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Why is signage in Japan mostly written in Kana when discussing food stalls? (feddit.online)
submitted 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) by to c/asklemmy@lemmy.world
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Like, they could've just said 蕎麦屋 rather than そば屋 if that restaurant is selling dishes involving soba noodles for example. I've seen うなぎ more often when there's a Kanji for it (鰻) but decide to transcribe it using Kana, same with supermarkets or stores on them writing たまねぎ (玉葱), にんじん (人参), りんご (林檎), まぐろ (鮪). Also stalls that sell takoyaki often write it as たこ焼き (they've could used the Kanji for たこ which is 蛸).

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[–] 42 points 2 days ago (8 children)

As a relative beginner, I think it's funny that you say "they could’ve just said 蕎麦屋 rather than そば屋", since I can actually read the latter, but not the former. And my guess is that's why they write in kana; to be easier for people who don't know all their kanji.

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  • [–] 24 points 2 days ago (5 children)

    There's even a scene in the Yakuza games where some characters go to a fancy restaurant and the menus are all in kanji. One of them admits he can't read the menu and the rest of them say they're having a hard time too. The owner then says it's common and that maybe he should update the menus to include kana to get with the times.

    I figured this must be at least a somewhat common experience if the devs decided to include a scene like that.

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  • [–] 3 points 2 days ago (4 children)

    Wonder if that means, that Kanji are slowly fading from public use as language tends to get simpler over time. Definitely would make learning easier

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  • [–] 7 points 2 days ago

    I'm Greek not Japanese, but even in Greece there's basically "high Greek" and "normal Greek" now. It's common even for natives to not understand the formal words because nobody uses them outside of poetry and politics. They're still in the dictionary though

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  • [–] [S] 3 points 2 days ago* (2 children)

    Kanji abolition has been attempted once, but lead towards failure since the consensus is that it should remain due to that being around for more than a millennia & ingrained in Japanese culture.

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