of graphs originally incorporated into xíngshēng characters as phonetic or semantic
determinatives were lost (Qiu 1988). Consequently, learners can do little with such symbolic
marks beyond rote memorization (Zhou 1979; Wu & Ma 1988; Chen 1988). Second, owing to
the complicated nature of the graphic structures, the use of such a large number of characters as
basic graphemes makes the Chinese writing system a very clumsy and inconvenient tool for
many purposes, such as indexing and retrieving (Chen 1999). Third, without a large scale
simplification of characters and their standardization in Modern Chinese, the elimination of
illiteracy and promotion of general education to everyone in the socialist China would be too
165
difficult or impossible. In other words, Chinese script reform became a crucial and urgent part of
the Chinese government’s language policy and planning.10
Mao Zedong, Chairman of the PRC (1949-59) and of the Chinese Communist Party
(1943-76), made three specific directive points: developing a new alphabetic scheme that was
“national in form,” promoting Putonghua by using ‘Pinyin’ Roman letters as the exclusive
national standard, and placing primary emphasis on simplification of characters. The National
Script Reform Congress met in 1955 to discuss specific issues of Chinese language reform with a
focus on standardization and simplification of characters. It issued a directive to promote the
teaching of Putonghua and to introduce standardized simplified characters. The official
announcement of the Chinese Character Simplification Scheme was made in January 1956, and a
set of simplified characters was published containing 515 simplified characters (jianti characters
简体字). In 1964, this number was expanded to an approximate total number of 2238 (Lu 2005;
Suzuki 1989). As predicted, such a large scale simplification of characters will continue to serve
the country’s long-term educational needs and today’s computer technology and worldwide
information age (cf. Chen 1999).
Orthographic effects of simplified kanji
As explained above, the Chinese characters which were borrowed into Japanese are now called
‘kanji’ in the sense that they have become an indispensible component of the Japanese language
and play a special role in its lexical structure and writing system. This paper assumes that unlike
most phenomena of lexical borrowing as evidenced in most languages, Japanese lexical
borrowing took place not merely because of so-called lexical-conceptual gaps between the
borrowing or receiving language and the source language but because of the compositional
nature of the Japanese language itself. To develop and establish its own writing system, Japanese
needs to borrow or ‘import’ certain characters (i.e., lexical items) from China to serve its own
linguistic purposes. Also, unlike the traditional notion of ‘adaptation’ of borrowed items to the
existing linguistic structure of the borrowing language (i.e., at the levels of syntax, morphology,
and phonology), a good number of borrowed Chinese characters went through some
orthographic reforms such as simplification to become kanji of their own orthographic features
(i.e., lexical forms) (cf. Morohashi, Watanabe, Kamata & Yoneyama 1963; Chūnichidaijiten
Hensansho 1988). As introduced in the preceding section, this paper further assumes that such
‘reformed’ lexical forms through simplification are intentional and selective. In addition to
making kanji writing and reading easier or more accessible to the general public, the
simplification of certain Chinese characters has resulted in particular orthographic effects in
Japanese lexical composition. The orthographic effects of some simplified kanji can be
categorized as follows in comparison with those of simplified characters in Modern Chinese. For
the current study, the categorization and categories are based on 常用漢字 Jōyōkanji and are
intended to be representative rather than exhaustive (cf. Yoshida, Takeuchi & Harisu 1982;
Kindanichi, Kindaichi, Kenbō & Shibata 1982; Amanuma & Katō 1982).
(Note: The English glosses of the traditional Chinese characters listed below are based on the
most commonly recognized meanings of individual words in Modern Chinese, without their
166
combination with other words. Also, these glosses do not indicate the parts of speech of
individual words.)
A. The simplified Japanese kanji with the same forms as those of the simplified
characters in Modern Chinese (Japanese used simplified Chinese characters)
Simplified
Japanese kanji
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
18.
19.
20.
21.
22.
23.
24.
25.
