ABSTRACT
THERE can be little doubt that the Japanese intend to make their language the dominant and, in time, the only language spoken, written and understood throughout the length and breadth of East Asia. Japan’s leaders have emphatically said so themselves and have stressed that they mean to lose no time over the job. Fantastic as such a scheme may beHitlerism, for instance, has never attempted anything like it in Europe, where the ethnical position is much less complex-and Impossible as its execution must and will remain, its immediate bearing on the whole pattern of Japanese political warfare is obvious. It is its common language that primarily holds a people together. Deprived of it, it is in great danger of disintegration. Compulsion to adopt a new language means, in the long run, compulsion to adopt a new way of thinking, Language is the primary vehicle of all propaganda. If the language war can be won, the larger issue of the thought war cannot for long remain in doubt.
