Toward Simplicity: Script Reform Movements in the Period Author(s): Nanette Twine Source: Monumenta Nipponica, Vol. 38, No. 2 (Summer, 1983), pp. 115-132 Published by: Sophia University Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2384557 Accessed: 30-09-2015 12:07 UTC

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ScriptReform Movements in the Meiji Period

by NANETn TwNmE

Tl9HE earlyMeiji period was a timeof upheavalin thepolitical, economic, cultural,and social spheresin Japan.A furtherarea in whichthe need for changewas recognizedby a farsightedfew was the revitalizationof the writtenJapanese language. Without a uniform,easily comprehensible written lan- guage,the assimilation of thenew Western learning and thesmooth running of an efficientsystem of mass communication,both essentialto the developmentof the modernstate, would be severelyrestricted. In 1868,the year of the Meiji Restoration,the Japaneselanguage was by no means an effectiveinstrument of communication.There was a complicatednet- workof regionaldialects; the spokenand writtenlanguages were so dissimilaras to necessitatethe compilation of separategrammars for each; thewritten language itselfwas dividedinto severaldiscrete styles, each drawingits vocabularyand syntaxfrom early medieval Chinese or Japanese;and therewere more than ten thousandChinese characters in use. Japaneseintellectuals regarded writing as a means of displayingtheir erudition, a kind of academicshowcase rather than a practicalservant. Its separationfrom everyday affairs was of such long standing thatit could not functionconcisely and effectivelyto conveyinformation. The problemwas not,as mightat firstbe supposed,that the majority of Japanese wereilliterate. At the end of the Tokugawa periodthere existed a wide rangeof educational institutionsvarying in scope from small temple schools offering commonersa rudimentaryeducation to governmentConfucian academies for the highereducation of samurai.The governmentgave officialsupport to schoolsfor the upper class, whose membersas rulersand administratorsof the country neededa highdegree of education.Commoners with no such standardsto main- tain wereleft to fendfor themselves in obtainingbasic literacyskills; schooling was not forbiddenthem, but neitherwas any officialsanction or assistanceex- tended until the late Tokugawa period, and educationremained a matterof personalenterprise. Despite this,the numberof privateschools for the lower THE AUTHOR is Senior Teaching Fellow, School of Modem Asian Studies, Griffith University.

This content downloaded from 147.251.102.99 on Wed, 30 Sep 2015 12:07:20 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 116 MonumentaNipponica, xxxviii: 2 classes in both ruraland urban areas multipliedrapidly as the influenceof the merchantclass grew in the eighteenthand nineteenthcenturies. They offered basic instructionin thethree Rs, supplementedby some kind of moral and occupa- tionaltraining. The difficultytherefore lay not in widespreadilliteracy, but rather in the natureof the writtenJapanese used at the officiallevel. Years of arduous studywere requiredto masterthe literaryforms and scriptof officialdom,and onlythe upper classes had theleisure to devoteto it.The degreeof literacy attained by commonerswas usuallyjust sufficientfor the small concernsof everydaylife and theperusal of popularfiction. In the early Meiji period,the genbun'itchiRU-~R movementto replace the unwieldyliterary styles with a colloquial stylebased on a standardizedform of everydayspeech began to make slow and fitfulheadway in theface of stiffopposi- tion frombureaucrats and intellectuals,products of the traditionaleducation system.'In additionto stylereform, several other changes were necessaryto transformwritten Japanese into an efficientvehicle for communication,among thembeing script reform, the establishmentof a standardversion of Japaneseto overcomethe regional dialect problem, and thedevelopment of a systemof punc- tuation.The most obvious, scriptreform (kokuji kairyJ X*QtkA), was already being discussedin the late Tokugawa period,and duringthe firsttwenty years of the Meiji period a campaignaimed at replacingkanji witha simplerscript developedparallel to thegenbun'itchi movement. The firstto feelthe need forscript reform were students of theWest (yogakusha Adt), who could nothelp noticing the conciseness of the26-letter Latin alphabet compared with the more than ten thousand charactersused in Japan. Arai HakusekiS4AF, althoughnot himselfa yogakusha,wrote a book titledSeiy5 KibunNAiR$Rh, 1715, based on his interrogationof an Italian missionarypriest, Giovanni-BattistaSidotti, who had landed at Yakushimain Kyushuin 1708. In this account,Arai commentedon the remarkableconciseness and flexibilityof the alphabet.2His remarkswere confined to simpleobservation of thefact, how- ever; staunchConfucianist that he was, Arai did not suggestthat Japan should adopt the foreignsystem. Dutch studies(rangaku X*) influencedthe thinkingof Japanesescholars on theirown languageboth by reinforcingthe discoveryof the alphabet'ssimplicity and by bringingto theirnotice criticismsof the Japaneselanguage made by foreigners.Among these latterwere a Dutch book mentionedby Morishima Chiry6 -AfibPAin Oranda Zatsuwa ;, 1787, which ridiculedthe vast networkof charactersused in Chinese and the consequentinability of most people to read theirown language,and NihonFfizoku BikJ HF {{)Gr, 1833,a Japanesetranslation of a book publishedin Amsterdamby J. F. van Overmeer

' Furtherinformation about thismovement 333-356. is provided in my 'The GenbunitchiMove- 2 Seiy6 Kibun BigRN, in Arai Hakuseki ment: Its Origin,Development, and Conclu- Zensha : Kokusho Kank6kai sion', in MN xxxiii (Autumn 1978), pp. Sosho, 1906, iv, p. 763.

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Fisscherafter a sojournat theDutch tradingpost on Deshimain whichhe decried the use of ideographs,declaring that the Japaneseconsidered them the flowerof writingand failedto realizethe extentto whichthey hindered learning.3 The studyof the Dutch languageitself led severalJapanese scholars to comment on the remarkablesystem whereby any word could be writtendown by usinga simpleand concise alphabet. Got6 Rishun JA54ffi,,in Oranda Banashi 4 1765, wrote out and brieflydescribed the Dutch alphabet; Otsuki Gentaku 7k;JlARin RangakuKaitei Id, 1783,remarked on how easily it could be learned; Shiba K6kan WINSJ&G, in Oranda TensetsufnmRA, 1796, praised the ease affordedreading by the use of a phoneticscript. Shiba suggestedthat be replacedby , an idea supportedby Yamagata Bant6 LUnOR, in Yumeno Shiro*Ik, 1802,and Honda Toshiaki 4*14f'Win Sei-ikiMonogatari It", 1798. Honda even recommendedthe use of the Westernscript itself, which, he noted,was moreflexible than kana and had theadvantage of beinginternationally recognized.With these proposals, between 1796 and 1802,took shape theembry- onic ideas whichwould later lead to theformation of theKana Club and Romaji Club. Nothingmore was heard on the subject of scriptreform until 1866, when Maejima Hisoka '141JI presentedto the Shogun a petitioncalling for the replace- mentof kanji by kana. From thattime on, the idea of riddingwritten Japanese of its heavyburden of kanjibegan to take root in the mindsof a smallgroup of intellectuals.Some believedtheir purpose could be accomplishedby restricting the numberof kanji to reasonabledimensions, others by using only kana, and still othersby usingonly romaji.

