A way to look at the history of the modern Japanese language is to look at what came before and after 1903. This year represents a fundamental division in our understanding of the Japanese language and, by extension, Japanese culture. The reforms instituted in 1903 represented an effort by the Japanese Meiji government to promote a mutually comprehensible language. At the turn of the twentieth century, there were at least four different ways of rendering the language in the written form. It is easy to imagine that this was a serious impediment to the economic, political and cultural development of Japan. Indeed, it is hard to characterize Japan as a modern nation-state until it gained a common form of communication. Today, the Japanese language is a source of national pride and occupies a special position in the national consciousness of the Japanese. The purpose of this essay is to describe how a common form of communication—both in the written and spoken forms—came into existence in Japan. We will discuss what motivated the ruling elite of Japan to make such a change, how the various forms of the language were altered to create modern Japanese, and some of the prominent people and events which will assist us in more fully understanding the movement.
A Short History
Before describing how modern Japanese assumed its contemporary appearance around the turn of the 20th century, it might be best to describe the various prior forms and how they came to influence the modern form. Perhaps the most important concept to know is that the Chinese language was the single greatest influence on the Japanese language. Before the time that Japanese civilization was beginning to coalesce in the 6th and 7th centuries A.D., Japan had a spoken language, but no written language. As Japan's ruling elites learned more and more about the brilliance of China through their envoys abroad, they determined to adopt the written form of the Chinese language as a tool to help govern the Japanese people. After all, the Chinese language represented both a way to communicate in writing—something any government requires—and the glory of the Chinese Tang Dynasty—the world's greatest civilization at the time. The Japanese would later call this language kanbun—Chinese writing.
Kanbun became the language of officialdom and of the imperial household during the Nara period (A.D. 710-784). It was one of the means through which the ancient government sought to legitimize its rule and assert its authority. By bringing writing to a people who had none, kanbun also represented civilization. In time, it came to occupy much the same position in Japan as Latin did in Europe. Later, Chinese characters were also modified to serve as Japanese writing (syllabary). Initially, the Japanese imperial court employed immigrant scribes to act as chroniclers and to help conduct the business of state. Naturally, the need arose over time to train more people to read and write the language. However, the rigors of learning such a difficult foreign language led to the development of many variant forms. Often, sentence structure was modified to reflect a writing style that more closely approximated Japanese grammar. Even at this early stage of language development, the various shades of kanbun had begun to blur. Nonetheless, knowledge of the language offered access to power. Many strove to master it. Those who did so were revered as learned, erudite men. By the next historical period, the Heian era (A.D. 794-1185), kanbun had become the language of the elite, the cultured and the refined.