Kanji
Kanji (漢字; literally characters from Han China) are Chinese characters used in Japanese. Kanji are one of the three character sets used in the Japanese writing system (the other two being hiragana and katakana).This article focuses on the features that are unique to kanji. See Chinese character for the common features with Chinese characters used in Korea and Chinese languages.
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2 Reading 3 Orthographic Reform and Kanji 4 Miscellaneous 5 Gaiji 6 Related topics 7 References 8 External links |
There is some disagreement about the beginning of Chinese character use in Japan, but it is generally accepted that Buddhist monks brought Chinese texts back to Japan in about the 5th century, and these were read in the Chinese language. Over time, a system known as kanbun (漢文) emerged: this used diacritical marks to allow Japanese speakers to read Chinese texts in accordance with the rules of Japanese grammar.
Japanese itself had no written form. Eventually a writing system called manyogana (used in the Manyoshu) evolved that used a limited set of kanji for their phonetic value alone, not for their semantic value, which was necessary for writing Japanese poetry. Manyogana written in highly cursive style became hiragana, a writing system that was accessible to women (who were denied higher education). Major works of Heian-era literature by women were written in hiragana. Katakana emerged via a parallel path: monastery students simplified manyogana to a single constituent element.
As the Japanese system of writing matured and expanded, the Japanese developed unique ways of using kanji. Kanji began to be used to write certain parts of speech, such as nouns, adjectives and verbs, while kana were used to write verb endings, uniquely Japanese words, and foreign words (this usage developed much later; originally foreign words were all written phonetically using kanji).
While some kanji and Chinese hanzi are mutually readable, many more are not. In addition to characters that have different meanings in Japanese, and characters that have identical meanings but are written differently, there are also characters peculiar to Japanese known as kokuji (国字 literally "national characters"). Kokuji are also known as wasei kanji (和製漢字, lit. "Chinese characters made in Japan"). There are hundreds of kokuji, and although some are rarely used, many others have become important additions to the written Japanese language. These include:
History
In addition to kokuji, there are kanji that have been given meanings in Japanese different than their original Chinese meanings. These kanji are not considered kokuji but are instead called kokkun (国訓) and include characters such as:
The same kanji character could have two types of characters 旧字体 (kyū-jitai; lit. old character) and 新字体 (shin-jitai; new character). Kyojitai was used before the end of World War II but after the war, the government introduced new simplified characters, shinjitai. New characters are little similar to simplified characters used in the Republic of China but are essentially different things.
As well, there are characters that are not used in Japanese, and also characters that are only used phonetically in Japanese (当て字 ateji).
A kanji character may have several (in rare cases ten or more) possible pronunciations, depending on context, compounds, meaning and location in the sentence). Those pronunciations are categorized as either onyomi or kunyomi.
Kun-yomi (訓読み) is the reading of a word that originates from Japanese prior to the introduction of Kanji characters (and their Chinese readings) from China.
For instance the word east (東) is pronounced "tō" in onyomi (the Chinese reading). Japanese always had a word for the concept of east and it is pronounced "higashi" or sometimes "azuma". Therefore the Kanji character has had the "higashi" and "azuma" pronunciations grafted onto it.
In this style the Japanese language gains the benefits of the Chinese written language but retains its original Japanese words.
The Kunyomi reading system is characterized by its balanced consonant-vowel structure (similar to that of Spanish). This contrasts with onyomi, where two vowels frequently follow each other, causing a longer sound.
Kunyomi is mostly used to read single kanji, either as complete nouns or as adjective and verb stems.
On-yomi (音読み) is the Japanese approximation of the original Chinese pronunciation of a Kanji character.
When the Japanese language was infused with the Kanji character system it also gained many Chinese words for concepts that either didn't exist or could not be articulated as elegantly.
Along with this character set came the pronunciation for the characters. Onyomi is characterized by its use of a single syllable for each character, and its prevalence in compound words. For instance the Japanese words for east (東) and north (北) are pronounced "higashi" and "kita" respectively (in kunyomi), and when used by themselves are always pronounced as such. However, the word for northeast is pronounced with the onyomi "tō-hoku" (東北), as it is a compound word.
The onyomi reading is used for most compound words, as well as many place names, for example, Tokyo (東京). Most Japanese personal names are read as kunyomi.
Kanji also have a third, lesser-known reading called nanori reading, mostly used for people's names.
A kanji will often have its pronunciation for the given context spelled out in ruby characters known as "furigana," which are small hiragana written above the character (those printed to the side are called kumimoji). This is especially true in texts for children or foreign learners and manga, or for characters not included in the essential kanji set (see below), or for rare or unusual characters or readings.
Most kanji have at least one on-reading and one kun-reading each. There are exceptions to these rules. Many kanji have no kun-reading and a few have no on-reading. Some use kun-readings, not on-readings, to make compounds. Rarely, a word will consist of one character used in onyomi form and another in kunyomi--these are known as "jūbako" (重箱) words ("jūbako" is itself an example of a jūbako word).
Often a kanji will be used for the root of a verb, with the conjugation written in hiragana (in this usage the extra hiragana are called okurigana). When kanji characters are not followed by hiragana they are often grouped in twos and are pronounced in the on reading. The word "kanji"(漢字) is a perfect example of this. Its pronunciation is derived from the Chinese word "hanzi".
In 1946, following World War II, the Japanese government instituted a series of orthographic reforms.
Some characters were given simplified glyphs, called 新字体 (shinjitai).
The number of characters in circulation was reduced, and formal lists of characters to be learned during each grade of school were established. Many variant forms of characters and obscure alternatives for common characters were officially discouraged. This was done with the goal of facilitating learning for children and simplifying kanji use in literature and periodicals. These are simply guildlines, so many characters outside these standards are still widely known and used commonly.
In 1946 the Japanese government, seeking to, created a list of 1850 "general use kanji" (tōyō kanji 当用漢字). This list of kanji was expanded to 1945 characters in 1981 and called the jōyō kanji (常用漢字).
ideographic iteration mark (々) is used to indicate a plural meaning (pronounced as though the kanji was written twice in a row).
The Japanese government provides the Kanji kentei (日本漢字能力検定試験 Nihon kanji nōryoku kentei shiken or Test of Japanese Kanji Aptitude) which tests the ability to read and write kanji. The highest level of the Kanji kentei tests the ability to read and write 6000 kanji.
Gaiji (外字), also known as "external characters," are rare kanji that are not represented in existing Japanese encoding systems. These include variant forms of common kanji that need to be represented alongside the more conventional glyph, and can include non-kanji symbols as well.
Gaiji can be either user-defined characters or system-specific characters. Both are a problem for information interchange, as the code-point used to represent an external character will not be consistent from one computer to another (in the former case) or from one operating system to another (in the latter).
Gaiji were nominally prohibited in JIS X 0208-1997, and JIS X 0213-2000 actually used the range of code-points previously allocated to gaiji, making them completely unusable. Nevertheless, they persist today with NTT DoCoMo's "iMode" service, where they are used for pictorial characters
Unicode allows for something similar to gaiji with the private-use area
Reading
Orthographic Reform and Kanji
Miscellaneous
Gaiji
Related topics
References
External links