Moves to Limit theNumber of Kanji Those who espousedthis cause werefew. To do so was to flyin theface of hide- bound traditionalism,for kanji had formedthe basis of writtenJapanese since the sixthcentury. More than merelya formof writing,the ideographswere a culturalinstitution, the yardstickagainst which scholars measured their erudi- tion.Their very difficulty was prizedfor the mystique with which it investedwrit- ing. To phase themout completelywould have involvedmuch more than just a change in writinghabits-it would have meant a completelynew attitudeto the art and aims of writingitself, and a reversalof traditionalideas on the true natureof learning.Nevertheless, it was clear that the systemas it stood was detrimentalto modernization.The difficultChinese scriptwas just as great a barrierto understandingas thearchaic literary styles used in contemporaryprose. Lower-classeducation extended to littlemore than the kana scripts;even upper- class children,ostensibly receiving a thoroughConfucian education, often merely learnedto recitepassages by heartrather than actually read and understandthem.

3 Both books are cited in Sugimoto Seiritsu idif R1*ODAA, Oftisha, 2nd ed., Tsutomu t5Az-9L t, Kindai Nihongo no 1961, pp. 155 & 163.

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Hours of concentratedstudy were requiredto memorizecharacters before the contentsof books could be absorbed. One of the firstto speak seriouslyof limitingthe numberof kanji in use was Fukuzawa Yukichi Nrie in Moji no Oshie 5C*,V 1873. Realizingthat to phase out kanji would take time,and aware of the dangersinherent in rushing into sweepingreforms without allowing time to adjustto the changes,Fukuzawa suggestedbeginning by avoidingthe more difficultcharacters wherever possible. Having calculatedthat most businesscould be carriedon witha total of just undera thousandcharacters, he put his theoryinto practicein Moji no Oshie, whichwas writtenfor children and used no more than 928 differentkanji in its threevolumes. In July1872, the first Minister of Education,Oki Takat6 fkI1I{, a progressive yjgakusha who believed stronglyin the necessityfor scriptsimplification, set Tanaka Yoshikado ai qPWK and OtsukiShiji ti;{ilzi thetask of compiling a selec- tionof thekanji used mostoften by ordinarypeople in everydayaffairs. The result of theirdeliberations was a two-volumedictionary, Shinsen Jisho f which contained3,167 characters. Therewere few calls forthe restrictionof kanjiafter this. The emphasisof the developingscript reform movement shifted away fromimproving the existing systemtoward replacing kanji altogether with one of thephonetic scripts.

Early Kana Advocates The firstmove in this directioncame fromMaejima Hisoka, then a translator at the Kaiseijo PAMZ,7when he presentedto the Shogun Yoshinobu in 1866 a petitiontitled Kanji Gohaishino Gi ; calling for the replacingof kanjiwith kana. It began: 'The sumand substanceof a nationare theeducation of its people.' Maejima believedthat the path to strongnationhood was through the educationof the populace as a whole. Once the Japanesepeople were able to learn for themselvesabout conditionsabroad, theywould soon realize that theythemselves were inferiorto no-one,and would develop the nationalpride and self-esteemso importantto Japan'sdevelopment and prosperity.One of the major hindrancesto the rapid spreadof thateducation, Maejima felt,was kanji, forthe inordinate amount of timeneeded to masterthe characters could be better spenton otherstudy. The abolitionof kanjiin generaleducation would curtail the time wasted in mem- orizingand learningto writecharacters. For the ordinaryprimary-school child itwould save at leastthree years; for students of specialized higher studies, between fiveand eightyears. Beyond doubt, it willbe an immeasurableadvantage if they use the timethus gained in scholarshipor industry,each accordingto his own inclination.4

4 Maejima Hisoka Jijoden rfLbq i;, I 1956, p. 153. Maejima Hisoka Denki Kankokai, Hayama,

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Maejima realized that withoutkanji confusionwould resultfrom the large numberof homophonesin the Japaneselanguage-how to distinguishbetween hashi a, X, and X, for example-and also that word boundaries mightbe wrongly interpreted.He was confident,however, that these problems could be overcomeby codificationof the grammarsystem and by the compilationof new dictionaries. In an 1869 document,Kokubun KyJiku ShikJ no Hjhj @W IAf t&, which togetherwith Haikanji Shikensho AffJ1^, was a riderto his petitionKokubun Kyo~ikuno Gi ni tsuki Kengi M3M1ff{ Xzaff , he set out steps to be fol- lowed in the teachingof simplifiedwritten Japanese in schools. The firstphase would last two years,during which eminentscholars in each of the fieldsof Chinese,Western, and Japanesestudies would be chosento deviseand formulate rulesfor a kana-onlywriting system; they would also compilenew dictionaries. This would be followedby a second two-yearperiod of intensepreparatory ac- tivityduring which, among other things,new textbookswould be compiled, Japaneseclassics and books dealingwith world affairs would be rewrittenin kana, and importantChinese and Westernworks would be publishedin kana versions. Next would come two phases of one year each: in the first,each districtwould send to Tokyo a minimumof two people to studythe new grammarbooks; in the second,these people wouldreturn to theirhomes to disseminatethe informa- tion,paying particular attention to certainspecially selected students who would thenbecome the second wave of teachers. The fifthphase was also to lasttwo years, and wouldinvolve setting up schoolsaround the country. By the end ofthis period, the importantpeople in the nation would have finishedtheir education in the new scriptand the task of spreadingit to everycorner of Japancould beginin earnestin the sixthand final,open-ended phase of Maejima's scheme. Maejima appealed in thissubmission for an Imperialedict to decreethat, from the beginningof his firstphase, officialdocuments should be writtenin kana and thatkana shouldbe used whereverpossible in privatetexts. This, he felt,would overcomemuch of the natural doubt that would be entertainedby manyregarding the feasibilityof replacingkanji with kana in only eightyears. Maejima was convincedthat people would be totallyaccustomed to usingkana by the end of thefifth phase. He concludedhis remarksby observingthat replacingkanji did notmean that their use wouldthenceforth be proscribed.Although the characters would not be employedin officialdocuments or futurebooks, they could stillbe used forprivate business if a personso desired.At colleges,they could be studied in specialcourses, after the manner of a foreignlanguage. The meticulousdetail in whichMaejima plannedhis campaign reveals the depth of his concernwith script reform, a concernmost unusual in an era whenmastery of difficultkanji was a badge of eruditionamong scholars.His firstpetition, Kanji Gohaishino Gi, was presentedwhen the Tokugawagovernment was stillin power.Such wereMaejima's patriotismand convictionthat they led himto risk the disapprovalof the authoritiesand the ridiculeof his colleagues.However, his petitions(which were supplementedin 1873 by another,Gakusei GoshikJ ni

