Re: Kanji, Katakana, and Hiragana are different LANGUAGES.

bulkington63 wrote:
On Aug 10, 3:30 am, x01001x <xem...@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
[...]
(I can already see you plotting against me on that one, start a new
thread if you're going to insult.)

They are not different languages. They are different writing systems.


Kanji isn't even a standalone writing system for Japanese (unless you use a very outmoded way of writing).

There are certainly ways that writing systems could be separate from spoken languages (look at sign language as used in various countries as opposed to the spoken language --they are very different languages, in general), but the usual way a writing system works is by supplying a well-defined (more or less) correspondence between the written symbols and/or groups of symbols, and the spoken words of the language.

The fact that Japanese uses a confusing (to me) combination of 3 different sets of symbols, doesn't change the fact that written Japanese IS the same, syntactically and semantically, as spoken Japanese.

IN fact, I think you'd have to change the definition of "written language" to allow for a writing system that uses different grammatical rules than the spoken language it is supposed to represent. If the grammar/syntax and meaning all remain the same between the written and spoken versions of the language, most people would say they are the same language.







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