JJapanese

Has the Japanese language changed that much since WW2?

I asked a Japanese guy ( in his forties maybe?) if he spoke Japanese like Admiral Yamamoto. He said he didn’t and he also said that Japanese language has evolved so much since that time. I find it hard to believe that and here I am asking this on Reddit.

4 comments

  1. Back in 2004 or so, my grandmother recorded a message to my Japanese professor and my professor laughed and said she should be in a museum. She left during the occupation and only went back two or three times. She hated going back because she was mocked for how she spoke.

    The changes are *significant*… You have to also consider the dramatic changes that occurred after the war, culturally. The widespread embrace of American culture (by choice and force), the writing reforms (for better or worse), and the “Japanese Miracle” that lead to intense urbanisation and technological advancement.

  2. I don’t know why you find this hard to believe. English has changed considerably since World War II. Why wouldn’t Japanese? all languages are constantly changing.

  3. I’m pretty sure after ww2 Japanese adopted many American and european concepts found in the English lexicon, for example words like identity and such. I might be wrong though

  4. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_script_reform

    About the script reforms in Japanese. You’ll notice a few of the dates relate directly to WW2 (before and after). Not necessarily related to spoken language but nevertheless interesting to read about.

    Also Japanese adopted a lot of new loan words from European languages during the last few decades, a lot of which are used on a daily basis while their “native” alternative is considered “old-fashioned”/”literary” and not used often in spoken language.

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