Japanese Orthography in the Computer Age

Abstract

Modern Japanese writing makes use of a large inventory of Chinese characters. Computers that can output such characters and represent them internally may cost more than computers that need only handle standard alphanumeric data, but there is no difficulty designing and manufacturing them. On the other hand, although many ingenious systems for input have been devised, none comes close to matching the efficiency of touch typing. Why is this, and is there hope for a breakthrough in the years ahead? This paper attempts to answer both these questions by examining the linguistic and technical factors which are responsible for the intractability of the input problem, and the social factors which lend it a sense of urgency. Special care is taken to separate those aspects of the problem which are genuinely cultural in nature from those which are not. The conclusion is not encouraging: an efficient general-purpose input system is unlikely. The Japanese might be better off directing some of the capital they are now investing in the quest for artificial intelligence towards less glamorous pursuits such as fostering public acceptance of romanization for use in computer applications that demand fast, accurate, easily modified input. The political resolve for such an approach, however, seems to be lacking.