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SakidachiKokuji KairyJ Ainaritaki Hiken Naishinsho *J0PE 4f$tUAY tA-1,VPsft) evoked no response. Traditional attitudeswere too strongly entrenchedin the Confucian-educatedbureaucracy, and no doubt political matterstook precedencein the governmentorder of prioritiesat thattime. The petitionswere not heard of by the generalpublic untilthey were publishedby Maejima and KonishiNobuhachi 'J<,16rg (another kana advocate)in 1899.5 In 1872, saddened but undauntedby the lack of officialinterest, Maejima establisheda company,the Keim6shaFAVJ, whichbegan in 1873to publishthe MainichiHiragana Shimbun,a newspaperwritten entirely in kana and intended to make news available to lower-classpeople not educatedin kanji. Publication ceasedin the same year, however, in part because the practice of reading newspapers was notyet established, and also becausemany people wereirked by the complete absenceof kanji.Maejima offeredthe newspaper free when subscriptions dropped off,but dwindlingcapital eventually forced him to close it down. Maejima was one man, firedby a visioninspired by his studyof the West of what his countrycould become giventhe means of universaleducation, pitted againsta solidblock of conservatism in theone fieldmost vital to nationalunifica- tion-a democraticwritten language. Although not successful,his effortsat least servedto drawattention to the problem. Nextto advocatethe use of kana was ShimizuUsabur6 ApPR]S in no Setsu {IN / 9,1874. Shimizu, a yogakushawho had studiedDutch, Russian, French,German, and English,had earlierpublished in 1860an Englishconversa- tionbook titledEngirishi Kotoba and writtenentirely in hiragana.In Hiraganano Setsu,he defendedthis practice, and arguedagainst the theoriesof otherswho favoredusing a mixtureof kana and kanji,or romajionly, or evencompletely new charactersyet to be devised.Shimizu, like Maejima a believerin educatingthe masses,felt that the use of the simplehiragana script would best achieve this aim. He was also a defenderof civil rights,believing that scriptreform would help improvethe lot of the commonpeople. Again like Maejima, he put his theories intopractice. Two monthsbefore the appearanceof Hiragana no Setsu,he pub- lished Monowarino Hashigo,a three-volumetranslation of a German science primerwritten entirely in hiragana,with spaces betweenwords, in a simplecol- loquial style.Given the urgentnecessity of masteringWestern technology in the earlyMeiji period,physics was an importantsubject, and Shimizutried to dem- onstratethat training people in its principlescould be facilitatedby scriptand stylereform. Shimizuand Maejima had severalpoints in common.Both men saw the spread of educationas the primemover in scriptreform; both advocateda colloquial styleused in conjunctionwith kana; bothpracticed their theories; and bothwere ardentpatriots who saw theuse of thekana scriptas a way of freeingJapan from a cumbersomeforeign system. 5 The petitionswere publishedin a col- KokubunKairyJ Kengisho nl lection titled Maejima Hisoka Kun Kokuji .~~~

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A thirdadvocate of kana was Watanabe Shijir6 '~{7?)~S, whose NihonBun o SeiteiSuru HdhJ *E1 7 it-as'?tJ, 1875,dealt primarily with the problem of stylereform but also mentionedscript. He suggestedthat written Japanese could be simplifiedby firstreplacing literary styles with a simplecolloquial styleand thenmaking hiragana the national script, the only kanji to be retainedbeing those for numerals.The knowledgecontained in even the most academic treatises wouldthen be readilyaccessible to anyonewith a knowledgeof hiragana. Maejima, Shimizu,and Watanabe werethe threemajor early-Meijiadvocates of kana. As theywere all followingindividual trains of thoughtand did not unite in a combinedfront, their calls for scriptreform aroused littleresponse, and it was not untilseveral years later that a group was formedto work towardthe practicalapplication of theirtheories.

TheKana Club In 1881,a numberof people fromvarious spheres who wereinterested in script reformcame togetherto considerthe problem. Over the followingeighteen months,three groups were formed. Kana no Tomo, officiallynamed as a club in 1882,included among its membersShimizu Usabur6, Mozume Takami , and Otsuki Fumihiko , who in 1883 began publishingand editingthe group'sown paper, Kana no Michibiki.The membersof the Iroha Kai, inaugurated also in 1882 aftertwo years of discussion,were mostly educators, among them Miyake YonekichiLatex. Those involvedin formaleducation were naturally moreenthusiastic than others about spreadingpopular education, and the object of the Iroha Kai was to search for a way of more efficientlyachieving this objective.6The Irohabun Kai was startedin the same year by businessmen, journalists,and graduatesof Kei6 Gijuku S , a school foundedby Fuku- zawa Yukichi. While the generalobjective of the threegroups was the same, theirmotives and ideas on kana usage differedmarkedly. Kana was notjust a simplephonetic script.A properphonetic script matches one symbolto one sound,but kana had already been in use for several hundredyears, and several symbolsreflected changesin pronunciationduring that time-a and v\,for example,were both pronounced'i'. The problemfacing kana advocateswas how to deal withthese discrepancies;should theybe labeled 'historicalusage' and toleratedas such, or rejectedas contradictionsof a one-to-onephonetic system? Kana no Tomo memberswere kokugakusha Pg~t who believedin retainingthe historicalusage, whereastheir Iroha Kai counterparts,mainly concerned with smoothingthe path of education,wanted the simplestpossible, strictlyphonetic script. The journalistsand businessmenwho made up the IrohabunKai and yet a fourth

6 Kakei Itsumori i 'Meiji Shoki I in Kokugoto Kokubungaku MS a WM Kokuji Mondai no Kaiko' I41X1R~) v: 8 (1928), pp. 93-94.

