Why do you think the Japanese were willing to accept the difficulty of writing with Chinese characters?

1 Answer
Nov 6, 2016

It was the only game in town.

Explanation:

Actual, original, from scratch (literally) writing systems are few: "Guns, Germs and Steel" by Jared Diamond describes the process in more detail. People once they caught on to the idea of writing they were more than happy to adopt a pre-existing one. Mesopotamia, China and Meso-America were original sources of unique writing spontaneously occurring written language

There are cases of people learning of the idea of written language and developing their own but often people learned a language and transported it to a new location adapting it to local needs. Actual literate people were relatively few so a small number of people or individuals could have a large influence. Orthodox Priests developed the Russia language using a alphabet adapted from middle eastern sources to fit the Russian spoken language.