ada_c03 t1_j723vg8 wrote
The Japanese language has very limited sounds, many words sound the same and the meaning is only gleaned through the kanji characters used to write it or from context. Erasing kanji would make the language even harder to understand. Anyway, both hiragana and katakana were created using pieces of kanji, so Chinese characters are in all of their forms of writing.
Goetterwind t1_j72cbv9 wrote
Yes and no. Chinese is even more limited in sound. Both however write the corresponding Chinese sign onto their hand during conversation in order to facilitate communication. Hiragana was a writing system for women (they were not allowed to use Kanji) in order to be able to write, while katakana comes from a sect in order to make sense out of the Buddhist texts written in Chinese. Both languages are fundamentally different...
In Japanese there is actually no need for the Kanji imo, but it would make the language much much muuuuch more complicated to write...
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