This content downloaded from 147.251.102.99 on Wed, 30 Sep 2015 12:07:20 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 122 MonumentaNipponica, xxxviii: 2 small club, Itsura no Oto, havingno otherreason for proposingscript reform thanthe practical benefits it wouldbring them, were not biased eitherway. The universitieswere one of the motivatingforces in the formationof both kana and romajigroups. Scholars studying European civilization were spurred by theirobservations of theWestern script to contemplatetheir own system.Knowl- edge of Westernculture spread from a scholasticelite to societyat large. Some patrioticJapanese, pondering the questionof how to make Japaneseculture the equal of European,hit upon the idea of spreadingeducation through simplifying script.Many of thosewho had personallyundertaken Western studies, university lecturersin particular,supported romaji; others advocated kana. Contemporary societywas ablaze withcuriosity about thingsWestern, and thosewho had visited Europe were accorded a gratifyingrespect. The pronouncementsof university lecturers,who enjoyeda highsocial status,carried much weight, and it was under theirinfluence that educators formed the Iroha Kai. The threegroups banded together in July1883 to formthe Kana no Kai. They retainedtheir differences of opinion,however, splitting into three factions within themother club, so thatthe only result effectively achieved by unitingwas to bring togetherunder a commonname those seekingto replacekanji withkana while stillleaving them free to pursuetheir individual theories within the group.The old Kana no Tomo became the Tsuki no Bu, the Iroha Kai and IrohabunKai, theYuki no Bu, and themiddle-of-the-road Itsura no Oto, the Hana no Bu. The aims of the club wereto bringabout both the use of kana as the only national scriptand the simplificationof vocabulary.By 1887,it had over thirtyregional branches,and totalmembership had grownto morethan ten thousand.7 Between1883 and 1891,the club publisheda total of six magazinesthrough whichto disseminateits various theories.First came Kana no Michibiki(May 1883-May 1884),published originally by Kana no Tomo, laterthe Tsuki no Bu of the Kana Club. It was followedclosely by Kana no Manabi (August 1883- June1884), the organ of theYuki no Bu section.When the Yuki no Bu, Tsuki no Bu, and Hana no Bu unitedin 1884,they published Kana no Shirube(July 1884- May 1885) magazine.The union proved brief,however. The old problemsre- surfacedafter a year,and the club was again dividedinternally, this timeinto theMoto no Tomo (formerlythe Tsuki no Bu, advocatesof historicalusage) and the Kakikata Kairy6 Bu (formerlythe Yuki no Bu, progressiveswanting purely phonetickana). This lattergroup put out theKana no Zasshi (July1885-January 1886),while the former published the Kana Shimbun(July 1885-June 1886). After July1886, the club's onlybulletin was Kana no Tekagami(August 1886-March 1891). As the Kana Club had been establishedwith the aim of scriptreform rather than stylereform, the articlespublished in its magazineswere written in a style based on classical Japanesegrammar and vocabulary.Club membersfailed to 7 Yamamoto Masahide [IIEE, Kindai 4.jfj1WR, Iwanami, 1965, p. 261. Buntai Hassei no Shiteki Kenkya

This content downloaded from 147.251.102.99 on Wed, 30 Sep 2015 12:07:20 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions TWINE: Toward Simplicity 123 realizethat literary style was just as difficultto read whenwritten in kana as when writtenin kanji-more difficult,in fact,without the visual aid of kanji to help pinpointthe meaning.Instead of simplifyingmatters as planned,therefore, they actuallycompounded the difficulty of readingwritten Japanese. Not all wereblind to whatwas happening,and some membersbegan to put forwardproposals for a dual approachcombining script and stylereform. Influential advocates of collo- quial stylewere Miyake Yonekichi(secretary of the Kana Club and editorof Kana no Manabi, Kana no Shirube,and Kana no Zasshi), HirataAzumao *'WAO, Otsuki Fumihiko,and Mozume Takami; all wrotearticles calling for stylistic simplificationas a prerequisiteto scriptreform. They were stimulatedno doubt by the newspaperdebate being waged by intellectualson thecolloquial stylefrom about 1884 to 1889, and also by the appearanceof the firstgenbun'itchi novels and translationsin 1887. Some colloquial-stylearticles began to appear in club magazinesin response,but most contributorscontinued to use classical style. It was thisgeneral failure to realizethat scriptand stylereforms were insep- arable, coupled withthe lack of a cohesive approach owing to the inabilityof the Moto no Tomo and Kakikata Kairy6Bu to agreeon a unifiedpolicy of kana usage,that led to a declineof enthusiasmfor the club's activitiesin 1889.Changes in the editingpolicy of Kana no Tekagamiin thatyear meant that discussions of scriptand stylewere suppressedin favorof scientificand generalarticles, most of whichwere writtenin literarystyle. The internalschisms finally proved too strongto maintainthe Club, and althoughpublication of Kana no Tekagami continuedbeyond 1889, that too came to an end on 25 March 1891.

Early Romaji Advocates The movementfor replacingkanji withromaji developed concurrently with the kana movement.First to call for a romanized national script was Nambu Yoshikazu , who presenteda petitiontitled Shakokugo Ron 0 i-rfflto Yamanouchi Yod6 irp'lkX, head of the Daigakury6 8 He followedthis withtwo petitionsto the Ministerof Education in 1871 and 1872, the second titledMoji o Kaikan Suruno Gi 3T 7S 4 AIi A. Nambu was followedby Nishi Amane NAP,a progressiveyogakusha who spoke threeEuropean languages and had traveledto Holland as one of the first studentssent to studyabroad. He was a foundationmember of the Meirokusha;, the firstissue of its bulletin,the MeirokuZasshi P/,W7P,in March 1874,carried his essay on romaji,'YJJi o Mote Kokugoo Shosuruno Ron 447 1:5P71A -' / A'. In it, he stated his belief that learning,science, and writingplayed impor- tant roles in bringingenlightenment to the people. Given that writingwas the

8 A governmentoffice teaching history, numberingamong its members such well- law, and arithmetic,and handlingall matters known figuresas NishimuraShigeki Wffa#t, relatingto thesesubjects. Fukuzawa Yukichi, and Kato Hiroyuki 9 An intellectualsociety formed in 1873, tV3LA.

