Why Has Japanese Changed So Much?

A natural question to ask regarding my Arrowsmith project: Why is the 1924 original version still generally accessible to English speaking readers while the 1941 Japanese translation is much less accessible to modern Japanese readers?

Although there are also other forces at play, the answer lies largely in the way, and speed at which, Chinese characters have been simplified in Japan, and also in how usage of the characters has been regularized in recent years.

Simplified characters are also used in China; often the same or similar forms are used in Japan.Taiwan, however, tends to stick with older forms.

In some cases, one can look at an old character and see enough similarity with the modern version that, especially using contextual clues, it's fairly easy to decipher. Other cases are more difficult.

This character means body: 体. Not only is this important in a medical novel, but the character itself is used in quite a number of compounds, making it a very common character in general. The form of this character found in Arrowsmith is 體. This took a little getting used to.

The character that means meet, however, is a little easier to decipher. Modern: 会. Older: 會. Here's the character meaning country (USA, Japan, China): 国 versus 國. This one's a little easier not only because of the similarity, but because one still sees the older form in Japanese, with some regularity.

In Japanese it's not just the characters themselves, but how they're used, to form compounds, for instance. Japanese also uses non-Chinese-character syllabaries - characters that denote sounds but no meanings. A few of these have also fallen into disuse, while there have also been changes in the way others are used.

A few of these differences here and there are pretty manageable. But too many of them taken together and the reading becomes a little too much work to be readily enjoyable.

While modernizing the characters and usages is somewhat more straightforward, one area that I haven't figured out is how large a vocabulary to assume. Even in modern forms, the Arrowsmith translation uses a more sophisticated vocabulary than one typically sees in a novel. 

The Chinese characters do help in this regard: the meanings of each constituent character can be used to decipher what a compound must mean. 

In my current draft, I'm using any compound that's considered to be in current use in Japanese. Before I'm finished, however, I'll probably seek some editorial advice. It might been that reading enjoyment would still be enhanced by backing the level down a notch or two.