Is this something japanese people can actually read?

21 comments

1. It’s probably like how some people need a couple passes to read cursive.

2. I feel like that there comes a point in calligraphy where the words themselves don’t matter, rather the overall shape of the letter and the brushstrokes.

   Then again I’msure there people out there who can read it if a pharmacist can read a doctors handwriting lol

3. I imagine it’s legible to some people and illegible to others

4. I can make out a few characters and I’m shit at Japan-go. So I think there are people who can read it.

5. i can’t read too many of them but i haven’t practiced reading gyosho

   try /r/translator

6. When you’re a native who have been used that writing system all your life it’s somewhat easy to distinguish some of them

   I can only guess that the first line reads 「すみません」and 「オロチ」on the second line and some other moras but I don’t recognize a word in them

   ***

   Edit.: now reading your update about sosho and hentai-gana I’m proud that I guessed some hentai-gana correctly but I completely failed to read some kanjis there.

   It’s natural that even natives need some sort of previous training to read cursive kana and kanji so as we need training to read latin alphabet cursive.
   Now I’m really interested in learning how to write it lol

7. Yes, I’m pretty sure they can. One thing that tripped me up was watching my Japanese teacher type out Kanji on an old Windows XP system, it looked very and blocky and weird due to the limited pixels… but my Japanese classmates were able to read it no problem lol

8. Similarly with English people reading cursive handwriting letters from the 1700. I don’t think everyone can do it

9. No, I don’t think so. People can guess in *sosho* form eventually. But you need to learn and be trained to read [hentaigana](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hentaigana) (variant).

   Sometimes *hentaigana* could have a completely different form from the usual hiragana.

   I once have tried to learn to read them, so still can decipher some of them. You’d be surprised to know the last line of this letter probablly read: 此處にてしす也

10. You also learn to read “old” writing and calligraphy in school. But I’m sure some people are better than others at it

11. I asked my partner (native) and she had no clue.

12. looks like arabic

13. My very rough guess (writing hentaigana as kanji with hiragana equivalent in () brackets and using usual furigana for the proper kanji):

    [此](#fg “こ”)能(の)[場所](#fg “ばしょ”)越(を)

    [将軍](#fg “しょうぐん”)オロチ度(と)の = 殿

    [従容](#fg “しょうよう”)志(し)尓(に)川(つ)記(き) = 死に就き

    [此處](#fg “ここ”)耳(に)師(し)春(す)[也](#fg “なり”) = 死すなり

14. Probably yes and no. This kind of stylized calligraphy is fairly common on (for example) the name placards outside of restaurants. I asked my Japanese coworkers about this once when we went out at a restaurant like this, and they said something like “I couldn’t read this if I didn’t already know what it said, but since I already knew the restaurant name, I can tell these are the kanji for the right restaurant.”

15. I showed this to my fiancé who is Japanese – he couldn’t read it, so I assume only people with specific knowledge of calligraphy and the language written back then would be able to decipher it

16. I’m only a beginner and I can recognize several hiragana in there I believe. So it wouldn’t surprise me at all that native Japanese speakers can read it.

17. showed to a japanese friend, she can’t read it.

18. Not necessarily. Calligraphy is a completely different skill that often needs to be learned separately. Especially with the younger generation many will not be able to read that.

19. I happened to be sitting by a Japanese coworker and showed him this. No, he couldn’t, except for オロチ in the third column.

    edit: autocorrect

20. First step: how to say hello in Japanese?
    Nihao👍🏻

21. Basically it’s a niche old calligraphy thing, [there is an APP that teaches you about it here.](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=yuta.hashimoto.kula&hl=en_US&gl=US) this is called Kuzushiji (くずし字), basically deformed characters.

    Edit: reading it again seems like it’s only Hentaigana, which is only Hiragana, Kuzushiji has Hiragana and cursive deformed Kanji.