2860: A Confusing Surrender Oct 19, 2024

Diglossia—a situation that occurs when two languages exist within one community—is not that rare. Usually there is a higher and lower register, such as around Europe with Latin, Classical Arabic or even today Standard Arabic in the Middle East and North Africa, that were used as formal or official languages but not used by the common person day to day. 

This kind of academic-only bilingualism was on display when the Empire of Japan surrendered to the Allied Forces in WWII, despite the fact that the cultural practice of using an older, more formal version of Japanese had been on its way out already a century before this. Emperor Hirohito made an announcement broadcast on national television and radio in a form of Medieval Japanese that—while not completely unintelligible—would have been unfamiliar and difficult to understand for the typical Japanese citizen. Adding to the confusion, he never used any terms of surrender, only referring to the “conditions of the Potsdam agreement”. This meant that radio announcers had to separately clarify that Japan had surrendered.