Classical Japanese language

The classical Japanese language (文語 bungo, "literary language"), also called "old writing" (古文 kobun), is the literary form of the Japanese language that was the standard until the early Shōwa period (1926–89). It is based on Early Middle Japanese, the language as spoken during the Heian period (794–1185), but exhibits some later influences. Its use started to decline during the late Meiji period (1868–1912) when novelists started writing their works in the spoken form. Eventually, the spoken style came into widespread use, including in major newspapers, but many official documents were still written in the old style. After the end of World War II because of the surrender of Japan, most documents switched to the spoken style, although the classical style continues to be used in traditional genres, such as haiku and waka. Old laws are also left in the classical style unless fully revised.

Classical Japanese is written in an orthography that differs from modern Japanese in two major ways. These are the usage of old character forms (旧字体 Kyūjitai) and historical kana usage (歴史的仮名遣 Rekishi-teki kana-zukai).

Old character forms are the forms of Chinese characters (漢字 Kanji) used in Japan prior to the post-World War II spelling reforms in that country. The modern, simplified characters are called new character forms (新字体 Shinjitai).

A few examples follow, with the old characters on the left and the new characters on the right (pronunciations are the most common Japanese pronunciation of the character in isolation, and translations are glosses for that pronunciation):

體 → 体 (karada "body")
舊 → 旧 (kyū "old times")

當 → 当 (tō- "this-")
與 → 与 (ata-eru "give something")

變 → 変 (hen "strange")
靜 → 静 (sizuka "peaceful")

爲 → 為 (tame "reason")
眞 → 真 (makoto "truth")

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