Japanese Script Reform

The Japanese script reform is the attempt to correlate standard spoken Japanese with the written word, which began during the Meiji period. This issue is known in Japan as the kokugo kokuji mondai (国語国字問題, national language and script problem?). The reforms led to the development of the modern Japanese written language, and explain the arguments for official policies used to determine the usage and teaching of kanji rarely used in Japan.

Chinese characters
Scripts
  • Precursors
  • Oracle bone script
  • Bronze script
  • Seal script
    • large
    • small
  • Clerical script
  • Cursive script
  • Regular script
  • Semi-cursive script
Type styles
  • Imitation Song
  • Ming
  • Sans-serif
Properties
  • Strokes
  • Stroke order
  • Radicals
  • Classification
  • Section headers
Variants
Standards on character forms
  • Kangxi Dictionary form
  • Xin Zixing
  • Commonly Used Characters
  • Standard Form of National Characters
  • List of Forms of Frequently Used Characters
Standards on grapheme usage
  • Graphemic variants
  • Hanyu Tongyong Zi
  • Hanyu Changyong Zi
  • Tōyō kanji
  • Jōyō kanji
Reforms
  • Chinese
    • traditional
    • simplified
    • simplified, 2nd round
    • debate
  • Japanese
    • old
    • new
    • Ryakuji
  • Korean
    • Yakja
  • Singaporean
    • jiăntǐzì biǎo
Sinoxenic usage
  • Kanji
  • Hanja
  • Han-Nom
Homographs
  • Literary and colloquial readings
Derivatives
  • Kokuji
  • Korean hanja
  • Nom
  • Zetian characters
  • Nü Shu
  • Idu
  • Kana (Man'yōgana)
  • Bopomofo
  • Sawndip
  • Khitan large script
  • Khitan small script
  • Jurchen
  • Tangut

Read more about Japanese Script Reform:  Historical Advocates For Reform, Related Organisations

Famous quotes containing the words japanese, script and/or reform:

    “I am a lantern—
    My head a moon
    Of Japanese paper, my gold beaten skin
    Infinitely delicate and infinitely expensive.”
    —Sylvia Plath (1932–1963)

    “Genghis Khan, in his usual jodhpurs accessorized with whip, straddled a canvas chair and gloated upon the fairyland he had built. Journalists, photographers, secretaries, sycophants, script girls, and set dressers milled and stirred around him, activity ... irresistibly reminiscent of the movement of maggots upon rotting meat.”
    —Angela Carter (1940–1992)

    “There is no such thing as accomplishing a righteous reform by the use of “expediency.” There is no such thing as sliding up- hill. In morals the only sliders are backsliders.”
    —Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)