Most of the "top X hardest languages" are from the perspective of English native speakers.
Likely not.
Good, Charles XII destroyed the empire that his ancestors struggled to build for nearly two centuries, he emptied the treasure, he refused mutiple offers of peace that would've allowed him to focus on one enemy at the time because he thought he could win the Decisive Victory (™) and he died a stupid preventable death in the battlefield.
I often forget this fact myself as a native Japanese speaker lol.
Not yet really, Mughal India IOTL had more constant relations with European powers who actually occupied forts and ports on the subcontinent so I think compared to Ming China’s greater interactions with Japan, Japan’s interactions with the Mughals is of little change.
Fair assessment tbh.
That's true, but learning how to write hiragana, kanji and katakana is a bit of a pain, so I think kana only scripts with spacing and punctuation would be used (Latin was written without spacing and punctuation for some time in otl, which is called scriptio continua), and a bunch of Japanese and Austronesian pidgins and creoles probably would written in a mix of Kana, Arabic and Latin scripts. I think the creoles probably would be quite widespread in SEA ittl.
Tbf I think a kana only script is doable if you add spacing and punctuation, even if it'd piss off the nobles, and considering the fact that kana only books were written for a while it's defo feasible. It'd also streamline the language well and be a good way to teach peasants how to write and prob be used more by the merchant classes too.
Hmm that is true... Would Japan go to America and cascadia for the fur tho?
Maybe If the Japanese can gain the right to trade via The Ottoman Empire to avoid The circumvention of Africa
Unlike Korean, Vietnamese, Tai, Burmese, and even Japanese, Austronesian languages and scrips in south east Asia were influenced more by India then China. So south east Asia will probably just use a local language, a European language, or Chinese as a lingua Franka.
Unless the Japanese start settling Alaska to challenge Russia expansion They might end up going to Alaska for fishing and lumber first rather then fur.
Tbf I think it depends on who's the main power in which region. In the Dutch regions I think Dutch and Dutch related pidgins would be the lingua Franca, while in Japanese controlled regions Japanese, Chinese and austro-japanoic-chinese pidgins would be most popular (imagine the lingustic mix in Japanese Luzon ittl).
Hm I think karafuto and the far East/Siberia would fill that role, although I'd think the fish that could be harvested off Alaska defo would encourage the Japanese to go and settle there. Imagine salmon sushi actually being Japanese invention, especially if they catch them before they return to spawn.
Honestly tho I don’t think simplification of the script would be necessary considering the proliferation of terakoya IOTL and how successful they were at boosting the literacy of commoners.
Haha lol, a preference for salmon sushi is considered a foreigner-like taste in Japan in modern times. Oh so how different things would be if that happens.
Russia is already expanding in Siberia with no Qing in there way, Japan might get the Kamchatka Peninsula But I don’t think they could muscle Russia out of eastern Siberia.
According to Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kana hiragana and katakana as we know them only appeared in the 1900s...
Katakana does have a space character (you might have seen it in between last and first name of a foreign person on Japanese wiki), and they also have a dot character, too
Hmm that is very true. However, kana only scripts with spacing and punctuation would still serve the merchants well as a short hand for when they have to write down a lot of stuff or for personal writings (much like how Arabic numerals became widespread in Europe because they were better for calculations) while a kanji kana mix for official documents and the such could very well be the norm for a while before one side becomes more accepted.
Yeah how the turn tables lmao. It'd be funny if this is the case ittl, which is why I talked about it. It is quite funny if that's the case tho.
Yeah they won't, I think most of the lands north of Manchuria would be Russian ittl. The Japanese can still trade with the Russians for lumber tho.
The tale of genji, which was fully written in hiragana, was written in the early 11th century. In 1900 there was a spelling reform which streamlined the Kana scripts and a bunch of hentaigana were created.
Yeah, they don't really use it to differentiate words, which is what I'm thinking of in this case, and would negate the need for kanji which would be useful when it's used as short hand.
yeah I understand. It's more that I could see a different evolution of Japanese language due to European contact as the main reason of using Kanji, that is the lack of punctuation makes differentiating words hard to do, can be solved by other means. Sticking with the kanji-kana system is defo possible but a change back to a Kana only system is definitely interesting and something I would like to see.
I meant versus Mandarin as the dominant Asian language; the latter may or may not be easier to say, but non-Simplified is a pain in the donkey to write.
I know. I hate writing it. There's a reason why I'm in english forums lmao.
If they actually wanted to, Japan could. They have by far the advantage before the Trans-Siberian. Like Irkutsk hasn't even been properly founded and developed yet.
Sure if they threw there man power, wealth, and focus north right now they would cream the Russians but why would the Japanese do so. By the time the Oda, Yuan, or Chosen take action the Russians would probably have turned the Amur river basin into a self-sufficient populated stronghold. orthodox Jurchen cossacks fighting there old enemies under the Russian flag would be a potent force.
Oh I don't disagree, I'm was just disagreeing with your earlier statement that Japan could not do it. Not on if they would.
Joseon had already reached tributaries of the Amur River in its expansion in 1636. An open, modernizing, and expanding Josean would have the best prospects for conquering or controlling the Amur River watershed.
Considering that the Joseon would be a lot closer to the Amur basin and could throw a lot more settlers and armies into the Amur Basin and make it part of the heartlands of the Joseon they just would have to fight the Russians to establish control. Whether or not they would fight the Russians is another matter, but the fur trade (which the Chinese participated in) would be a great source of wealth and be an incentive to go there (there should be beavers around there, same with Kamchatka). Ppl don't remember that Russian control over the Far East was very precarious at this point in time because of its remoteness (the two ways to go to the far East was to ride on a horse from the Urals to the far East or to get on a boat and sail from one of the Russian ports in Europe, which is Arkanglsk only at this point in time).
