Kanji

Kanji is subset of Unicode characters.

Also, Kanji is a character from this subset.

Kanjis are widely used in Chinese and in Japanese languages.

Confusions

Kanjis have underdeveloped support in the software of century 21.

Sometimes, the same Kanji character has different default pictures at different operational systems and/or at the different softwares.

Often, different Kanji characters have the same picture.

The confusions affect the national interests of Japan.

Most of teachers of Japanese and textbooks on Japanese just ignore this problem.

This makes the confusions grave, difficult and dangerous.
The foreigners learning Japanese meet this problem being not prepared for this.

The technical language Tarja is suggested to avoid this problem. The idea is to use only those kanjis that already have well established unique and exclusive default picture.

Few examples are suggested below.

The same character, different pictures

 

家 at Mac and at Linux

Kanji character X5BB6 家 looks, by default, differently at different operational systems. The picture at right shows its default view at Macintosh and at Linux. Neither number of the 5-stroke junctions nor that of the 3-stroke ones are reproduced.

Character X5BB6 家 may mean «Home». In Japanese character X5BB6 家 can be pronounces as Ie, いえ.

For the confusion with the graphical representation, character X5BB6 家 is not allowed in the technical language Tarja.

The same picture, different characters

There are many cases when different Kanji characters are assigned the same picture.

Few of them are mentioned below.

Nichi

Set Nichi combines the following Unicode characters:
X2F47 ⽇ , KanjiRadical
X2F48 ⽈ , KanjiRadical
X65E5 日 , KanjiLiberal
X66F0 曰 , KanjiLiberal.

These characters have similar semantic and similar phonetic.
They can be pronounced as nichi (にち) and refer to Sunday (Nichiyoubi, にちようび ), to a day of a week or that of a month) .

Even a native Japanese speaker looking at Kanjis ⽇, ⽈, 日, 曰 is unlikely to guess:
Which of them is character number X2F47?
Which of them is character number X2F48?
Which of them is character number X65E5?
Which of them is character number X66F0?

For this confusion, none of characters nichi is allowed in Tarja.

Chikara

Chikara is set of the following Unicode characters:
X2F12 ⼒
X30AB カ
X529B 力
XF98A 力

These characters can be pronounced as "ka" and refer to a weak mosquito, but also can be pronounced as ちから and mean something really strong.

Even a native Japanese speaker looking at characters ⼒, カ, 力, 力, is unlikely to guess:
Which of them is character number X2F12?
Which of them is character number X30AB?
Which of them is character number X529B?
Which of them is character number XF98A?

Due to the confusion, none of the chikara characters are allowed in Tarja.

Miru

Miru is set of the following Kanjis:
X2F92 ⾒ , KanjiRadical
X898B 見 , KanjiLiberal
XFA0A 見 , KanjiConfudal

Characters of Miru have similar pictures,
similar pronunciations (in particular, みる, miru) and
similar meaning: look, view, watch, see.

Even a native Japanese speaker, looking at Kanjis ⾒ , 見 , 見 , is unlike to guess:
Which of them is character X2F92?
Which of them is character X898B?
Which of them is character XFA0A?

For this confusion, none of characters of set Miru is allowed in Tarja.
Word «みる» (or even «Miru») can be used instead.

Onna

Onna is set of the following Kanjis:
X2F25 ⼥, KanjiRadical
X5973 女, KanjiLiberal
XF981 女, KanjiConfudal

These kanjis have similar pictures, similar meaning and similar pronunciation.
Often, these characters are pronounced as Onna (おんな) and refer to a woman, Human female

Even a native Japanese speaker, looking at Kanjis ⼥, 女, 女, is unlike to guess:
Which of them is character X2F25?
Which of them is character X5973?
Which of them is character XF981?

For this confusion, none of characters of set Onna is allowed in Tarja.
Word «おんな» (or even «Onna») can be used instead.

Not only migrants

Not only foreigner migrants have difficulties with Japanese Kanjis.

