The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1903-08-24
OUR ALPHABET FOR JAPAN
The Yankees of the Orient to Use Ro.
man Script.

Japan seems to be about to take one
of the most remarkable and not least
important of all her steps toward har-
monizing herself with the highest civil
ization of Europe and America. That
is nothing less than the adoption of
Roman script-Our own English alpha
bet-pari pasSu with, If not as a sub
stitute for her own ancient system of
biography. For the last dozen years
knowledge of Roman script has been
increasing in Japan among the most
highly educated. But now it is pro-
posed by the most influential educa
tional organization in the empire to
make the teaching of our alphabet and
of our mode Of word formation cOmpul-
sorry and universal in the public
schools. It seems probable that the
government Will adopt the proposal
in which case Of course, all private
schools will have to do the same, with
the result that all the children of Japan
will presently be learning, not neces-
sarily the English language, but at
least to write and read their own lang
uage in English fashion.
That will be a great thing for Ameri-.
cans and Europeans who want to learn
the Japanese language. 1t will make
thatlanguage little harder to learn than
French or German and will enable peo
pie to learn it in the same way that
they learn the European tongues. At
present the great stumbling block in
the way of mastering japanese is the
necessity of learning a multitude OF
different ideographs. Once Japanese
words are expressed in letters like our
own the task of learning viii become
immeasurably easier 1t will then also
be much easier for the japanese TO
learn our language, for of course our
alphabetically formed words seem as
strange to them as their ideographs do
to us Moreover. it viii cause a change
amounting almost to transformation in
the japanese mind, or in the linguistic
functions of that mind. The japanese
will for the first time regard words not
as indivisible integers of speech but as
composite things formed of letters.
Perhaps we can party realize the mag
nitude of that change by ourselves try
ing to- regard words as not formed OIL
letters. but as indivisible units.
Nor is that all. Dual systems OF Ian
pr1ares are abomina lions. Wherefore 1t
Is to be expected that, having adopted
alphabetical script by the side OF tdeo-
graphy, the japanese win soon suosu-
tute the former for the latter alto
eether. 1t will be greatly to their ad-
vantage go to do, and also to our ad
vantage to have them do it. But II
will none he less be an extraordinary
thing. For the mother tongue, IN az
its details. is one of the things to when
men cling most tenaciously. We neeQ.
TO convince ourselves of that. to recall
only the language controversies IL
Canada. in Bohemia, in South Africa
Ia Malta and elsewhere. not to mention
the recent clamor about the teachlne
of German in New York public schools
We may also recau Bismarck's mex
orable opposition to the introduction vi
Roman script into Germany In place
Of the far less legible German charae-
ters. That the japanese should voiun-
tariiy make this revolutionary change
in their national script indicates theh
Dossession of an exceptionally nlgh am,
bftiop to Mace themselves abreast OF
The best civilization of the world-ano
ali this emergence from savage seclus-
ion within the memory of men not ye'
crown old!-New York Tribune.