Re: 日本語はないほうがいい - 鰤端末鉄野菜 Brittys Wake

While I prefer my mother tongue Japanese to English, the blogger I hereafter would like to reply expresses his profound inclination toward English (as quoted above, in the title of his entry, the blogger proclaims "It's better we don't have Japanese"), so just for courtesy, although reluctantly by myself, I'm writing this entry in English.

id:gettoblaster says:

http://d.hatena.ne.jp/filinion/20090214/1234584728
にある「日本語は不要なのでやめて英語を公用語にすべき」と言う話ですが、僕も大賛成です。
日本語はないほうがいい - gettoblasterの日記

理由１：日本語は習得が難しすぎる。日本語やめれば他の事を勉強できる。
話して聞くだけなら日本語も英語も習得にそんなに大きな差はないと思いますが、読み書きでは大きな差があります。
[omitted]
日本人の子供が漢字覚えている間に、インドの子供は２ケタの九九憶えてるみたいだけど、日本語を捨て英語に移行することによって浮いた時間を数学に回したり、プログラム言語の教育に回したりすれば、全体的な学力は高まると思う。広東語圏の中国人とかあれだけの漢字覚えてたら他の勉強できるんだろうか？

Although complexity of Japanese writing system is our accepted wisdom, respectfully I disagree on his argument at three points:

1. English writing system is not so simple as assumed.
As this blogger referred in supposition, as I recall correctly, there is no difference of difficulties of first language acquaintance among languages according to modern linguistics. Then writing system of English, which the blogger seems to consider as simple, is it really as simple as stated? I here disagree. English spelling rules have many exceptions which cause kids in English-speaking countries a headache for getting literacy. Even in adulthood bad spellings are not rare, specially among illiterate people (or immigrants, ESLers...). Shortly learning English writing system doesn't look so easy as claimed.

2. Indian people don't receive monolingual education, which seems to be assumed by the blogger. His argument in comparison of Indian education with Japanese one therefore loses its basis.

Instead my several Indian friends said to me that they had received education in their mother tongue mainly, in particular in primary and secondary schools. There mother tongues are not necessarily Hindi despite of Japanese readership assumption: it could be Malati, Gujarati or Kannada. Or some other. Some of Indian people has been educated in English in universities, but it doesn't mean their educational environmental is anglocentric monolingual; they've learnt several languages instead: their mother tongue, Hindi, English and frequently Sanskrit as classics. If the blogger assumes Indian educational system is monolingual, it would be a misunderstanding.

Omission of Japanese from educational system in Japan for which he longs as a remedy for Japanese better future, may weaken linguistic ability of its people and may reduce its strength from diversity: from imperfect bilingual (Japanese and English) to imperfect monolingual (English as a second language). It doesn't appear a good idea to me. At least it is not what happens in India as our blogger assumes.

3. A digression on Kantonese: also pointless assumption
Also the notion of Kantonese-speakers' education of this blogger appears to me twisted and is not based on facts. The blogger wonders: 「広東語圏の中国人とかあれだけの漢字覚えてたら他の勉強できるんだろうか？」- it looks pointless to me. Hong Kong University enjoys her global notability and limited in Asia she is considered as the second best (the first is now the University of Tokyo).

Also Hong Kong is still a multilingual region even after retrieved by and nationalized to Mainland China. English-using education is still available (some of faculty staff at Hong Kong University give their lectures in English I heard), and more importantly they live a doubled life between writing and speaking. While Kantonese is their mother tongue and widely spoken, schools provide children Mandarin (Putonhua) education, that is, their spoken language and written one are greatly different. They are one of developed countries and an economic center in East Asia, in more complicated linguistic reality than Japan. Their linguistic complexity seems not to hurt.

Thus concluded: while the blogger gives another argument about productivity of Japanese speakers, but I expect my argument on the above is enough to reject his argument and points out its contradiction. He seems to envy India whose linguistic reality is more complicated and diverse than Japanese one. On the other hand he proposes simplification of linguistic reality in Japan, which he may think were possible to accomplish to sweep away Japanese language from official and public life in Japan. It seems so illogical that we need no further discussion.

ところで上の英文はきっと英語のできる方からすると結構痛い間違いが多いと思うんですが（経験則。なので typo などありましたら随時訂正していきます）、こんなんでもコミュニケーションに支障をそうは来たさないものです*1。メールでもそうですし、口頭でもそうです。というわけで、こんなの俺だって書けると勇気をもってくださる方がいると、わたくしもあんまり好きでない英語など*2書いた甲斐があるというものです。