Home > Policy > White Paper, Notice, Announcement > White Paper > JAPANESE GOVERNMENT POLICIES IN EDUCATION, SCIENCE AND CULTURE 1993 > CHAPTER 2 �5 1 (2)

The National Language Council has been established within the Agency for Cultural Affairs as an organization to deliberate matters concerning the Japanese language, consisting of experienced scholars and specialists who are representative of different fields. National language policy is carried out based on the serious, impartial deliberations of the National Language Council, which relies on the high level knowledge and expertise of its members.

In 1966, the National Language Council was asked to consider matters regarding "Specific Policies for Improvement of Language Policy" in order to reexamine national language policies that had been carried out after World War II. such as the "Table of Chinese Characters Designated for Everyday Use (Toyo Kanji Table)", "Contemporary Kana Usage" and "Usage of Declensional Kana Endings". The Council reexamined these language policies that had been enacted soon after the war to consider how they might be improved, as various defects came to light during the course of their execution. The following problems were pointed out i there was a tendency to add more declensional kana endings (okuri-gana) than necessary and the system of Chinese characters designated for everyday use (toyo kanji) was too restrictive in that it excluded characters that were necessary for practical use, as well as necessary characters and pronunciations (note: when used in the Japanese language, a Chinese character normally has two or more possible pronunciations). The Council agreed to reexamine these matters and has been gradually implementing improvements as shown in Table I 2 3.

The present "Usage of Declensional Kana Endings" (1973), the "Chinese Characters in Common Use Table" (1981), "Contemporary Kana Usage"(1986) and the "Orthographic Rendering of Foreign Words" (1991) are defined as being applicable "for general use in society. such as in legal and official documents, newspapers, magazines, broadcasting and the like" and "are not to extend to the areas of science, technology, art or any other specialized field or individual style of writing". In contrast to the former restrictive standardized rules, the current guidelines are much more flexible, and are presented as a "yardstick" or a "reference guide" to writing.

Table l-2-3 Major National Enforcement Language Council Reports and Their Enforcement