医
欧
画
学
会
旧
献
恋
声
国
辞
寿
写
尽
台
虫
断
点
党
灯
体
宝
礼
乱
与
←
←
←
←
←
←
←
←
←
←
←
←
←
←
←
←
←
←
←
←
←
←
←
←
←
Traditional
Chinese characters
Simplified
Chinese characters
醫
歐
畫
學
會
舊
獻
戀
聲
國
辭
壽
寫
盡
臺
蟲
斷
點
黨
燈
體
寶
禮
亂
與
→
→
→
→
→
→
→
→
→
→
→
→
→
→
→
→
→
→
→
→
→
→
→
→
→
(medical science/medicine)
(Europe)
(draw/paint; picture)
(study/learn)
(meet; meeting)
(old)
(dedicate)
(love)
(sound/voice)
(country)
(diction)
(longevity/life)
(write)
(utmost)
(table/desk, platform)
(insect)
(break/cut off)
(spot/dot/point)
(political party)
(lamp/light)
(body/substance/style)
(treasure/precious)
(courtesy/manners/gift)
(in disorder; mix up)
(give/offer; and)
医
欧
画
学
会
旧
献
恋
声
国
辞
寿
写
尽
台
虫
断
点
党
灯
体
宝
礼
乱
与
The representative simplified kanji listed under ‘A’ turn out to have the same forms as those
of the simplified characters in Modern Chinese. It is possible that Japanese simply adopts them
167
without further simplification or modification for convenience. It becomes obvious that such
simplified kanji reduce the complexity of the traditional Chinese characters.
B. The simplified Japanese kanji with the different forms from those of the simplified
characters in Modern Chinese (Japanese kanji: simplified by Japanese; Chinese hanzi:
simplified by Chinese)
Simplified
Japanese kanji
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
18.
19.
20.
21.
22.
23.
24.
25.
円
応
歓
価
芸
気
剣
薬
剤
渋
従
畳
焼
図
摂
対
歯
発
豊
猟
霊
竜
塁
齢
労
←
←
←
←
←
←
←
←
←
←
←
←
←
←
←
←
←
←
←
←
←
←
←
←
←
Traditional
Chinese characters
Simplified
Chinese characters
圓
應
歡
價
藝
氣
劍
藥
劑
澁
從
疊
燒
圖
攝
對
齒
發
豐
獵
靈
龍
壘
齡
勞
→
→
→
→
→
→
→
→
→
→
→
→
→
→
→
→
→
→
→
→
→
→
→
→
→
(round; Chinese monetary)
(agree; answer; should)
(happy/pleased; like)
(price; value)
(skill/craftsmanship; art)
(air; smell; spirit)
(sword; saber)
(medicine/drug)
(chemical preparation; dose)
(astringent; rough; difficult)
(from; follow)
(pile up; fold)
(burn; cook; fever)
(picture; chart; map)
(absorb; take a photograph)
(answer; correct)
(tooth)
(hair; send out)
(plentiful; bounteous)
(hunt)
(quick; effective; spirit)
(dragon; imperial; dinosaur)
(rampart; baseball base)
(age/years)
(work; hard)
圆
应
欢
价
艺
气
剑
药
剂
涩
从
叠
烧
图
摄
对
齿
发
丰
猎
灵
龙
垒
龄
劳
168
The representative simplified kanji listed under ‘B’ show different forms from those of the
simplified characters in Modern Chinese. This indicates that Japanese may simplify some
traditional Chinese characters in its own preferred way of writing, resulting in certain special
forms of simplified kanji.
C. The simplified Japanese kanji with the variant forms of traditional Chinese
characters different from those simplified in Modern Chinese
(Japanese kanji used Chinese variant forms which most of them abandoned in the
classical Chinese, they are not papered in any newly published dictionaries)
Simplified
Traditional
Simplified
Japanese kanji
Chinese characters
Chinese characters
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
9.
10.
11.
13.
14.
15.
