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July 16

Literature about the Japanese writing system

What would be a good book describing the Japanese writing system? I don't mean a resource for foreigners for learning how to write or read it from scratch. I am after a linguistics approach about the system, how meaning is constructed, how writers choose each script, how they chose a kanji reading, how they create neologisms, or incorporate foreign words, and so on. Bumptump (talk) 10:40, 16 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

There's a very interesting account of how Japanese writing is just about the most convoluted commonly-used writing system in the world today in Chapter 9 of the 1985 book "Writing Systems" by Geoffrey Sampson (ISBN 0-8047-1756-7). You would have to read Chapter 8 (on Chinese writing) first and be familiar with a few basic linguistic concepts to understand Chapter 9, but it's not too technical... AnonMoos (talk) 11:17, 16 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The adoption of neologisms and the borrowing of words from other languages is not by itself tied to the writing system – although words borrowed from Western languages will typically be written using the katakana syllabary, such as アコースティック・ギター (akōsutikku gitā) for acoustic guitar. There are a few exceptions, such as the kanji notation 倶楽部 for クラブ (kurabu), borrowed from English club. This is a so-called phono-semantic matching or ateji. --Lambiam 19:37, 16 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]