3 - Language and national identity: evolving views

Summary

In this chapter, we will examine earlier overt ideological connections between language and identity and engage in more speculative theorizing about what the more recent variations might be. During Japan's modern period the language (often confused with the writing system) has functioned as a marker of shifting cultural identity. Contrasting views on how the language should develop sparked heated and often bitter debate during the twentieth century as the evolving demands of history placed a new importance on the role of language in modernization and in Japan's interface with the world. I will discuss the major views put forward on the role of Japan's language in the construction of a particular cultural identity relative to the circumstances of the time, up to and including the present.

Personal and national identity in a modernizing Japan

To go back to the very beginning of Japan's modern period in 1868, the language practices then in use would have clearly identified someone in terms of class and location. As we saw in Chapter One, the pre-modern division of Japan into multiple closed-off domains meant a highly segmented society and a complicated network of regional dialects. Dialectal variations could be extreme: the dialects of Kagoshima in the south and Sendai in the north-east, for example, were mutually unintelligible (Hattori 1960: 733). None of the dialects, even that of Kyoto or Edo, was officially designated as the standard language; that would not happen until 1916, although in practice these functioned as lingua franca for those able to travel.