囲(異体字) disused
塩(異体字) disused
関(異体字) using
処(異体字) disused
粛(異体字) disused
並(異体字) using
廃(異体字) disused
獣(異体字) disused
荘(異体字) disused
戯(異体字) disused
暁(異体字) disused
覧(異体字) disused
←
←
←
←
←
←
←
←
←
←
←
←
圍
鹽
關
處
肅
竝
廢
獸
莊
戲
曉
覽
(surround/enclose)
(salt)
(close; turn off; lock up)
(get along; deal with; place)
(respectful; solemn)
(equally; simultaneously)
(waste; useless; give up)
(beast/wild animal)
(village; manor)
(drama; play)
(dawn/daybreak; know)
(look at; display/exhibit)
→
→
→
→
→
→
→
→
→
→
→
→
围
盐
关
处
肃
并
废
兽
庄
戏
晓
览
The representative simplified kanji listed under ‘C’ show some ‘simplification’ but more
of the variant forms of some traditional Chinese characters. The purpose of doing so might be to
make the forms of certain traditional Chinese character a bit simple but look more like kanji.
According to the biggest dictionaries of the Chūnichi daijiten and Hanyu dacidian (cf. Aichi
University Chinese-Japanese Dictionary editing/compilation, 1987; the 12 series of the Hanyu
Dictionary editing/compilation, 1994), most variant forms are not using in modern Chinese even
do not appear in recently published Chinese dictionaries. A few variant forms are used in
classical Chinese literature or in Taiwan but most of them are disused.
D. The simplified Japanese kanji with partially created forms or partially variant
forms of traditional Chinese characters
Simplified
Japanese kanji
Traditional
Chinese characters
169
(Partially created forms by Japanese)
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
圧
壱
仮
恵
黒
剰
巣
粋
蔵
兎
稲
拝
仏
払
氷
戻
←
←
←
←
←
←
←
←
←
←
←
←
←
←
←
←
压 (press; push; control)
壹 (one)
假 (false/fake; supposing)
惠 (kind; benevolent; benefit)
黑 (black)
剩 (be left; remain)
巢 (nest; lair)
粹 (pure/unadulterated)
藏 (hide/conceal; store)
兔 (rabbit/hare)
稻 (paddy/rice)
拜 (do obeisance; salute)
佛 (Buddha/Buddhism)
拂 (stroke; touch lightly; whisk)
冰 (ice; feel cold)
戾 (tear/teardrop)
(Partially variant forms 異体字)
17.
収 (異体字) using
18.
19.
20.
乗(異体字) disused
酔(異体字) using
妬(異体字) using
←
←
←
←
收 (receive; accept)
乘 (ride; take advantage of)
醉 (drunk/tipsy)
妒 (jealous; envy)
The representative simplified kanji listed under ‘D’ are partially created forms or partially
variant forms of certain traditional Chinese characters which are not simplified in Modern
Chinese. It seems obvious that Japanese may create certain forms or exploit some existing
variant forms during the process of selectively simplifying the traditional Chinese characters.
E. The simplified Japanese kanji with only the right side components simplified like
those simplified in Modern Chinese (some left redial are also simplified in Chinese but
no redial change in Japanese)
Simplified
Japanese kanji
1.
2.
絵
駆
Traditional
Chinese characters
←
←
繪 (paint/draw)
驅 (drive; expel; run)
Simplified
Chinese characters
→
→
绘
驱
170
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
継
証
称
鉄
独
←
←
←
←
←
繼
證
稱
鐵
獨
→
(prove; testify; evidence)→
(call; say)
→
(iron)
→
(alone; in solitude; only) →
(continue; follow)
继
证
称
铁
独
The representative simplified kanji listed under ‘E’ show that some particular left side
components of traditional Chinese characters remain the same, but the right side components
of these characters are simplified like those in Modern Chinese.
F. The simplified Japanese kanji with only the right side components simplified but
different from those simplified in Modern Chinese (some left redial are also
simplified in Chinese but no redial change in Japanese)
Simplified
Japanese kanji
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
駅
犠
拡
験
軽
譲
読
Traditional
Chinese characters
←
←
←
←
←
←
←
驛
犧
擴
驗
輕
讓
讀
→
(sacrificial animal)
→
(expand/enlarge; extend) →
(examine/test; check) →
(light; easy)
→
(yield; allow)
→
(read)
→
(post; courier station)
Simplified
Chinese characters
驿
牺
扩
验
轻
让
读
The representative simplified kanji listed under ‘F’ again show that some particular left
side components of traditional Chinese characters remain the same, but the right side
components of these characters are simplified differently from those in Modern Chinese.