Even native Japanese speakers have similar problems

The solution of these problems with ordering of system of Japanese Kanjis may boost the development of Japan and reveal the technical advantages of the simplest (and perhaps the most efficient) Japanese way of composition of sentences (Subject - object - verb).

Patches

There are several ways to patch at least technical part of the Japanese language, avoiding the confusions mentioned above.

Rewriting the software

The radical way to solve the problem of the multiple confusions is the complete rewriting the graphical support (fonts) for the Unicode characters - at least that part that deals with Kanjis.

Such a radical rewriting require a lot of efforts, the governmental support and the international cooperation. In conditions of the Putin world war (to year 2025, it is already the most bloody and detractive war after the World War II), such a cooperation seems to be impossible.

Hiragana and Romanji

Another radical way to patch the faults mentioned above is to avoid all Kanjis in written technical Japanese, replacing them to their closest phonetic representation with Hiragana or even with Romani (Ascii).

The resulting language can be called Phonetic Japanese or Romanji Japanese.

Several books for children are written in Phonetic Japanese, using Hiragana and avoiding Kanji.

Several sites suggest to learn Japanese using the Ascii transliterations of Japanese words.

The extension of the practice mentioned may lead to gradual replacement of Kanjis to Hiragana and then to Romanji in written Japanese.

Indeed, concentration of Hiragana and then Romanji in Japanese texts seems to increase from century to century.

Tarja

While it is not possible to change the standards of graphical representation of those Kanjis that cause confusions, the compromise could be a boycott of those Kanjis that are not yet supplied with unique, exclusive picture as a standard default for various softwares and various operational systems.

The characters with ambiguous, confusive pictures can be replaced to their synonyms:
A. Kanjis that already have the unique exclusive pictures.
B. Hiragana transliterations in the case, where no appropriate Kanji synonym is found.
C. Romanji transliteration in cases, when the Hiragana transliteration is ambiguous.
D. replacement of a confusive Kanji to an ascii word borrowed from other language; for example, from English.

Such a modification seems to be a "minimal" solution that allows to keep the most of Japanese Kanjis "as is", but to avoid confusions, without any modification of commonly spread software and without any modification of already established standards for the Japanese Kanji fonts.

Goals

One may mention the great success of the USA in centuries 19-20: first computers, first airplanes, first travel of Human to the Moon, Internet, etc. At least partially, this success can be attributed to the international integration of the USA into the world-wide scientific, technological and industrial activity. This integration become possible due to portability of English: Each national ABC of at least European countries by default included Romanji (ascii) characters. In century 20, not so many computers could be able to support more than 2 languages, and one of these two languages was English.

In century 21, the Unicode allows to write Kanjis; so, the problem of lack of Japanese characters at the text processing devices (both software and hardware) is eliminated.

However the problem of ambiguity remains.

While it is not possible to arrange the bijective correspondence between all the Kanji characters and their pictures, the partial solution could be a boycott or those Kanjis that have not yet the standard default exclusive, unique graphical representation.

The solution is supposed to boost the international integration of Japan into the world-wide science and technology preserving the National culture. Such a preservation is important to get the appropriate place in the international labor division - that place, where Japan can be stronger than other countries. To century 21, this place seems to be related with Science and Technology.

In such a way, the elimination of ambiguities in representation of at least Japanese Kanjis seems to be very important for the efficient development of Japan in century 21. With the solution, in centuries 21-22, Japan has chance to reproduce the successes of the USA of centuries 19-20 or even superate them with new achievements and their applications.

Warning

The proposals above refer to creation of some technical language - for texts and codes where confusions lead to the bugs that are dangerous and difficult to catch and especially grave while both teachers of Japanese and textbooks on Japanese language seem to ignore the problem.

The creation of technical language (for example, Tarja) is not an attempt to affect the native Japanese language and should not be interpreted as such an attempt.

References

Keywords

«CJK», «Confusion», «Hiragana», «Japan», «Japanese», «Kanji», «Romanji», «Unicode»,