Is it possible to write Japanese in pure Kanji?


Is it possible to write Japanese in pure Kanji?

I think I have seen in one TV news show in Osaka that they are showing
snippets of newspaper written in all Kanji.




### Is it possible to write Japanese in pure Kanji?

Yes.

This is mostly historical, however, such as the
[_Man'yōshū_](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man%27y%C5%8Dsh%C5%AB) poetry
collection dating to roughly 759. The University of Virginia has [published
this online](http://jti.lib.virginia.edu/japanese/manyoshu/AnoMany.html) in
all-kanji Old Japanese, as well as modernized orthography (spelling), and
kana-only for clarification of the sound values.

As others have noted, modern Japanese makes extensive use of kana as a
required element to specify particles, the inflected endings of verbs and
adjectives, and other elements of the language.

### ... snippets of newspaper written in all Kanji

Newspapers are a special context. Space is a premium, so shorter forms are
preferred, especially in headlines and captions. This kind of "headline-ese"
is a weird version of Japanese, leaving out most particles and inflections.
Grammatically, most headlines are parseable as noun stacks.

In a brief search, I couldn't find any headlines that were _only_ in kanji,
but the following examples come close.

  * [名古屋城木造化、名古屋市副市長「１０月の許可厳しい」](https://www.asahi.com/articles/ASL9T2W9XL9POIPE00Y.html?iref=comtop_list_cul_n04)
  * [安倍政権銘柄の持続力 人材・建設に思惑先行](https://www.nikkei.com/article/DGXMZO35777830W8A920C1EN1000/)

If you think about it, "headline-ese" is weird in any language: English
newspapers use a similar kind of special grammar for headlines to tighten
things up. Examples:

  * [Montgomery College’s Takoma Park campus lifts lockdown](https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/public-safety/montgomery-county-takoma-park-is-on-lockdown/2018/09/26/9e10b18e-c18d-11e8-a1f0-a4051b6ad114_story.html?utm_term=.2eb86799bf78)
  * [Uber drivers suing for better pay lose critical ruling](https://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2018/09/25/uber-drivers-suing-for-better-pay-lose-critical-ruling/9qjHCbQgVlCxVG1pko8yTO/story.html)

That said, if you saw whole newspaper articles written without kana, then no,
that would have been Chinese, not Japanese.




### Is it possible to write Japanese in pure Kanji?

Yes.

This is mostly historical, however, such as the
[_Man'yōshū_](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man%27y%C5%8Dsh%C5%AB) poetry
collection dating to roughly 759. The University of Virginia has [published
this online](http://jti.lib.virginia.edu/japanese/manyoshu/AnoMany.html) in
all-kanji Old Japanese, as well as modernized orthography (spelling), and
kana-only for clarification of the sound values.

As others have noted, modern Japanese makes extensive use of kana as a
required element to specify particles, the inflected endings of verbs and
adjectives, and other elements of the language.

### ... snippets of newspaper written in all Kanji

Newspapers are a special context. Space is a premium, so shorter forms are
preferred, especially in headlines and captions. This kind of "headline-ese"
is a weird version of Japanese, leaving out most particles and inflections.
Grammatically, most headlines are parseable as noun stacks.

In a brief search, I couldn't find any headlines that were _only_ in kanji,
but the following examples come close.

  * [名古屋城木造化、名古屋市副市長「１０月の許可厳しい」](https://www.asahi.com/articles/ASL9T2W9XL9POIPE00Y.html?iref=comtop_list_cul_n04)
  * [安倍政権銘柄の持続力 人材・建設に思惑先行](https://www.nikkei.com/article/DGXMZO35777830W8A920C1EN1000/)

If you think about it, "headline-ese" is weird in any language: English
newspapers use a similar kind of special grammar for headlines to tighten
things up. Examples:

  * [Montgomery College’s Takoma Park campus lifts lockdown](https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/public-safety/montgomery-county-takoma-park-is-on-lockdown/2018/09/26/9e10b18e-c18d-11e8-a1f0-a4051b6ad114_story.html?utm_term=.2eb86799bf78)
  * [Uber drivers suing for better pay lose critical ruling](https://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2018/09/25/uber-drivers-suing-for-better-pay-lose-critical-ruling/9qjHCbQgVlCxVG1pko8yTO/story.html)

That said, if you saw whole newspaper articles written without kana, then no,
that would have been Chinese, not Japanese.

