Some Reflections on the Ideogram

I

THE Chinese ideogram is the written language of the three neighboring lands, China, Korea, and Japan. It is, in a strict sense, the only written language now in use in the civilized world. In Europe and America we use phonetic symbols to indite the spoken language. The ideogram has no phonetic value, and may be read out quite arbitrarily in the spoken language of any country. The spoken languages of China and Japan differ far more widely than do those of England and France; but their written languages are practically identical, and the ideogram can be studied by an American (just as Indian hieroglyphics are studied) without reference to any spoken language but his own. This is obviously impossible in the case of European languages, since the letters of the alphabet represent, not ideas, but sounds.

Historically, as is well known, the Chinese ideogram is a development and conventionalization of the hieroglyphic. But a knowledge of this fact is of no assistance whatever in the study of the characters, except in so far as it adds to the interest of a certain type of student to trace the hieroglyphic origin of ideograms already learned. For the purpose of acquiring the language one must be prepared to acquire knowledge of a vast number of apparently arbitrary and exceedingly complicated symbols.

Japanese children are taught the characters without any reference to their origin. Many of them are entirely ignorant of it, and hear of it for the first time from foreigners. The Japanese child learns the ideogram by rote. His school readers are just as profusely illustrated as those in use among us; for the character is never thought of as a picture, and the illustrations are as necessary as with us to lend interest to the text. To read his newspaper with even tolerable intelligence, he must learn, not only some two thousand characters, but a large number of meanings which attach themselves to certain combinations of ideograms. These are hardly to be guessed. For instance, the characters which, taken separately, indicate man, mutual, see, mean, when written together in this sequence, fortune-telling by physiognomy!

The obvious effect of all this is to give a marked visualistic turn to Japanese psychology. Handwriting, which is with us a matter of minor concern, is in Japan a fine art. It has often seemed a puzzle to the Occidental that so progressive a people should attach an apparently disproportionate value to chirography. In the early days of her foreign intercourse, the people of Japan were almost equally at loss to understand the place that oratory has occupied in our civilization. The psychological effect of ideographic writing explains these and other things that puzzle the foreign tourist.

In the Far East, chirography occupies a position not unlike that of eloquence in the West. ‘Amplificare rem ornando,’ wrote Cicero, ’est summa laus eloquentiæ.’ To the Japanese, the graceful presentation and arrangement of those symbols which, without the suggestion of sound, at once inform his mind with ordered ideas, afford a keen æsthetic pleasure. And so, although under the conditions of modern life, speechmaking has its place in the Japanese cosmos, the orator must bear the ideogram in mind, and his style will differ widely from that of ordinary conversation. For just as Europeans tend to auralize what they read, the children of the ideogram visualize what they hear.

Nowhere is this distinction more apparent than in ideas concerning poetry. Japanese poetry, lacking both rhyme and rhythm, seems to the European to be no poetry at all. For his poetry is a sort of song. It is his ear that is delighted, and the writing of verse is but a means of conveying this delight to scattered multitudes. But the poetry of the ideogram is not, primarily, sound at all. It is the graceful presentation of ideas through the eye. To appreciate it, one must know and see the ideogram. If a truly poetic idea be involved, a paraphrase in good English verse may be effected. There are those, of course, who go into raptures over bald translations of Japanese poems. Such persons are generally poseurs.

The same is usually true of those Europeans who claim to discern any great charm or beauty in Japanese music. Japanese music is, indeed, a more or less developed art. It is not quite the simple and obvious thing that many think it. It has its literature. But — and when we consider the effect which, for centuries, the use of the ideogram has had upon the Japanese psychology, it is not surprising — it is, judged by Western standards, incomparably crude and harsh. That many of the Japanese themselves recognize this fact is frequently indicated. I have yet to see the Japanese village school that has not its little organ. Usually it is the only musical instrument on view. Generally, the village schoolteacher has much — painfully much — to learn about the organ; but its very presence symbolizes the fact that, in at least one of the fine arts, and that the one that is primarily auricular, the Japanese are looking to the West for help and inspiration.

So, too, in her spoken language, Japan has been enriched by the introduction of many Western words. But in the matter of writing she still clings to the ideogram. The abandonment of this system and the substitution of our own Roman alphabet has had its advocates: Count Okuma, twice prime minister, is said to be one of them; but the ideogram holds practically the whole field against all rivals.

The sentimental grounds for the retention of the ideogram not only rest on the strong psychological bias with which centuries of its use could not fail to inform a people, but are fortified by circumstances of which it is easy for Americans to underestimate the influence. The situation is not analogous to that which the advocates of ‘fonetik speling’ are trying to create. On the practical side, the advantages proffered by the proponents of change in our orthography are offset by the losses which such a change would involve, and the sentimental argument is all against the change. It is significant that the proposal gets its best hearing, not in England, but in America, where there is a large unassimilated foreign element, to whom the history and traditions of our language suggest little of value. In Japan, however, the practical arguments in favor of the adoption of the Roman alphabet are exceedingly strong, sentiment is enlisted on both sides, and delay is due to the vastness of the change suggested rather than to any weakness in the arguments by which it is urged. The changes urged by our ’fonetik’ brethren are insignificant by comparison; and if we have not adopted them, it is principally because there is no prevailing reason why we should do so. Our whole controversy with them relates to a proposed different use of our present alphabet in writing what is — practically — the spoken language; while the movement in Japan is directed to the introduction of an entirely new system of writing, which will involve the scrapping of a large portion of her ancient literature and a tremendous change in the psychological bias of her people.

