Musings About Language and Religion In Japan

Language Log discuses an interesting evolving issue in the Japanese language, which has four parallel systems of writing that are mixed together, that is somewhat obvious, but I've never really drilled down the frame this way:

Mix and match Japanese orthography

Most Language Log readers are aware that the Japanese writing system consists of three major components — kanji (sinoglyhs), hiragana (cursive syllabary), and katakana (block syllabary). I would argue that rōmaji (roman letters) are a fourth component, as they are in the Chinese writing system.

How do people decide when to switch among the different components of the Japanese writing system? Of course, custom and usage determine when to use one and when to use another. (It's a bit like masculine, feminine, and neuter in gender based languages [a frequent and recent topic on Language Log] — you don't ask why, you just do it].) In most cases, convention has fixed which of the three main components of the writing system is used for a particular purpose. On the other hand, since I began learning Japanese half a century ago, I noticed a fairly conspicuous slippage regarding what I had been led to believe were predetermined practices. . . . there is a lot of variability in the way people mix and match hiragana, katakana, and kanji.

Not infrequently, multiple different writing systems will be incorporated in the same sentence, although each word will generally be written in a single writing system.

In the case of Japanese proper names, it is common for someone to say their name orally and then to say that it is written with a certain set of kanji, because there is more than one set of kanji that can sound essentially the same, but have very different meanings. 

Indeed, Japanese is full of pun wordplay because its many homonyms and words that sound very similar but are not identical sounding, are common, in large part, because Japanese has a quite small set of phonemes (i.e. distinct vowel and consonant sounds). 

The small phoneme set in Japanese is a big part of why English speakers who learn Japanese often have quite good accents (since almost all Japanese phonemes are present in English), while Japanese  speakers who learn English tend to have a much more difficult time overcoming thick accents (since many common English phonemes are absent in Japanese and English has less strict rules about how phonemes can be combined).

Another nuance in addition to these four writing systems is that there are certain words, like the words for numbers, that are written in a special way in legal documents in order to make them resistant to being forged or modified, with a few strokes of a pen. It is a custom somewhat similar to writing numbers in both words and numerals on a check or in a legal contract.

Scripts aren't the only context in which the Japanese mix and match. 

Japan is also famous for its religious mixing and matching, with the average Japanese person invoking a mix of Confucian philosophy (which is pervasive), Shinto religious practices (with shrine observances especially on certain holidays and in home shrines for deceased family members), Buddhist religious practices (especially with respect to funerals), and even some Western Christian religious/cultural practices (mostly Christmas celebrations heavy on Santa and light on Jesus, and aspects of Christian wedding practices). In Japanese popular fiction, it is almost cliche for supernatural threats to be challenged by mixed religion teams of priests from Shinto, Buddhist, and Christian perspectives, much like a party of warriors who are each trained in a different martial art.