The above categories of Japanese simplified kanji provide some interesting evidence that
Japanese simplification of traditional Chinese characters has produced various forms. In addition
to the same simplified forms as those in Modern Chinese, a good number of simplified
traditional Chinese characters in the Japanese language contain their particular forms, either
different simplified forms, partially simplified forms, partially variant forms or a combination of
simplified components with those traditional ones. All this may indicate that the traditional
Chinese characters borrowed into the Japanese language have become a significant component of
the Japanese writing system, whether such borrowed items have gone through simplification in
various ways or not. That is, the borrowed Chinese characters now become the Japanese kanji to
serve the purpose of the Japanese language itself.11
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Conclusion: Implications of Japanese simplification of Chinese characters
As a conclusion of this study, the above categorization of some typical orthographic
effects of some most commonly observed simplified Chinese characters in Japanese offers the
following important implications for understanding the nature and process of Japanese
simplification of Chinese characters and the notion of lexical borrowing from a different
perspective: First, unlike most phenomena of lexical borrowing caused by lexical-conceptual
gaps, Japanese borrowed Chinese characters mainly to develop its own writing system. As
explained earlier, as one of the components of the Japanese language, kanji plays its special and
independent role in the Japanese writing system, and its role differs from that of hiragana or
katakana. In other words, the linguistic motivation of Japanese lexical borrowing from Chinese is
fundamentally different from that of lexical borrowing as observed in other languages. Second,
unlike the established linguistic principle of ‘adaptation’ which governs the structural
configurations of borrowed items in the borrowing language (i.e., borrowed items must be
adapted to the syntactic, morphological, phonological, and semantic structure of the borrowing
language), some Chinese characters borrowed into Japanese were orthographically reformed by
means of simplification or creation to make borrowed Chinese characters into Japanese ‘kanji’ as
part of the Japanese lexicon. Third, all language reforms must be driven by particular
motivations in a particular society, whether such motivations are sociopolitical, socioeconomic,
linguistic or educational. The orthographic reform of Chinese characters in Japan is no exception.
Like the simplification of traditional Chinese characters in China, simplifying Chinese characters
in Japan was to reduce the complexity and difficulty of Chinese characters in order to make
reading, writing, and learning easier and more accessible to the general public. Unlike the large
scale and nationwide language reforms in China, especially after the founding of the PRC in
1949, the language reform (i.e., orthographic reform) in Japan was selectively conducted. Only
those which seem to be too difficult were simplified.
This paper has explored the nature of the Japanese borrowing of Chinese characters into
its peculiar writing system, and it has also described and explained the Japanese simplification of
Chinese characters as driven by Japan’s social and educational motivations. Lexical borrowing
together with highly motivated and well planned language reforms as evidenced in the Japanese
language provides a new window into not only the phenomenon of linguistic borrowing itself but
also the nature of a particular language.
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NOTES:
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1
The study of Japanese ‘linguistic borrowing’ presented in this paper differs from most previous studies which only
focused on what lexical items tend to be borrowed to meet the receiving language’s linguistic needs and how such
borrowed items are adapted to the borrowing language’s existing linguistic structure at several levels, such as
phonological level, morphological level, and syntactic level. This study investigates some formal and functional
peculiarities of Chinese characters borrowed in Japanese through some necessary simplification or transformation
‘beyond’ linguistic borrowing as traditionally defined and described. It focuses on some specific motivations for
simplifying certain borrowed Chinese characters and their orthographic effects on so-called ‘kanji’.
2
The term ‘linguistic borrowing’ is broad enough for the phenomenon of incorporation of some linguistic elements
from one language into another language. Since such linguistic borrowing is most commonly observed in borrowed
lexical items, the term ‘lexical borrowing’ is narrow enough for the descriptive purpose.