This content downloaded from 147.251.102.99 on Wed, 30 Sep 2015 12:07:20 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 124 MonumentaNipponica, xxxviii: 2 instrumentof the othertwo, the contemporarystate of writtenJapanese was ridiculous.He feltthat recent proposals to limitthe number of kanjior to replace themby kana wereboth biased and unwieldy;the best plan fora Japanwhich was feverishlyadopting Western customs and technologywas obviouslyto use the Westernalphabet. Romaji should be introducedgradually. As a firststep, in- fluentialsupporters of theidea shouldband togetherin a Romaji Club to promote thisaim. The benefitsof usingromaji, he felt,would far outweighthe. disadvan- tages; for one thing,a colloquial writtenstyle would automaticallyresult from adoptionof Roman letters,as thesewere phonetic and wouldallow thereproduc- tionof spokenJapanese in writing.To solve theproblem of settlingon a method of expressionneither too refinednor too colloquial,Nishi recommendedspelling romajiwords according to the rulesof elegantdiction but pronouncingthem in the colloquial manner.For example,a phrasemight be writtenin romajiin the traditionalform 'ikasama omosirosi', but pronounced'ikasama omosiroi', as was normalin speech.'0 His proposal seems ratherinconsistent with his assurance that romanizationwould resultin total colloquialization,but he may perhaps have seenit as an intermediatestep to avoid causingalarm by too rapida change. It was to be elevenyears before romaji advocates adopted Nishi's suggestion of bandinginto the Romaji Club. Nevertheless,his ideas reacheda fairlylarge numberof intellectuals,as each editionof MeirokuZasshi sold an average of 3,205 copies." Shimizu Usabur6's 'Hiragana no Setsu' was publishedin the seventhissue,12 so thatthe two schools of scriptreform received roughly equal coverage. In 1876, Otsuki Fumihikocontributed an article,'Nihonmoji Henkaku Ron' HII -4'A# to Choya Shimbun09Ir.. Otsuki,one of the great scholarsof the Japaneselanguage in the Meiji and Taish6 periods,was knownin particular as a compilerof Japanesegrammars and dictionaries,and was deeplyconvinced of the need foradequate versionsof both. In his article,he notedthat he found the existingscript system a hindranceto his workof compilinggrammars. The meaningof kanjicould changeaccording to whichreadings were used, and kana letterswere inadequate as phoneticcharacters. The bestscript to use in a grammar, he felt,was the Roman alphabet,which by allowingthe separationof vowelsand consonantscould show pronunciationmore efficientlythan syllabickana. He had entertainedthe idea of adoptingRoman letterssince going to Yokohama to studyten years earlier. Presumably he saw themas of use onlyin grammarbooks, however,as he laterbecame one of theleaders of the Kana Club. The last importantessay on romajibefore the formationof the Romaji Club

10 Nishi Amane WA, 'Yoji o Mote Kokugo Journalof theJapanese Enlightenment, Univer- - o Shosuruno Ron' 9 1 7 1 I, sityof Tokyo Press, 1976, pp. 3-16. in Meiji Bungaku ZenshQ F - Yamamoto, p. 126. Chikuma Shob6, 1967, in, p. 91. An English 12 MeirokuZasshi, May 1874. Braisted,pp. translationof the essay is provided in Wil- 96-99. liam Reynolds Braisted,tr., MeirokuZasshi:

This content downloaded from 147.251.102.99 on Wed, 30 Sep 2015 12:07:20 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions TWINE: Toward Simplicity 125 and thebeginning of themovement proper was 'Romajio Mote Nihongoo Tsuzuru Setsu' 7@5 pi *Eli 7 W 11>, whichappeared in TJyJGakugei Zasshi X4* Add, Nos. 7 & 8, in Apriland May 1882. It was writtenby Yatabe Ryokichi !f A, a botanistand pioneerof the new styleof poetrywhich appeared in theMeiji period.In it,he advocatedthe adoptionof a romajiscript and a written stylebased on the speechused in Tokyo.

The Romaji Club In 1884,supporters of the adoptionof romajibegan to discussjoining forces to fightmore effectivelyfor the removalof kanji. In Julyof that year, Toyama Masakazu AIE- published'Romaji o ShuchJSuru Mono ni Tsugu'WRPt-tK -S ~ ?K" in Thy5 GakugeiZasshi, calling for the formationof a club, and on 2 Decembera meetingattended by overseventy people was held to discussstrategy. They includedToyama (who gave a talk on the objectivesof forminga Romaji Club), Yatabe, Terao Hisashi X14X, and Yamakawa Kenjir6 [UlIfIjR1. The Ramaji Club was officiallyinaugurated on 17 January1885. Fortymembers were chosen as a committeeto inquireinto romajiusage. Six of them-Toyama,Terao, Basil Hall Chamberlain,C. S. Eby,Yatabe, and Kanda Naibu Offl)-lJ'-drafteda motionand publishedit under the title 'Romaji nite Nihongono Kakikata' dexte-C F!*-I? . It containednineteen clauses, one of whichstated that romaji usage shouldbe based on thepronunciation of Tokyo residentswith standard education. In June1885, the RomajiZasshi was launched as theofficial club bulletin;it remainedin publicationuntil December 1892. Most of the essaysand otheritems therein were written in romaji,but, as in the case of Kana Club publications,the difficult kambun-kuzushi A:PA stylewas used until about 1887. Most membersof the Club had studiedforeign languages. When Tokyo Imperial Universitywas foundedin 1877,it was staffedalmost entirely by foreigners,the fewexceptions including Toyama, Yatabe, and KikuchiDairoku At~*. English was used as the mediumof instruction.Students seeing the foreign script in daily use could not help noticingits advantages,and it was naturalthat theyshould lateradvocate its adoptionas the Japanesescript. In June1885, membership of the Romaji Club totaled2,908, of whom 2,734 wereJapanese and 174 wereforeigners. By March 1887,there were twenty-nine regionalbranches in additionto the main group in Tokyo, and the total mem- bershiphad increasedto 6,876; by theend of 1888,this number had risento over ten thousand.13 Like the Kana Club, the Romaji Club was dividedover the issue of usage. An investigativecommittee had decided on the Hepburn system,but Tanakadate Aikitsu fEIrPM disagreed;the Hepburn systememployed Roman lettersas theywere used in foreignlanguages, whereas he wantedto finda wayto use them 13 Yamamoto, pp. 313-14.

