Recently, I was given a copy of _Complete Course of Japanese Conversation-
Grammar_ by Oreste and Enko Elisa Vaccari. As it dates back to 1967, I was
expecting at least a few things to be a bit old-fashioned – which is not to
say that I, as a beginner, would really notice when they are – but I am
enjoying it so far. I like the way the authors set the lessons out, and, at
least to my mind, they explain the rules and features of the language in a
very clear and readable manner.

Even so, I have a query regarding a passage from one of the earlier lessons.
Just need some additional information, really. The authors say:

> The **nominative** case is generally indicated by the particle **wa** ハ
> (postposition) placed after the subjective word. As a rule, the syllable ハ
> is pronounced **ha** , but when indicating the nominative, it is pronounced
> **wa** as in the English word _waft_.

In all the Japanese learning resources I have read up to now, I have only
encountered は as the wa-particle. Given the age of this book, am I right in
thinking that writing は is a modern convention? Are there still some
circumstances in which the katakana form is preferred?
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2018-02-19T01:26:14.553
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question
particles particle-は orthography
Is writing the "wa particle" as は a modern convention?
this is some relevant information currently available on the wikipedia page
for katakana:

* * *

Pre-World War II official documents mix katakana and kanji in the same way
that hiragana and kanji are mixed in modern Japanese texts, that is, katakana
were used for okurigana and particles such as wa or o.

Katakana were also used for telegrams in Japan before 1988, and for computer
systems – before the introduction of multibyte characters – in the 1980s. Most
computers in that era used katakana instead of kanji or hiragana for output.

* * *

... I realize there is a possibility that the wikipedia article is maintained
by some of the same people who frequent this website. Hope I'm not stepping on
anyone's toes referencing Wikipedia this way.
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2018-04-15T12:28:11.767
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2018-04-15T12:28:11.767
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answer
No, it's not a modern convention.

Hiragana has been in common use for over a thousand years. For example, "Genji
Monogatari" was written in hiragana.

What has changed is that Japanese has been increasingly standardised. See the
Meiji restoration and the end of World War 2 as being events that prompted
moves for standardisation.

Before these events, the Japanese language was much more diverse than what it
became in the subsequent decades.
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answer