Nevertheless, without underestimating the tremendous difficulties that lie in the way, we cannot doubt that the nation which, without changing its written language, superimposed upon it, a thousand years ago, the fully developed ideogram of a then foreign civilization, is fully capable of adopting the phonetic symbols of a civilization into which it has already largely entered, for the purpose of making its ancient and proper tongue the language of its literature. It will be seen from what has just been written, that sentiment is enlisted in favor of the change as well as against it, and that it may yet be the mission of some native Petrarch or Chaucer to be the father of a genuinely Japanese literature.

As if in retaliation for this claim for a division in the field of sentimental argument, the laudatores temporis acti sometimes urge considerations which are supposed to indicate that there are great practical advantages to be derived from the retention of the ideogram. Two of these are of a national, and, to some extent, an international character.

(1) It is urged that the retention of the ideogram proves an effectual barrier against foreign intrusion into the Japanese mind. This is quite true; and as the ideogram makes it more difficult for a European to learn Japanese than for the Japanese to acquire any European language, it is, more often than not, the Japanese who has the advantage of being bilingual. This is the principal practical advantage to be derived from the ideogram; and as it comes to be seen that the gains that accrue from mystery are more than offset by the losses that arise from being forever misunderstood, this argument must, gradually, lose its force. A failure to be intelligible often results in unmerited loss of confidence, and this condition can be only enhanced where unintelligibility is cultivated.

(2) The sinophiles make much of the advantages to be derived, by those who are at home in the ideogram, in dealing with China. This argument has really less value than the one just mentioned. On the commercial side, Japan will always have the advantage over European and American competitors of proximity to China, and, for a long time to come, she will probably possess that of cheaper labor as well.1 If Japan, without any further advantage, cannot turn these circumstances to good account, she may well despair of achieving greatness as a commercial power. In both commercial and political matters it is clear that the advantages to be gained from identity of written language are mutual. In point of fact, Japan, as contrasted with European and American powers, might have some difficulty in pointing to any diplomatic achievement in which superior knowledge of the ideogram has been a decisive or even an important factor. Proximity, plus military strength, has proved to be Japan’s main and most obvious asset in dealings which concern Eastern Asia.

II

Japan’s most remarkable diplomatic sucesses have been scored in her dealings with European and American nations. This may be due in very small part to the fact that the use of the ideogram makes it much more difficult for the European agent to keep himself en rapport with Japanese matters than it is for the Japanese to familiarize himself with Occidental conditions. It may also be due partly to the fact that Japan would naturally employ her greatest diplomatic talent in dealing with those nations whose power makes diplomatic approach the wisest way of dealing with them. But in the main it is due to the fact that Japan had the most to gain by this intercourse, and hence gave foreign affairs a relatively important place in her governmental organization, and to the sympathetic interest with which foreign nations, and especially America, have welcomed her to the company of nations and have encouraged her efforts at modernization — a factor which will naturally tend to disappear as these efforts approach success.

In addition to these two supposed advantages of a national or international character, there are reasons that may tend to make the retention of the character desirable to certain classes or interests within the Japanese social structure. This is, however, less true of Japan than of China. In ancient China it was inevitable that illiteracy should be widespread. Where the bare ability to read depends upon the acquisition of several thousand arbitrary symbols, and where the attainment of any degree of versatility calls for a knowledge of several thousand more, it is obvious that either a readiness to make great sacrifices, by the side of which those made by our self-educated poor men shrink into insignificance, or a leisure secured by a certain degree of wealth or position, is absolutely necessary for those desirous of becoming litterati. From such an achievement the vast majority of the men, and practically all of the women, are inevitably debarred. Since, in such a society, means is the principal avenue to learning, and learning, in turn, is a means of enrichment, a literary aristocracy, such as has been the bane of China, is developed as a matter of course. Further, in countries where, as in China, the current philosophies draw little or no distinction between intellect and spirit, it often comes to be denied that the illiterate classes possess ‘immortal souls.’ That a missionary should labor for the ‘salvation’ of such persons becomes an occasion of amused contempt.

Japan, however, had begun to frame her social order before the introduction of the Chinese system of writing. The social influence of the ideogram was, therefore, modified in several important directions. I mention two.

(1) Leisure is required for the acquirement of the ideogram. But, at the time of the introduction of Chinese letters, Japan had already a warrior class of good social standing, the archetypal samurai, who could, in times of peace, command considerable leisure. Hence (though even in Japan the greatest conventional elegance in writing was generally confined to a small and effeminate court nobility surrounding the cloistered Mikado at Kyoto) letters were mastered by those who thought at least as highly of martial virtues as of literary graces. This broadened the avenues to promotion and prevented the enervation of all the upper classes.