This content downloaded from 147.251.102.99 on Wed, 30 Sep 2015 12:07:20 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 126 MonumentaNipponica, xxxviII: 2 in faithfullyreproducing the sounds of Japanese.He and his followerstherefore broke away fromthe main group and formedthe Romaji Sinsisha.Using the systemthey favored, the group published Romaji Sinsi from May 1886until August 1890. Romajisupporters writing in RomajiZasshi fellinto the same trapas had their counterpartsin the kana movementin that theymerely changed their script to romajiwhile continuing to use traditionalliterary styles. Again, this achieved the veryreverse of theirobjectives; instead of becomingsimpler, written Japanese actuallybecame more difficult to read withoutthe visual aid of kanjiin working out the meaningsof complexChinese words. It was an oversightwhich was to retardtheir progress severely, and whichfurnished non-supporters of the move- mentwith material for criticism. Even the columnof miscellaneousitems of the earlyRomaji Zasshi was writtenin kambun-kuzushi,although the vocabulary was simplerthan that used in the essaysin the main body of the magazine.Not all members,however, were unawareof the problem.A small group of progressive thinkers,realizing that ordinaryClub memberswere making heavy work of the romajiarticles published by scholars,began to push for the use of colloquial stylein conjunctionwith the Roman alphabet. Firstcame Taguchi Ukichi EH n 9P", whose'Nippon Kaika no Seishitsu'H VMWLe) t1W was publishedin seven installmentsin Romaji Zasshi from June 1885 to June1886. The essaywas writtenin romaji,in colloqial styleusing the 'de gozari- masu' termination.Taguchi criticizedthe kambun-kuzushistyle, arguing that a writingsystem should be uniformwith speech for easy comprehension.He saw a combinationof theRoman scriptwith colloquial style as theideal formof written Japanesefor the future. Four areas whereromaji would be particularlyconvenient wereindustry, where being able to writehorizontally would allow the use of the convenientItalian industrialbookkeeping method; technology,where artisans such as carpentersand plastererswould be able to recordthe specialjargon of theirtrades which could not be writtenin kanji; science,where clarity was im- portantto the expressionof ideas in practicalareas such as physicsand chem- istry;and suchmiscellaneous tasks as settingup printtype, writing letters, and so on. The one possibledisadvantage that he concededwas thatJapanese literature, havingbeen writtenwith kanji for so long,might suffer during the stage of transi- tionto romaji.Taken as a whole,however, a romanizedcolloquial stylewould be infinitelysimpler and moreconvenient than kambun-kuzushi, and wouldbe much morein tunewith modern society. Nishi Amane had said basicallythe same thingin 'Yoji o Mote Kokugo o Shosuruno Ron' in 1874,but Taguchiwas the firstmember of the Romaji Club itselfto speak out in favorof stylereform, not onlyadvocating it but illustrating it withthe styleof his own essay. He followed'Nippon Kaika no Seishitsu'with 'Romaji niteKakikata no Shinkufai' -,,4 r~g tj ITJ, anothercolloquial- styleromaji essay published in R5majiZasshi in August1886 in whichhe identified certaindifficulties that he had encounteredwith romanization. Particularly annoy-

This content downloaded from 147.251.102.99 on Wed, 30 Sep 2015 12:07:20 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions TWINE: Toward Simplicity 127 ing was the need to write'watakushi' and 'gozarimasu'so often,and Taguchisug- gestthat these words be abbreviatedto 'w' and 'g', althoughstill read aloud in full. The seventeenthissue of RomajiZasshi in October1885 carried two essays, both writtenin a romanizedcolloquial style,on the style-reformtheme: 'Romaji o AmanekuYo ni Okonawasuruni tsukiIken' 12 -a tL t f t-;5 S by Kusano Mompei V-V-YP,,and 'R5maji Zasshi no Kairy5o Nozomu' ROMAJI ZASSHI Add Add by Amagai Yuzuru. The firststated that the Japanese languagecould neverdevelop satisfactorily until kanji were abolished. Kanji were essentiallyalien to thenature of Japanese,whereas romaji, being phonetic charac- ters,could be used to reproduceany language. Even romajiwould be useless, however,unless kambun-kuzushiwere also ousted along with kanji. Kusano suggestedseveral steps to facilitatethe spreadof romanization,the first and most importantbeing the developmentof a colloquial writtenstyle. Other proposals includedtaking notes in shorthandfrom lectures by famous people and publishing them; pushingfor romajieducation for children;and publishingromaji books writtenin a simplestyle for members of the middleand lowerclasses. In his essay,Amagai put forwardtwo suggestionsfor encouraging the use of romaji.One was to simplifythe styleof articlesappearing in RomajiZasshi, most of whichwere crammedwith difficultChinese words. As many of these were homonyms,romanizing them led to confusionover meaning. Critics of the R6maji Club,he noted,were amused that its members continued to use Chinesevocabulary whilescorning kanji. Secondly, the columns of miscellaneousitems should contain more articlesin romaji.Amagai suggestedWestern novels and recentJapanese novels such as Tsubouchi Shoy6's JTF Tosei Shosei Katagi ' as well as articlessuch as Taguchi's'Nippon Kaika no Seishitsu'. The fourthwarning came froma foreignmember of the Club, the Englishman Basil Hall Chamberlain,then a lecturerin linguisticsin the literaturedepartment of Tokyo ImperialUniversity. On 19 March 1887,he gave a lecturetitled 'Gen- bun'itchi'at the second generalmeeting of the Club, and this was publishedin R5majiZasshi in May. Chamberlainlikened the Romaji Club to a shiptrying to steera safecourse through uncharted waters full of hiddenreefs. The mostdan- gerousreef, and the one whichcould well sinkthe ship,was the stylehabitually used by club members,which both Japaneseand foreignersalike had difficultyin understanding.Particularly difficult were new Chinese words whichhad been inventedto describedevices imported since the Restoration,for nobody could understandthese terms without seeing the kanji. To takeaway the clues offeredby kanji was merelyto compoundthe difficultyof writtenJapanese. The solution was to use a colloquial style.Every civilized country followed this practice, yet Japanesescholars, taught to value stylisticcomplexity as a mark of erudition, wereashamed of simplicity-asituation similar to thatin medievalEurope, when scholarswrote in Latin not understoodby thecommon people. Chamberlaindid not advocate the adoptionof colloquial stylesimply for the sake of apingthe West. He saw it as theonly sensible course to followif education

This content downloaded from 147.251.102.99 on Wed, 30 Sep 2015 12:07:20 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 128 MonumentaNipponica, xxxviii: 2 was to be spreadamong the people. Not a greatdeal of workwas involved,he asserted;the colloquial was thereto hand ifonly the prejudice against it could be overcome.He suggestedthat the members of the Romaji Club beginat once on a programof colloquialization by following the example of Moliere,who was said to have read his worksto his servantsto ensuretheir intelligibility. If the Romaji Club resolvedto adopt thispractice for a year,newspapers such as theNichinichi ShimbunH HIf1i4,always favorablydisposed toward the Club, would be en- couragedto followsuit. Partlyin responseto these theoriesand partlyin responseto the growing influenceof thegenbun'itchi movement in societyat large,there did in factoccur a changefrom kambun-kuzushi to colloquial style in theessays published in Romaji Zasshi afterApril 1887. Many lecturetexts were also publishedin colloquial style in responseto thedemand by Club membersfor useful articles, and thesecame to outnumberoriginal colloquial works.The trendto colloquializationwas thus morepronounced in the bulletinof the Romaji Club than in those of the Kana Club. In 1892,nationalist feeling in Japanreached a highpointas a reactionagainst the over-enthusiasticadoption of Westerncustoms, which was seenas detrimental to Japanesetradition. The Romaji Club fellvictim to thisattitude and was dis- banded in Decemberof that year,although sporadic discussions on the use of romajicontinued for many years.

