Kanji
Kanji (
Japanese: ) are the
Chinese characters that are used in the modern
Japanese logographic writing system along with
hiragana (平仮名),
katakana (片仮名), and the
arabic numerals.
The
Japanese term
kanji (
漢字) literally means "
Han characters". There is some disagreement about how Chinese characters came to
Japan, but it is generally accepted that
Buddhist monks from the kingdom of
Baekje in
Korea brought Chinese
texts to the country during the
5th century. These texts were in the
Chinese language and would have been read as such at the time. Over time, however, a system known as
kanbun (漢文) emerged, essentially using Chinese text with
diacritical marks to allow Japanese speakers to read the characters in accordance with the rules of Japanese
grammar.
The Japanese language itself had no written form at the time. A writing system called
man'yōgana (used in the ancient poetry anthology
Man'yōshū) evolved that used a limited set of Chinese characters for their sound, rather than for their meaning.
|
The characters for Kanji, lit. "Han characters". |
Man'yōgana written in
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
man'yōgana to a single constituent element. Thus the two other writing systems, hiragana and katakana, referred to collectively as
kana, are actually descended from kanji.
In modern Japanese, kanji is used to write parts of the language such as
nouns,
adjective stems and
verb stems, while
hiragana is used to write
inflected verb and adjective endings (
okurigana),
particles, and words where the kanji is too difficult to read or remember.
Katakana is used for representing
onomatopoeia and
non-Japanese loanwords.
While kanji are essentially Chinese
hanzi used to write Japanese, there are now significant differences between kanji and hanzi, including the use of characters created in Japan, characters that have been given different meanings in Japanese, and post
WWII simplifications of the kanji.
Kokuji
Kokuji (国字; literally "national characters") are characters peculiar to Japan.
Kokuji are also known as
wasei kanji ('製漢字; lit. "Chinese characters made in Japan"). There are hundreds of
kokuji (see the ). Many are rarely used, but a number have become important additions to the written Japanese language. These include:
* 峠
tōge (
mountain pass)
* 榊
sakaki (
sakaki tree, genus
Camellia)
* 畑
hatake (field of crops)
* 辻
tsuji (crossroads, street)
* 働
dō,
hatara(ku) (work)
Kokkun
In addition to
kokuji, there are kanji that have been given meanings in Japanese different from their original Chinese meanings. These kanji are not considered
kokuji but are instead called
kokkun (国") and include characters such as:
* 沖
oki (offing, offshore; Ch.
chōng rinse)
* 森
mori (
forest; Ch.
s"n gloomy, majestic, luxuriant growth)
* 椿
tsubaki (
Camellia japonica; Ch.
chūn Ailantus)
Old characters and New Characters
The same kanji character can sometimes be written in two different ways, 旧字" (
Kyūjitai; lit. "old character style") (舊字" in Kyūjitai) and 新字" (
Shinjitai; "new character style"). The following are some examples of Kyūjitai followed by the corresponding Shinjitai:
* 國 国
kuni,
koku (country)
* 號 号
gō (number)
* 變 変
hen,
ka(waru) (change)
Kyūjitai were used before the end of
World War II, and are mostly, if not completely, the same as the
Traditional Chinese characters.
After the war the government introduced the simplified
Shinjitai in the "Tōyō Kanji Character Form List" (
Tōyō Kanji Jitai Hyō, ""漢字字"表). Some of the new characters are similar to
simplified characters used in the
People's Republic of China. Also, like the simplification process in China, some of the shinjitai were once abbreviated forms (略字,
Ryakuji) used in handwriting, but in contrast with the "proper" unsimplified characters (正字
seiji) were only acceptable in colloquial contexts.
This page shows examples of these handwritten abbreviations, identical to their modern Shinjitai forms, from the pre WWII era. There are also handwritten simplifications today that are significantly simpler than their standard forms (either untouched or received only minor simplification in the postwar reforms), examples of which can be seen here [
1], but despite their wide usage and popularity, they, like their prewar counterparts, are not considered socially acceptable and are only used in handwriting.
Many Chinese characters are not used in Japanese at all. Theoretically, however, any Chinese character can also be a Japanese character"the
Daikanwa Jiten, one of the largest dictionaries of kanji ever compiled, has about 50,000 entries, even though most of the entries have never been used in Japanese.
