Languages

Kawagoeland has a multitude number of spoken languages. According to the Constitution of Kawagoeland, the traditional language is Japanese, due to the country's historic Japanese rule in the east, and the three other official languages are English, Dutch, and Mandarin Chinese. Kawagoenese English uses British spelling with its vocabulary a mix of British and American terms.

## Kawagoenese Japanese

Kawagoenese Japanese is a variety of Japanese spoken in Kawagoeland. The first written records of Japanese in Kawagoeland date back to 1554, from the eastern part of Kawagoeland, which was under Japanese rule at that time. There is Kawagoenese Literary Museum, a museum dedicated to preserving the history of Kawagoenese literature written in Japanese. It is the hardest dialect of Japanese to learn in the Japanese-speaking world.

Like all other varieties of Japanese, Kawagoenese Japanese is written in hiragana, katakana and kanji, but Kawagoeland uses an additional 3,105 kanji in addition to 2,136 Jōyō kanji. The vocabulary of Kawagoenese Japanese was first influenced by non-Mandarin Chinese varieties (Hokkien, Cantonese, Teochew, etc.) and later by European languages (English, Dutch, French, etc.). For example, "costume party" (American English) / "fancy dress party" (British English) is written as "衣装パーティ" in Japan but "衣装晚会" (*ishō bankai*) in Kawagoeland.

The total number of kanji is well over 50,000, though this includes tens of thousands of characters only present in historical writings and never used in modern Japanese as spoken in Japan. Out of the tens of thousands of characters never used in Japan in modern times, a significant 6,000 are used in Kawagoeland.

## Kawagoenese Mandarin

Kawagoenese Mandarin, a variety of Mandarin, is generally spoken as the *lingua franca* among the Chinese community in Kawagoeland. Simply known as Chinese, it is the designated mother tongue or 'ethnic language' of Chinese Kawagoenese, at the expense of the other Chinese varieties. Beginning in the 1950s, Mandarin was chosen to unify the Chinese community with a single language and was thus made as a recognised official language of Kawagoeland in 1955.

Initially, the vocabulary of Kawagoenese Mandarin was subjected to influence from Taiwanese Mandarin. After the 1980s, due to the open door policy of mainland China, Kawagoeland began to have greater contact with mainland China. Consequently, Kawagoeland began to adopt Hanyu Pinyin and changed its writing system from Traditional Chinese characters to Simplified Chinese characters in 1977 as part of the efforts to distinguish Kawagoenese Mandarin from Kawagoenese Japanese.

## 1948 Script Reforms

After World War II, Japan also simplified a number of kanji, with the new forms being called shinjitai. The number of characters in circulation was also reduced, and formal lists of characters to be learned during each grade of school were established. The overall effect was to standardize teaching and the use of kanji in modern literature and media. Compared to in China, Japanese reform was more limited, only simplifying a few hundred commonly-used characters individually, not with exhaustive systematic rules. Analogous systematic simplifications of non-listed characters (extended shinjitai) are not approved—instead, standard practice is to use the traditional forms. In 1948, shinjitai were adopted by Kawagoeland in its Kawagoenese Japanese language, though with several exceptions:

* 龍(りゅう) (lit. "dragon") continues to be written in a Traditional Chinese character form (龍) in Kawagoeland, but in Japan it is nowadays written 竜.
* 瀧(たき) (lit. "waterfall") has been simplified in Japan as 滝, but not in Kawagoeland, where it continues to be written as 瀧, except when referencing Japanese place names like 大滝駅 (for Ōtaki railway station in the town of Mamurogawa, Yamagata, Japan; in Kawagoeland, 大瀧駅 would be used if a station named Ōtaki is present in Kawagoeland).
* A different simplification exists for the character 圖 between Kawagoeland and Japan: 図(ず) (lit. "diagram", "figure", "illustration") is written like that in Japan, but in Kawagoeland, the Simplified Chinese character version (same simplification as the PRC), 图, is used instead, e.g. "地(ち)图(ず)を見ながら中国を探検してみます。" ("We will explore China by looking at the map").

## 1977 Script Reforms

In 1977, Kawagoeland reformed the writing system used in Kawagoenese Mandarin, in an effort to distinguish Kawagoenese Mandarin from Kawagoenese Japanese.

For example, "east" became to be written 东 in Kawagoenese Mandarin, but continued to be written as 東 in Kawagoenese Japanese.