Recent news reports present a picture of the government struggling to keep abreast of changes in the way Japanese people use their language—particularly the written language.

The first report is this article in Japanese in the Asahi Shimbun about a proposal to rework the content of the Joyo Kanji, or the kanji in regular use. This list of 1,945 kanji was formulated in 1981 as a de facto standard for the print medium. It defines the readings and form of the kanji. All laws and public documents are written with these kanji, and they are the yardstick for language education in school. Newspapers and other media also use it as their primary guideline.

Computers and other information technology are causing problems, however. A total of 6,355 kanji are available for use in the Japanese Industrial Standards for PCs and cell phones. As this equipment has become omnipresent, people are regularly using kanji that are not part of the list of kanji for regular use. Therefore, the National Language Subcommittee in the Agency for Cultural Affairs has issued a report calling for a reappraisal of the Joyo Kanji.

One might think the use of information technology would improve the ability of Japanese to read their own language. This report in Japanese, also from the Asahi Shimbun, puts that idea to rest, however. The National Institute for the Japanese Language (Japanese only) is calling for a new study of the reading and writing ability of the Japanese people because they are concerned about international surveys showing declining proficiency among young people. They want to conduct a survey in the latter half of this decade, which would make it the first such government survey of adults since 1955.

The problem as the Institute sees it is that increasing numbers of non-standard kanji are being used for personal names, and younger people are selecting kanji for names based on their pronunciation and the number of strokes (certain numbers being auspicious) rather than the intrinsic meaning of the characters themselves.

Compounding the problem, according to the Institute’s director, is the resistance some people have to language surveys, and the difficulty accents, dialects, and honorific language present.

Bringing up honorific language opens up another can of worms. This English-language article in the China Daily reports that the government is considering compiling a manual on the use of honorific language because incorrect use of the form is growing, despite surveys showing that 96% of the population think it’s important.

I wonder about the utility of a new manual; people have been complaining about the improper use of honorific language for as long as I’ve been in Japan, and I suspect they’ve been complaining about it for centuries. There is also no shortage of well-written manuals for the general public easily available in bookstores explaining the principles (in Joyo Kanji) if people would only read them.

Some of these trends are irreversible, because the toothpaste can’t be put back in the linguistic tube in any country. With the progress of democracy and a general spirit of egalitarianism in Japan, it was inevitable that honorific language skills would decline. There are fewer situations in daily life in which people really need to speak in accordance with rules that arose in a feudal society.

The China Daily also cleared up one seemingly contradictory aspect about how the increasing use of personal computers and cell phones, which encourage the use of a larger number of kanji, is leading to greater ignorance of the written language. They report some adults have gotten so used to writing messages on the keyboard that they have forgotten how to write certain kanji by hand and have to ask their children for help.