Controlling the Kanjisphere: The Rise of the Sino-Japanese Typewriter and the Birth of CJK

Abstract

Japan has been home to two distinct approaches to typewriting, the first oriented exclusively towards the typing ofkanaand the second oriented towardskanji. In look and feel, this first family of machines was indistinguishable from those built by Remington, Underwood, or Olivetti. The second, however, was indistinguishable from typewriters already being produced in China: tray bed machines featuring approximately 2,500 of the most commonly used characters. In part because of this Janus-faced approach to the typewriter, Japanese companies succeeded in penetrating the Chinese information technology market where Western manufacturers had failed, making inroads as early as the 1920s. With the expansion of empire-building in 1931, and the outbreak of war in 1937, Japan came to dominate the entire Chinese typewriter market. In giving rise to the Japanese-built Chinese typewriter, this historic period also gave shape to what is now understood within information technology circles as CJK: the distinct Chinese-Japanese-Korean technolinguistic zone.