The word processor can be described as either the savior of the Japanese language or its curse. It's a savior in that it simplifies the process of making documents in written Japanese, which incorporates two separate syllabaries of 48 letters each and up to 50,000 Chinese characters. It's a curse because the "wa-pro' "s ease-of-use has rendered young people incapable of remembering how to write Chinese characters.
The Japanese word processor was once considered a pipe dream. This week's installment of NHK's "Project X" (NHK-G, Tuesday, 9:15 p.m.) profiles the group of young Toshiba engineers who, in the 1970s and '80s, created Japan's first word processor.
Convenience wasn't the only impetus. In the 1960s, as Japan's economy boomed and intercompany transactions increased, more contracts were needed. In the West, where they only used 26 letters, a typist could quickly draw up a contract, but in Japan "typists" were such a rare commodity considering the time needed to compose a document in Japanese, that the cost of making contracts was more than three times what it was in the West.