Because of the way they have been adopted into Japanese, a single kanji may be used to write one or more different words (or, in most cases,
morphemes). From the point of view of the reader, kanji are said to have one or more different "readings". Deciding which reading is meant will depend on context, intended meaning, use in compounds, and even location in the sentence. Some common kanji have ten or more possible readings. These readings are normally categorized as either
on'yomi (or
on) or
kun'yomi (or
kun).
On'yomi (Chinese reading)
The
on'yomi (音読み), the
Sino-Japanese reading, is a Japanese approximation of the Chinese pronunciation of the character at the time it was introduced. Some kanji were multiply introduced from different parts of China at different times, and so have multiple
on'yomi, and often multiple meanings.
Kanji invented in Japan would not normally be expected to have
on'yomi, but there are exceptions, such as the character 働 'to work', which has the kun'yomi
hataraku and the on'yomi
dō, and 腺 'gland', which has only the on'yomi
sen.
Generally,
on'yomi are classified into four types:
*
Go-on (呉音; literally
Wu sound) readings, from the pronunciation of the
Wu region (in the vicinity of modern
Shanghai), during the
5th and
6th centuries.
*
Kan-on (漢音; literally
Han sound) readings, from the pronunciation during the
Tang Dynasty in the
7th to
9th centuries, primarily from the standard speech of the capital,
Chang'an.
*
Tō-on ("音；literally
Tang sound) readings, from the pronunciations of later dynasties, such as the
Song and
Ming, covers all readings adopted from the
Heian era to the
Edo period*
Kan'yō-on (慣"音) readings, which are mistaken or changed readings of the kanji that have become accepted into the language.
Examples(rare readings in parentheses)
| Kanji | Meaning | Go-on | Kan-on | Tō-on | Kan'yō-on | | 明 | bright | myō | mei | (min) | - |
|---|
| 行 | go | gyō | kō | (an) | - |
|---|
| 極 | extreme | goku | kyoku | - | - |
|---|
| 珠 | pearl | shu | shu | ju | (zu) |
|---|
| 度 | degree | do | (to) | - | - |
|---|
| 輸 | transport | (shu) | (shu) | - | yu |
|---|
The most common form of readings is the
kan-on one. The
go-on readings are especially common in
Buddhist terminology such as
gokuraku 極楽 "paradise". The
tō-on readings occur in some words such as
isu "chair" or
futon.
In Chinese, most characters are associated with a single Chinese syllable. However, some homographs called 多音字 (duo1yin1zi4) such as 行 (Chinese: hang2, xing2) (Japanese:
kō,
gyō) have more than one reading in Chinese representing different meanings, which is reflected in the carryover to Japanese as well. Additionally
tonality aside, most Chinese syllables (especially in
Middle Chinese, in which final
stop consonants were more prevalent than in most modern dialects) did not fit the largely-CV (consonant-vowel)
phonotactics of classical Japanese. Thus most
on'yomi are composed of two
moras (syllables or beats), the second of which is either a lengthening of the vowel in the first mora (this being
i in the case of
e and
u in the case of
o, due to
linguistic drift in the centuries since), or one of the syllables
ku,
ki,
tsu,
chi, or syllabic
n, chosen for their approximation to the final consonants of Middle Chinese. In fact,
palatalized consonants before vowels other than i, as well as syllabic
n, were probably added to Japanese to better simulate Chinese; none of these features occur in words of native Japanese origin.
On'yomi primarily occur in multi-kanji compound words (熟語
jukugo), many of which are the result of the adoption (along with the kanji themselves) of Chinese words for concepts that either didn't exist in Japanese or could not be articulated as elegantly using native words. This borrowing process is often compared to the English borrowings from Latin and Norman French, since Chinese-borrowed terms are often more specialized, or considered to sound more erudite or formal, than their native counterparts. The major exception to this rule is
surnames, in which the native
kun'yomi reading is usually used (see below).
Kun'yomi (Japanese reading)
The
kun'yomi ("読み), Japanese reading, or
native reading, is a reading based on the pronunciation of a native Japanese word, or
yamatokotoba, that closely approximated the meaning of the Chinese character when it was introduced. Again, there can be multiple
kun readings for the same kanji, and some kanji have no
kun'yomi at all.
For instance, the kanji for
east, 東, has the
on reading
tō. However, Japanese already had two words for "east":
higashi and
azuma. Thus the kanji character 東 had the latter pronunciations added as
kun'yomi. However, the kanji 寸, denoting a Chinese unit of measurement (slightly over an inch), had no native Japanese equivalent; thus it only has an
on'yomi,
sun.
