Kanji Revived in the Digital Age: The Benefits of Visual Utility Overlooked by Hangul-Only and Simplified Chinese Policies
Kanji were once considered 'troublesome characters'
For a long time, kanji were regarded as characters that were 'hard to memorize and difficult to write.'
Complex strokes and the burden of memorization were seen as barriers to education, leading South Korea to eliminate kanji in favor of Hangul-only usage.
China transitioned to Simplified Chinese by streamlining Traditional characters.
Japan also limited the scope of usage through the Toyo Kanji and Joyo Kanji lists.
These were all rationalizations based on the educational environment and printing circumstances of the time,
an era where 'readability and ease of writing' were the top priorities.
The 'Reversal Phenomenon' brought about by the PC era
However, we now live in an era where we 'input and select' characters rather than 'write' them.
Thanks to the conversion functions on PCs and smartphones, the need to be able to write kanji by hand has almost disappeared.
As a result, the former 'troublesomeness' has turned into a visual advantage that conveys meaning instantly.
Kanji are shifting their role from 'characters to be memorized' to 'characters to be seen and understood.'
The exclusion and simplification of kanji: The different rationalities chosen by Hangul-only and Simplified Chinese
Since the late 1960s, South Korea has excluded kanji from education, newspapers, and official documents, establishing a Hangul-only system.
This was a policy choice to unify the writing system to phonetic characters alone, effectively cutting off the visual distinction of Sino-Korean words.
China introduced Simplified Chinese by reducing the strokes of Traditional characters, but the kanji system itself as an ideographic script was maintained.
Both countries pursued rationalization, but South Korea chose the path of 'discarding kanji,' while China chose 'changing kanji.'
Even if the starting point for rationalization was the same, the direction and the depth of cultural impact are clearly different.
However, that rationality was fundamentally shaken by the advent of the PC.
The difficulty of writing vanished, and the visual clarity of meaning became the new standard.
The structure of kanji, once considered inefficient, is now beginning to show superiority in terms of intellectual immediacy.
Japanese is a language that balances 'visual clarity' and 'structure'
Japanese has a mechanism that uses hiragana, katakana, and kanji in combination to visually separate and indicate grammatical structure and semantic structure.
Hiragana: Grammatical support
Katakana: Foreign words and emphasis
Kanji: Condensing meaning and conveying it visually
With PC and smartphone conversion, the 'effort of writing' has disappeared,
and the strength of kanji, which is that 'meaning can be seen,' has become prominent.
Even if you cannot write them, you can understand the meaning
Modern people cannot handwrite many kanji.
Even so, they can understand the meaning when they see them.
This is proof that kanji function as the foundation for information transmission through vision.
On the other hand, in a Hangul-only environment where Kanji is excluded, homonyms proliferate, increasing reliance on context.
Simplified Chinese also faces situations where understanding etymology and word meaning becomes difficult due to the disconnect from traditional characters.
When visual recognition is lost, the cognitive load required for reading comprehension increases, and the efficiency of meaning transmission declines.
Conclusion: Writing Systems as a 'Cultural Choice' Re-examined Over Time
Both South Korea's Hangul-only policy and China's Simplified Chinese were choices suited to their respective eras.
However, now that the constraints of handwriting have vanished, those past rationalizations are turning into new limitations.
Japan did not necessarily protect Kanji proactively.
It simply did not abandon them.
That passive choice resulted in naturally preserving a linguistic environment with superior visual recognition and meaning transmission.
Writing systems are not merely technology.
How a society handles them is a 'result of choice' that reflects the depth of its intelligence and culture.
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