There's an interesting article on Changes in the Japanese Language in the NY Times, discussing such trends as cellphone fiction, the effects of computers on the use of kanji etc
They did 2 things after the war - simplified the Kanji (like Taiwan) and reduced the "official set" to around 2500. Add another 1000 slang, common extensions and names, and that is what carried forward.
Use of complex Kanjii has vastly increased in both Japan and China since computer input, and better quality screens & printers
And even I have seen "Loan words" change in the brief time I studied from the "foreign phonetic" spelling to the "Japanese phonetic" alphabets.
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They did 2 things after the war - simplified the Kanji (like Taiwan) and reduced the "official set" to around 2500. Add another 1000 slang, common extensions and names, and that is what carried forward.
Use of complex Kanjii has vastly increased in both Japan and China since computer input, and better quality screens & printers
And even I have seen "Loan words" change in the brief time I studied from the "foreign phonetic" spelling to the "Japanese phonetic" alphabets.
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