3
Different from the traditional notion of lexical borrowing, the borrowing of Chinese characters into Japanese is
‘idiosyncratic’ in the sense that such a type of lexical borrowing becomes peculiar to or distinctive of the nature of
the Japanese language itself. In other words, kanji (i.e., Chinese characters as borrowed) becomes an indispensible
component of the Japanese language beyond its lexical needs themselves.
4
In addition to the general purpose of simplifying Chinese characters in both China and Japan, the simplification of
certain Chinese characters in Japan is motivated for other particular linguistic and sociolinguistic purposes. Thus,
different from the traditional notion of lexical borrowing, Chinese characters once borrowed into Japanese
become ‘kanji’ through some necessary transformation. Simplification is regarded as one of Japanese linguistic
strategies.
5
Different from the traditional notion of lexical borrowing, certain Chinese characters borrowed into Japanese no
longer keep their original meanings. This is because certain borrowed lexical items are not for their conceptual or
referential content but are used for other semantic purposes. Thus, it is reasonable to state that such Chinese
characters are not simply ‘borrowed’ but also created or ‘made in Japan’.
6
‘Kanji’ is a system of Japanese writing using Chinese-derived characters. That is, borrowed Chinese characters
(i.e., kanji) are used in the Japanese language for its own linguistic purposes. For example, in the late 19th century
and early 20th century Japanese used Chinese characters to translate some European words. Such translated
words by means of Chinese characters are called ‘wasei-kango’ (和製漢語), meaning such Chinese characters are
actually made in Japan. According to the 25th report of the Japanese National Language Research Institute (1964),
the number of kanji occupies approximately 41.3% of the linguistic sources of the Japanese language.
7
The distinction between ‘kanji’ and ‘hanzi’ becomes necessary and important. The term ‘kanji’ is reserved for the
Japanese use of Chinese characters for its own linguistic purposes, such as in writing and in translating certain
European words. Kanji, which may differ in their semantic content from those originally borrowed from Chinese.
The term ‘hanzi’ is reserved for the original Chinese characters with their original lexical content.
8
As observed in linguistic and sociolinguistic literature, language reform or change tends to be ‘gradual’ in the
sense that it may take centuries or generations for the reform or change to become stabilized or established.
However, language reform or change in a particular society may become ‘drastic’ in the sense that a particular
government may initiate and launch a nation-wide language reform movement in a relatively short period of time,
as observed in the PRC after its founding in 1949, to achieve the objectives as specified in the government’s
language policy and planning. Language reform or change can be ‘drastic’ also in the sense that the reform or
change becomes a large scale (i.e., extensive) linguistic movement, rather than superficial or limited modification.
9
The term ‘新字体’ (shinjitai) differs from ‘简体字’ (jianti characters). Japanese ‘新字体’ includes not only all
simplified or reformed Chinese characters but also all adopted Chinese characters to cover all commonly used kanji.
The purpose is to standardize the writing system. However, Chinese ‘简体字’ only refers to the simplified form of
174
any Chinese characters. The purpose is to standardize all simplified forms and to make the reading and writing of
such simplified forms easy.
10
The main purpose of the Chinese large scale script reform after the founding of the socialist China in 1949 was to
create equal educational opportunities for all by making reading and writing Chinese characters easier and more
accessible than before. Another purpose was to establish and standardize the new writing system as part of the
government’s language policy and planning. In the case of Japanese simplification of the borrowed Chinese
characters, the purpose was beyond making reading and writing easier.
11
Different from the traditional notion of lexical borrowing, the Chinese characters borrowed into the Japanese
language are not simply for the so-called lexical-conceptual gaps but for the linguistic needs of the Japanese
language. As one of the indispensible components of the Japanese language, the borrowed Chinese characters
become kanji through certain necessary script modifications or changes to serve particular linguistic purposes of
the Japanese language itself. In other words, kanji are closely related to original Chinese characters in terms of
their script forms, but they obtain their own semantic features in the Japanese language.