Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2014 June 12

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June 12

人間宣言 (Language used in Humanity Declaration)

According to the Humanity Declaration article, the declaration was written in archaic Japanese, which presumably was substantially different from the way the man on the street would write. Meanwhile, I understand from English in Japan that virtually everyone in Japan has at least a little exposure to English, and presumably many people have a bit better exposure than that. With these factors in mind, if you find the man on the street in Japan, and you give him the original version and an English translation of the declaration, which will he find easier to read? Nyttend (talk) 23:42, 12 June 2014 (UTC)

The most striking feature of English in Japan for me is the contrast between the large number of hours most Japanese children have spent studying English in classrooms vs. their ability to actually conduct a conversation in English (which is typically rather minimal -- except for a few who are strongly self-motivated to do much more than what is required in the classroom, or who have had personal exposure to an English-speaking environment outside the classroom). So I'm not sure I would have great confidence in the English proficiency level of random Japanese encountered on the street... AnonMoos (talk) 09:54, 13 June 2014 (UTC)

Japanese learn archaic Japanese at school. It is still used now, in public documents. KägeTorä - (^影_虎) (Chin Wag) 17:17, 13 June 2014 (UTC)

I figured that the average guy on the street would have somewhat less difficulty reading an English text than conducting a conversation; after a few Spanish classes, I know that I can muddle my way through a text, but I don't dare attempt to speak it. I had no clue that archaic Japanese had been studied since 1945, except by specialists. Now I'd like to understand its relationship to contemporary language in comparable English terms. Is (this kind of archaic) versus contemporary comparable to (standard 1769 English) versus contemporary English, or (1611 English) versus contemporary, or Middle English versus contemporary? Pretty much any native speaker of English can understand the 1769 King James Version, it's not too hard to muddle through the original 1611 text, and it's not too hard to get the gist of Caxton's Malory or "Pearl" although good understanding requires ME study. Nyttend (talk) 22:42, 13 June 2014 (UTC)

I am from the UK, but went to school in Japan, and I had to learn archaic Japanese. It's part of the curriculum. And when I became a teacher there, I had to teach it. It's not something you would have a conversation in, but at least you could read public documents. That's all it's for now. Plus, archaic Japanese is not so different from modern Japanese as ME is from modern English. It has the same writing system. It's easier to read than King James (which incidentally is just gibberish to me, not being a Christian). KägeTorä - (^影_虎) (Chin Wag) 10:32, 14 June 2014 (UTC)

I added an English title. StuRat (talk) 23:05, 13 June 2014 (UTC)