Japan abolishes Kanji during the Meiji Restoration.

[TimTurner]

Ironically, that's a lot easier to read just because English often has a lot of letters/sets of letters that you typically see on the end of sentences. In contrast uh, outside of the -n hiragana, you don't really get that in Japanese at all...

actually come to think about it Japanese doesn't use periods either. so the equivalent isn't "
whatdoyoumeanthisishardtoread? icanreadthisjustfine. japanesewouldstillbeasreadibleasitisnowandditchingkanjidefinitelywouldn'thurtatall. keepingkanjiisbakaandconfusingforgaijin."
the closest you get is "whatdoyoumeanthisishardtoreadicanreadthisjustfinejapanesewouldstillbeasreadibleasitisnowandditchingkanjidefinitelywouldn'thurtatallkeepingkanjiisbakaandconfusingforgaijin"
this is more incomprehensible than South African English, if you ask me.

 

[Chris Triangle]

actually come to think about it Japanese doesn't use periods either. so the equivalent isn't "
whatdoyoumeanthisishardtoread? icanreadthisjustfine. japanesewouldstillbeasreadibleasitisnowandditchingkanjidefinitelywouldn'thurtatall. keepingkanjiisbakaandconfusingforgaijin."
the closest you get is "whatdoyoumeanthisishardtoreadicanreadthisjustfinejapanesewouldstillbeasreadibleasitisnowandditchingkanjidefinitelywouldn'thurtatallkeepingkanjiisbakaandconfusingforgaijin"
this is more incomprehensible than South African English, if you ask me.

I often wonder how how a nation that can use a writing system like this didn't manage to develop better naval codes in WWII.

 

[TimTurner]

I often wonder how how a nation that can use a writing system like this didn't manage to develop better naval codes in WWII.

code system based off kanji?

 

[Nikoloz]

code system based off kanji?

Maybe not the best idea when one of your main opponents invented it.

Speaking of which, contempt for the Chinese is a potential motivation for ditching Kanji to begin with.

 

[Monter]

Maybe not the best idea when one of your main opponents invented it.

Speaking of which, contempt for the Chinese is a potential motivation for ditching Kanji to begin with.

Hard to get Japan to be even more contemptful than OTL.

 

[TastySpam]

Maybe not the best idea when one of your main opponents invented it.

Speaking of which, contempt for the Chinese is a potential motivation for ditching Kanji to begin with.

Hard to get Japan to be even more contemptful than OTL.

Well, it doesn't work with OTL contempt. A lot of WW2-era Japanese contempt for China was a perception that China had abandoned traditional Chinese culture and that the cultural heir to the glories of Imperial China...was now Japan. Imperial Japan was presented as the guardian and heir of Chinese civilization and China (both the KMT/CPC) as westernized puppets of foreign powers (namely the USSR for CPC and the USA/UK for KMT).

Neither the KMT/CPC actually spent much time contesting this, since their political ethos was so focused on modernity (Mr. Science, Mr. Democracy, etc) and destroying "feudalism." So both the Chinese and Japanese propaganda narratives played into each other.

 

[TimTurner]

Maybe not the best idea when one of your main opponents invented it.

the issue is, this would be kanji given new meanings as part of a code.

 

[The Ranger]

I mistook Kanji for the fictional giant mecha robots in comics.

 

[Nagisaki]

I mistook Kanji for the fictional giant mecha robots in comics.

どうして？

 

[Alstein]

How was Korea impacted by its language simplification? I believe they did something similar to this.

 

[Nagisaki]

How was Korea impacted by its language simplification? I believe they did something similar to this.

Sort of. They created an alphabet called Hangul to be used for Korean sounds and make it easier to read, similar to why the Japanese made kana. For a while, it looked like Hangul and Hanja (Korean for Hanzi/Kanji) would be used together like Kanji and Kana, but strangely enough, during the Japanese Administration they encouraged the use of Hangul with Korean (presumably to drive a wedge of 'difference' between them and China) while still trying to get them to use Japanese.

 

[HBsennah94]

Sort of. They created an alphabet called Hangul to be used for Korean sounds and make it easier to read, similar to why the Japanese made kana. For a while, it looked like Hangul and Hanja (Korean for Hanzi/Kanji) would be used together like Kanji and Kana, but strangely enough, during the Japanese Administration they encouraged the use of Hangul with Korean (presumably to drive a wedge of 'difference' between them and China) while still trying to get them to use Japanese.

And yet, the koreans still have to use hanja in some places to disambiguate.

 

[Dan1988]

Sort of. They created an alphabet called Hangul to be used for Korean sounds and make it easier to read, similar to why the Japanese made kana. For a while, it looked like Hangul and Hanja (Korean for Hanzi/Kanji) would be used together like Kanji and Kana, but strangely enough, during the Japanese Administration they encouraged the use of Hangul with Korean (presumably to drive a wedge of 'difference' between them and China) while still trying to get them to use Japanese.

Hangeul is actually interesting; there's a controversial thesis postulated by some that Hangeul is in fact a descendant of Phagspa, which if true makes it also a descendant of the Brahmi family of scripts. Whether that's true or not remains to be proven, but it would be something definitely worth an AH timeline or story on.

And yet, the koreans still have to use hanja in some places to disambiguate.

Not really - with the exception of North Korea (which banned hanja completely), South Korea has been progressively abolishing hanja even for disambiguation purposes. What helps is that unlike Sino-Japanese, Sino-Korean is a single set of readings which can definitely be inferred from context in both written and spoken language without need for using hanja. Part of this is because of the erratic nature of teaching hanja in South Korean schools.