OutsideAttitudes to theKana and Romaji Clubs Outsidethe script-reform movement, there appeared in newspapersand magazines a spate of essaysdealing with the need for stylisticsimplification, and manyof these touched on the Kana and Romaji Clubs. Kanda Takahira OEI*F,, in 'Bunshorono Yomu'5C*A 7 RA, 1885,accused the clubs of takinga superficial approach to the problemin not attemptingto prefacescript reform with style reform,a view that FukuchiGen'ichir6 Wbt1-Z]S supportedin threeeditorials publishedin theNichinichi Shimbun: 'Bunsh5 no Shinka'5ic*' vWEL, 1885; 'Bunsh5 Kairy5 no Mokuteki':P kAv)HQ , 1886; and 'Bunsh5no Kairy5' k 1887. Fukuchiapproved of the clubs' aims as one elementin a plan for simplify- ing modernJapanese, but thoughtthat the essentialconvenience of kana and romajiwould be lost unlessthese writing scripts were used in a colloquial style. An editorialin the Meiji Nipp5 FatsH Q on 17 November1885 stressedthe need fora genbun'itchistyle, adding as a corollarythat its absence activelyprevented the Romaji and Kana Clubs fromachieving their objectives. In NihonBunshdron Hl ASEM 1886,Suematsu Norizumi *1OM analyzedthe prosand cons ofkana and romaji,and offeredtheir supporters advice on improving theirtechnique. For kana to be effective,he proposed,words should be separated by spaces (not thithertodone), capitalletters and punctuationshould be used to clarifymeaning, and strictlyphonetic kana usage should replace the historical

This content downloaded from 147.251.102.99 on Wed, 30 Sep 2015 12:07:20 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions TWINE: Toward Simplicity 129 method.He warnedKana Club membersto settletheir differences of opinion,fix on a definiteand coherentapproach to usage, and plan gradual steps for its application. While Roman lettersneeded no such remedies,Suematsu suggested, they too wereas yetimperfect. The numberof romajiletters needed to writea sentencewas double thatrequired by kana syllables;to Japaneselong used to the conciseness of kanji,romaji seemed unwieldy. In thisrespect, the Roman alphabetwas inferior to both kanji and kana. It was not necessary,however, to make a finalchoice betweenkana and romajiat thattime, the most important task being to phase out kanji. Both phoneticscripts had advantagesand disadvantages.Both should be allowed to develop,and the finaldecision left to naturalselection. Meanwhile, a colloquial stylewas a necessaryadjunct. An outrightrejection of theaims of thetwo clubscame fromSugiura Shigetake V?'AAIJ, in Nihonno GengoBunshl dI g 1887. Both scripts,he wrote, were difficultto apply and were actuallyharmful in thatthey compounded the inconvenienceof writtenJapanese. Their supporterswere not realisticin their outlook;they did not realizethat it was impossibleto getrid of kanji,or thateven supposingthere were benefitsto be reaped fromdoing so, the task would take centuriesto accomplish.Japan's most urgent need was a simplestyle for everyday use ratherthan a phoneticscript. The commontheme linking all the foregoingattacks was the need for style reform.Other criticstook a differenttack by suggestingthe existingwriting systembe continuedin a modifiedform. Once again, the idea of reducingthe numberof kanjiin use surfaced.One of its supporterswas Yano Fumio r who in NihonBuntai Moji ShinronF*l 4;*Zrir, 1886, statedhis opposition both to colloquial styleand to a completelyphonetic script. The best stylefor Japan,he argued,was kambun-kuzushiwith to help withreadings. Such a stylewould retain the visual clues to meaningafforded by kanji, the lack ofwhich handicappedreaders of kana and romajiwritings. In orderto transformthis into a generalstyle understood by all, however,drastic reductions in the numberof kanjiwould have to be made. Yano dividedwriting into two categories.The first included governmentnotices, textbooks,newspapers, and letters-documents whoseintelligibility was ofparamount importance. The upperlimit on thenumber of kanji used forthese purposes should be threethousand of the most common forms;in practice,fifteen hundred or less would probablysuffice. His secondcat- egorywas literary-novels,essays, specialized books, histories,and biographies- and here,too, the limit should be threethousand kanji. Yano had foundthis number sufficientin his own experienceto expresseven the most abstruseconcepts. He concludedby deploring the recent confusion over script and styleform. It was im- portant,he believed,to decideon a firmpolicy and beginat once to implementit. Yano's main objectionto the use of eitherphonetic script was the amountof timeneeded to make it a viable option.It would take yearsto accustompeople to usingthem, and Japancould ill affordthe time or confusion.Why bother with

This content downloaded from 147.251.102.99 on Wed, 30 Sep 2015 12:07:20 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 130 MonumentaNipponica, xxxviii: 2 suchunwieldy schemes when the existingsystem could be tailoredto fitmodern needswith a minimumof timeand fusssimply by reducingthe numberof kanji? Kanjiwere not altogether bad whenused in moderation,Yano asserted;combined withkana, theymade an acceptableand, moreto the point,familiar medium of communication. From the point of view of scriptreform, Yano's approach was perhapsthe most convincingand practicalof all the theoriescirculated at that time,and pointedin thedirection eventually taken. It took intoconsideration the real needs of the Japanesepeople and the urgencyof the problemrather than chasing after attractivebut impracticalideas of full-scalechange. Yano followedFukuzawa's lead in advocatinga policyof moderation,making the best of availableresources. Later, as the editorof YzibinHichi ShimbunWRIM S, he publishedseveral articlesexpanding on the same theme,and on 16 September1887, announced thatthe newspaperwould from1 Octoberadopt a limitof threethousand kanji in essays,miscellaneous items, and so forth.Exceptions to therule would be novels, proclamations,and geographicalnames. 'Sanzenji Jibiki' - f-t I was published as a supplementto the 27 Novemberissue. Supportfor his ideas came from'N.N.', the initialsused by the author of 'NihonBunsh5ron' Fi ROZN, a four-partessay published in KyjikuZasshi iWt*:w fromMay to July1886. N.N. at the same timecriticized the Kana and Romaji Clubs for attemptingto abolish kanji while stillreproducing Chinese words in phoneticscript, making reading twice as difficultas before.Kanji had become an integralpart of writtenJapanese and could not be just tossedaside aftercenturies of use. Yano's idea of a three-thousandlimit, he believed,was soundand needed no timeto implement.People shoulduse kanjiand kana in conjunction,striving to choose onlythe most commonChinese characters. No otherway of writing shouldbe used in dailybusiness. Furtherparing down of the numberof kanjicame about throughthe Ministry of Education.The 'JinJ6Shigakki Chogen' R, 1887,set the number to be used in primary-schooltextbooks at two thousand,a state of affairswhich lasteduntil 1900, when the 'Shigakki Rei Shiki Kisoku'i14 ii8P0'J further loweredthe limit to about twelvehundred.14 Ultimately, following a reportby the Kokugo Shingi Kai 1 15 the governmentdecreed in 1946 that the number of kanjifor daily use be restrictedto 1,851. Discussionof scriptreform continued for many years after the disbandingof the Kana and Romaji Clubs,becoming particularly vehement during the upsurge of nationalspirit following the victoryin the Sino-Japanesewar of 1894-1895.A freshspate of calls forthe abolition or reductionof kanji appeared in journals such ' as Seinenbun 1S; and Kokuaaku Ag. 16 Perhapsone of thebest of these articles, 14 Sugimoto,pp. 339-40. o Ronjite KokubunKokugo Kokuji no Shirai 15 A body set up the governmentin 1934 ni oyobu'ATh~ t- CXM MPIP M T ODQ 4A; iK to investigate methods of improving the S, in Teikoku Bungaku DiNSC, October language and of promotingits teaching. 1896, p. 18. 16 Okada Masami RIMJIE), 'Kanji Zenpai

