In Japanese, kanji (漢字) are characters borrowed or adapted from the Chinese alphabet, and over time Japanese has developed its own set of unique kanji. However, as the digital age has come about and fonts become widespread, will the evolution of kanji stop?
Origins and Construction of Kanji
Kanji originated from the Chinese writing system, specifically Traditional Chinese1. Pronunciations Japanese also borrowed pronunciations; these were called Onyomi (音読み).
However, this summary does not cover the entirety of kanji, as they also have radicals (部首): these make up an entire kanji. Radicals are strange, as they usually do not make up the meaning of kanji, and some repeated symbols one thinks may be kanji are not so.
Original Kanji Competitions
Before we go into my opinions, I will state a significant point. While some may see that the creation of kanji is dead, there are instances where it is still alive. For example, there is an Original Kanji Contest held every year, where people submit a new kanji and what they believe the meaning and reading of the kanji is.
I find these very interesting, but that stems from my (admittedly) strange fascination with kanji and language. I hope you, the reader, can deal with my odd obsession with this part of Japanese.
However, this does not mean I believe that new kanji will be adopted. Even though these competitions are a fun exercise of one’s creative aspects, as I will elaborate further, I see that there are barriers that these cannot surpass.
Thoughts About new Kanji
I don’t think that new kanji be adopted any time soon. Most of this stems from standardized fonts and dictionaries for kanji. While there being dictionaries for kanji had not stopped the birth of new kanji, for example, the Ghost Kanji (幽霊文字), I believe that standardized fonts pose a more considerable issue.
Because computers process much of the text of our time, it is exponentially harder to display kanji that do not exist. It is nearly unable to happen by pure accident; for such a thing to happen, a large font would have to mess up the writing of a kanji, and the chances of that are improbable if not zero.
The only other way for a new kanji to come about is through creating a custom font with that kanji. The dedication needed to do so and convince others to use that font and kanji is beyond the scope of nearly everyone learning Japanese, even as interested in kanji as I am.
However, since I have come this far, I decided to create a custom font with the kanji I made. Of course, I do not expect these to be used (I would never use these in any of my, admittedly, simple writings in Japanese), but I hope these are interesting enough to those that speak Japanese as well as those who don’t to take a look at them:
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In the end, however, I think that even those like me who are dedicated enough to the idea of original kanji cannot change the minds of those who already speak Japanese. And as such new kanji will no longer come along.
Thoughts About What Will Change
While I do not think kanji will change, I think that slang and the idea of Compound Words (熟語) will continue to evolve.
Slang, by nature, changes the meaning of what exists to fit its own needs. This English demonstrates this through the use of “cap,” which has changed its meaning far beyond its origins. However, the comparison to English slang terms may cause some to bring up the creation of new words, such as “bussin” or “rizz.” Both were to express a meaning, perhaps one may be able to create new kanji there, but it is more likely that people shall appropriate existing kanji for those purposes.
However, what good is discussing a language if you do not look at it? Within Japanese, we can see the changes that slang has had; these changes only grow my conviction that people will not use new kanji. Take, for example, the shift in the kanji 草. Originally 笑い was used to indicate something humorous. 笑い got shortened to w, similar to how English speakers use lol. Then people started stringing w together, and some noticed it appeared to look like grass, and thus 草, originally meaning grass, came to represent laughter.
Along with slang, there are also Combination Words, which are kanji stringed together to create words with new meanings. I think this is another reason why new kanji will ultimately fail, as it is easier to learn multiple kanji you already know strung together than it is a whole new kanji.
Final Remarks
While I do not think kanji will change soon, I would love to be proven wrong. I like to create new kanji not because I think I will change the Japanese language, even though that would be amazing. I do it because I find it a fun use of my free time occasionally, and it helps me learn more about the Japanese language.
Ultimately I am not here to tell you that you should create new kanji or even be interested in it, as I know that different aspects of language are enjoyable to various people. I hope that I was able to shine some light on a relatively obscure part of a language I enjoy learning.
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This fact causes many, including me, suffering. For example, in Japanese, the word for cloud is 曇り; in Simplified Chinese, it is 云. ↩