I came across 当て字 in my N1 vocabulary list, and while I think I understand
what it is from the definition "kanji used as a phonetic symbol, rather than
for its meaning", I'm not sure what the point of that is--there's already
hiragana and katagana to do that.

What is the purpose or purposes of 当て字?
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2014-01-09T02:47:01.403
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2021-11-25T13:06:05.577
2015-06-15T15:03:02.950
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question
orthography ateji
Why would one use 当て字?
According to wikipedia,

> 日本語においては、漢字とかなの混用によって語の切れ目を表示するため、かつては借用語を含め自立語は全て漢字表記する傾向があった

I.e. if they are written in hira-kana/kata-kana, it would be difficult to
discern where the word starts/ends. Nowadays however, kata-kana has taken over
this function. 当て字 are still useful though as they are more compact than the
kata-kana counterpart. Newspapers tend to prefer 当て字 for this reason; e.g. USA
is referred to as 米 instead of the more lengthy form アメリカ
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2014-02-25T13:06:47.813
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answer