The warning from NHK is considered odd by some because it used hiragana instead of kanji. (Image via SoraNews24)

NHK's typhoon warning reaps controversy, hiragana over kanji

Alfonsus Adi Putra
Social & Life
Weather
Oct 11, 2019
2350
As Japan is anticipating the typhoon 19, dubbed as Typhoon Hagibis, Japan Meteorological Agency, and Japan’s national broadcaster, Nippon Hoso Kyokai (NHK), had circulated warning for both Japanese residents and visitors for the typhoon.

Typhoon Hagibis came on Thursday morning with 270km/h wind speed, causing temporal service halts and even cancellations of rugby matches of the 2019 Rugby World Cup. Currently, Japan is hosting the 2019 Rugby World Cup.

However, from all the warnings, NHK’s warning caught people’s attention. On its official Twitter account, NHK gave a warning for foreigners visiting Japan. The warning did not consist of a single kanji, but it was written with hiragana alone.

At the end of the warning, NHK also gave links to the “News Web Easy”, an NHK-owned website containing various news with a mixture of kanji and hiragana. What makes it easy? Above the kanji, there are kana (smaller hiragana) inscriptions, making it easier to understand.

Senior journalist at NHK, Taguchi Hiro, said that the hiragana warning was more effective than kanji-containing ones.

The tweet said that all foreigners should be careful of the big, strong typhoon no. 19 is approaching West to North Japan from 12 to 13 October.

Naturally, there is nothing wrong with the message, except the fact that it does not contain a single kanji like an ordinary Japanese text. For some Japanese, they considered the warning as “dumbing” the Japanese language. Japanese people never only write in hiragana, but incorporating some kanjis into it.

Meanwhile, foreigners also showed mixed feelings. Some foreigners replied to the tweet by bashing NHK for not releasing warnings on other languages.

However, some foreigners defended NHK, stating that not all foreigners speak English; thus, the warning was quite helpful, instead of the kanji-containing warnings. NHK emphasized at the beginning of the warning that the hiragana was meant for the “foreigners”. Some foreigners also hailed NHK’s warning’s simplicity for the Japanese with the difficulty of learning kanji.

Source: https://bit.ly/2MA1lvB

Weather , Language , Asia , Japan , Typhoon-Hagibis , NHK