This content downloaded from 147.251.102.99 on Wed, 30 Sep 2015 12:07:20 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions TWINE: Toward Simplicity 131 one whichsummed up thearguments and discussedthe various schools of thought, was 'ShinkokujiKakutei no Jiki' VrMV0(D4S, 1898, by Inoue Tetsujir6 L1tWR$,a philosopherand lecturerat Tokyo ImperialUniversity, who also pioneeredthe introductionof new-stylepoetry. Inoue prefacedhis argumentby drawinga gloomypicture of thecontemporary stateof writtenJapanese. There was a profusionof scripts. had fixed forms,but both hiraganaand kanjicould be writtenas square or cursivecharac- ters,the cursiveforms being very difficult for ordinarypeople to read. Reading kanji was complicatedby the severaldifferent pronunciations accorded to each character.Script, which should be merelya means to an end, had become an object of learningin itself,a situationwhich was seriouslyimpeding Japan's attemptsto catchup withthe West. Unlikemost other critics of kanji,Inoue did not regardthe characters as altoge- theruseless. They provided visual clues to meaning;their vigorous pronunciation made a welcomecontrast to the somewhateffeminate-sounding native Japanese; and theywere concise, a major virtuein a busy society.On the debitside, their successfuluse dependedentirely on memory.A personhad to have memorizeda particularcharacter before being able to pronounceit, and thistook time; whereas in the West,mastery of a simplealphabet was sufficientto allow any wordin the languageto be read. Kanji could not show Japanesegrammatical inflexions, and theywere monosyllabic,whereas Japanese was polysyllabic.They could not be convenientlyused as phoneticcharacters for foreignnames, and therewere an amazingnumber of homophonesamong them. If scriptreform was everto take place, Inoue felt,the timeat whichhe wrote was opportune.As a resultof the Sino-Japanesevictory, things Chinese were in low standingin Japaneseeyes, and therewere many foreignersthen livingin Japanwho could advise on romaji.Japan should capitalize on the opportunityto getrid of kanji,but how was it to be done? Inoue consideredthe various options available. He did not agree with those who advocated a reductionin the numberof kanji.Chinese prose and poetryhad a largefollowing, and to reducethe number of characterswould produce a deleteriouseffect on literature.Furthermore, future scientificdevelopments would doubtlessrequire complicated explanations, where kanjiwould proveuseful. It would be extremelydifficult for the government,let alone individualscholars, to prohibitthe accustomedmedium of expression. Usingkana letterswould not help the progressof Japaneseculture; they resulted in prose of a lengthunacceptable to busypeople, and theycould not be used to representall sounds. They could not, for example,distinguish between English '1' and 'r', makingit difficultto reproduceforeign names. Roman letters,on the otherhand, were ideal forthis purpose, and would be particularlyapt forforeign wordsin technicalbooks. But they,too, had theirpitfalls; they were even more lengthythan kana, requiring twice the number of symbols,and theymade it hard to distinguishbetween homophones. Furthermore, Inoue wrote,

This content downloaded from 147.251.102.99 on Wed, 30 Sep 2015 12:07:20 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 132 MonumentaNipponica, xxxviii: 2

Scriptaccompanies the development of the human mind and has a closeconnection withthe historyof the developmentof a people'sspirit. It is thereforedifferent fromother foreign imports such as railwaysand steamships.Suddenly to abolish thescript which has grownalong with the development of ideas since our ancestors' timesand replaceit withthe entirely different romaji would be to destroythe inner foundationstone of the nation and do violenceto thepeople's feelings.17 These difficultieshad led to thedecline of the Romaji Club, and had also given rise to a fourthproposal, which was to createa new scriptaltogether. Shiratori Kokan NjA, and Tanaka Hideho Elrpq suggestedsimilar systems combining ideographswith phoneticcharacters. Inoue himself,however, believed that it wouldbe bestto use an existingscript, and suggestedthat kana letterswould make a workablesystem if they were abbreviated, punctuated, and writtenhorizontally to facilitateinsertion of Westernscientific terms and names. Their one great advantageover romaji was thatthey halved the number of symbolsneeded. Inoue's essay presentedall sides of the problemin an impartialand thorough way. Perhapsbetter than any other,it summedup the need fora simplifiedscript and presentedthe pros and cons of the alternatives.In the long run,as we know today,it was thepolicy of modificationof the existingscript which won out over themore radical suggestions for change. Kanji, despite their attendant difficulties, seemedpreferable to otherscripts by virtueof theirsemantic content and brevity, and also because of theirlongstanding tradition in Japan. Reduced in number and supplementedby simplifiedkana scripts,they were molded into an efficient means of writingJapanese, within the capabilitiesof anyone possesinga high- school education. The Meiji-periodcontroversy over scriptreform was inevitablein the light of contemporarydevelopments in Japanesesociety. While the advocatesof kana or romajimay not have achievedtheir individual aims, they performed a valuable serviceto the nationby drawingattention to the problemof Japan's unwieldy, elitistwriting system. To simplifyscript without also simplifyingthe style it would be used to reproduce,however, was counterproductive.When the scriptreform and stylereform movements realized their mutual dependence and joined forces, theway was at lastopen to forgea newwritten language fitted for the requirements of a modernstate.

17 Tokyo5Gakushikaiin Zasshi RI F-u t,, 20 (1898), pp. 368-69.

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