(2) At a very early period, perhaps as much as twelve hundred years ago (the invention of Syllabary, known as Katakana, has been attributed to Kibinomabi, who is said to have died in A.D. 776), before contempt for those lacking the opportunity to acquire letters had had time to harden into a convention or to receive quasi-religious sanction, persons with singularly liberal and democratic ideals had developed a syllabary of about fifty symbols, covering the whole phonetic range of the Japanese spoken language. Not only did this extend to all those possessing sufficient ambition to expend the very modest effort necessary, — the power to indite words, — but it also served to create a desire for further acquirements in the breasts of those who might not otherwise have entertained it, or to whom leisure for learning did not come until comparatively late in life. 4 Women, coolies, and ignorant persons’ were to have their equal chance, so far as circumstances allowed. Thus it is not so revolutionary, or, to such an extent as many people imagine, the result of a modern importation of Occidental ideas, that the elementary schools offer their advantages to the children of all classes alike. It is nearer the truth to say that Western educational methods owe at least a part of their popularity to the fact that they enable the Japanese to realize ideals proper to their own ancient way of thinking, which the influence of Chinese civilization never quite succeeded in obliterating.

The progress made by Japan in the field of modern popular education is almost as creditable as that achieved in the department of arms; and as, in the latter case, we plainly see that success has followed upon the use of modern methods in the expression of ancient aspirations, so it is legitimate to suppose that the operation of similar factors has brought success in secular education. Indeed, I have been told that education is the only large public service which is not, in one way or another, mulcted in the militaristic interest. How true this may be, I have no conclusive means of judging; but in a country whose every peaceful activity is seriously affected by the upkeep, through heavy direct and indirect taxation, of a powerful navy and of a standing army larger than the peace establishments of nations ten times as rich, the remarkable spread of education is at once a sign of the value which is attached to letters, and a pledge of the sincerity of the expressed desire that all may have an opportunity to share in such benefits as are to be derived from purely secular education.

III

It will appear from what has been said that circumstances have prevented the ideogram from developing in Japan, to the same extent as in China, a social structure capped by an effeminate literary aristocracy. Its social effect is, nevertheless, detrimental.

In spite of the assistance afforded by a liberal educational policy, elegant Chinese cannot be understood — much less appreciated — by the elementary-school graduate, however naturally bright. The graduate of even the middle school cannot, as a rule, write a letter which the litteratus will accept as correct in style. Self-education, such as many a high-school graduate in America can acquire, is well-nigh impossible in Japan. One result of this is an overcrowding of the higher institutions by students of mediocre ability.

The acquirement of a sufficient number of characters to pursue general, not to mention professional and technical, studies takes so long, that young men are often unable to enter upon their careers at a reasonably early age; though this is sometimes achieved by sacrificing versatility in the interest of a very narrow specialization.

Education is itself affected by the fact that the earlier years of schooling are so largely taken up with memorizing and copying out the ideogram. It is a commonplace that, in ideographic lands, progress is the result of imitation and adaptation rather than of initiative. While this may serve well enough in the applied arts and sciences, — such, for instance, as those employed in war, — it is a serious handicap in higher philosophical study. Many a graduate of the Imperial Universities can (and does) quote German philosophers with great accuracy and at length; but the number of those who are at home in a discussion about philosophy, is immensely smaller. Perhaps it will be enough to close this paragraph by reminding the reader that while Japanese soldiers and medical men have achieved international fame, this has been far less the case in law, and that Japanese journalism is distinctly behind the times.

The circumstances recited above interfere, in the case of women, with an advance in culture after marriage, such as is within the reach of American high-school graduates. In Japan marriage everywhere puts a stop to female attendance at school; whereas the male student is sometimes a married man. In some cases, professional life is assumed to have been entered upon before study is completed, and salaries are provided, as in the case of our military and naval cadets. Again, an eldest son, particularly if he be an only son (and delicate), may be encouraged to marry early and thus perpetuate the family line. Or, a promising student may be induced by the offer of support during his professional education to enter, as a son-in-law, some family which has no sons. More than one professional man, who was a younger son in his former or original house, owes his vocational education to an arrangement of this sort.

Although the ideogram is so imbedded in the Japanese civilization that it must be many years before it can be finally abandoned, I have no hesitation in predicting that it will gradually give place to a phonetic system, and that that system will be the alphabet in common use among us.

The principal advantages that will accrue to Japan will be (1) unification of her own language; (2) the shortening of the period required for learning to read and write, and consequent opportunities to acquire versatility and to develop powers of originality and invention, now impeded; (3) the bringing of all learning more nearly within the reach of all, thus introducing a democracy at least of learning (such as the mediæval Church made the earliest of European democracies); (4) the introduction of foreign words — scientific and technical terms, and so forth — into their original form; (5) making the language much easier for foreigners to acquire, while at the same time allowing Japanese to devote to the study of foreign languages much of the time that must now be devoted to acquiring their own; thus opening the way to a sympathetic understanding, which will be increasingly advantageous to Japan as her world-interests continue to broaden.

A people with so little it need conceal will not long attach much weight to arguments that rest only upon the supposed advantages of crypticism.