The Struggle over Japanese Script Reform

Focusing on the Calligrapher Hidai Tenrai

Abstract

  This article examines, focusing on the calligrapher Hidai Tenrai (1872-1939), how he responded to the conflicts and debates concerning “kanji” (Chinese characters) in the Japanese script reform debates that unfolded in Japan from the late 19th to the early 20th century. In modern Japan, along with the collapse of the traditional Sino-centric order, the formation of the nation-state advanced, and a consciousness of the “national language” was cultivated. In particular, after the Sino-Japanese War, enthusiasm for “language nationalism” intensified, and Ueda Kazutoshi (1867-1937), a Ministry of Education bureaucrat and linguist, promoted a national language policy that set phonographic writing as its ultimate goal, pursuing revisions to kana usage, the introduction of romaji, and even the abolition or restriction of kanji.

  At the same time, as “the Japanese language” came to take on a nationalist coloring, there were diverse opinions regarding the question of what kind of “script” should be used to write it. From 1919 onward, Hidai held calligraphy training courses in various places, traveling through Karafuto (Sakhalin), the Korean Peninsula, and Taiwan. He argued that kanji were something that the Yamato race ought to protect and promote, and he himself undertook efforts toward the kanji reform. Furthermore, he criticized the “Kanji reform proposals” put forward by Ueda and his disciple Hoshina Koichi (1872-1955), insisting that the basis for kanji reform in Japan should not be the Kangxi Dictionary but rather the model calligraphy collections of the Jin and Tang dynasties.

  Such debates recurred in 1919, 1925, 1931, and 1938, and this article focuses in particular on “Gakusho sentei” (1921) as the main object of examination. Through its analysis, the study seeks to clarify Hidai's views on kanji and his ideas concerning kanji reform, and to reveal the intersection of “script” and nationalism in modern Japan.