Kun'yomi are characterized by the strict (C)V syllable structure of
yamatokotoba. Most noun or adjective
kun'yomi are two to three syllables long, while verb
kun'yomi are more often one or two syllables in length (not counting trailing
hiragana called
okurigana, although those are usually considered part of the reading).
In a number of cases, multiple kanji were assigned to cover a single Japanese word. Typically when this occurs, the different kanji refer to specific shades of meaning. For instance, the word なおす,
naosu, when written 治す, means "to heal an illness or sickness". When written 直す it means "to fix or correct something" (e.g. a bicycle or a poorly written Wikipedia article). Sometimes the differences are very clear; other times they are quite subtle. Sometimes there are differences of opinion among reference works -- one dictionary may say the kanji are equivalent, while another dictionary may draw distinctions of use. Because of this confusion, Japanese people may have trouble knowing which kanji to use. One workaround is simply to write the word in hiragana, a method frequently employed with more complex cases such as もと
moto, which has at least five different kanji, 元, 基, 本, 下, 素, three of which have only very subtle differences.
Other readings
There are many kanji compounds that use a mixture of
on'yomi and
kun'yomi, known as
jūbako (重箱) or
yutō (湯桶) words. The words
jūbako and
yutō themselves are
autological examples: the first character of
jūbako is read using
on'yomi, the second
kun'yomi, while it is the other way around with
yutō. Other examples include 金色
kin'iro "golden" (
on-kun) and 合気"
aikidō "the martial art Aikido" (
kun-on-on).
Some kanji also have lesser-known readings called
nanori, which are mostly used for people's names (often
given names), and are generally closely related to the
kun'yomi. Place names sometimes also use
nanori (or, occasionally, unique readings not found elsewhere).
Gikun (義") are readings of kanji combinations that have no direct correspondence to the characters' individual
on'yomi or
kun'yomi, but are instead connected by the meaning of the written and spoken phrases. For example, the compound 一寸 might naïvely be read
issun, meaning "one
sun", but it is more often used to write the indivisible word
chotto, "a little".
Gikun also feature in some Japanese family names.
Many
ateji (kanji used only for their phonetic value) have meanings derived from their usage: for example, the now-archaic 亜細亜
ajia was formerly used to write "
Asia" in kanji; the character 亜 now means
Asia in such compounds as 東亜
tōa, "East Asia". From the written 亜米利加
amerika, the second character was taken, resulting in the semi-formal coinage 米国
beikoku, lit. "rice country" but meaning "
United States of America".
When to use which reading
Words for similar concepts, such as "east" (東), "north" (北) and "northeast" (東北), can have completely different pronunciations: the
kun readings
higashi and
kita are used for the first two, while the
on reading
tōhoku is used for the third.
The rule of thumb for determining the pronunciation of a particular kanji in a given context is that kanji occurring in compounds are generally read using
on'yomi. Such compounds are called
jukugo (熟語) in Japanese. For example, 情報
jōhō "information", 学校
gakkō "school", and 新幹線
shinkansen "bullet train" all follow this pattern.
Kanji occurring in isolation are typically read using their
kun'yomi. Together with their
okurigana, if any, they generally function either as a noun or as an inflected adjective or verb: e.g. 月
tsuki "moon", 情け
nasake "sympathy", 赤い
akai "red" (adj), 新しい
atarashii "new ", 見る
miru "(to) see".
This rule of thumb has many exceptions.
Kun'yomi are quite capable of forming compound words, although they are not as numerous as those with
on'yomi. Examples include 手紙
tegami "letter", 日傘
higasa "parasol", and the famous 神風
kamikaze "divine wind". Such compounds may also have okurigana, such as 空揚' (also written "揚')
karaage "fried food" and 折り紙
origami "artistic paper folding", although many of these can also be written with the okurigana omitted (e.g. 空揚 or 折紙).
On the other hand, some
on'yomi characters can also be used as words in isolation: 愛
ai "love", 禅
Zen, 点
ten "mark, dot". Most of these cases involve kanji that have no
kun'yomi, so there can be no confusion.
The situation with
on'yomi is further complicated by the fact that many kanji have more than one
on'yomi: witness 先"
sensei "teacher" versus 一"
isshō "one's whole life".
There are also some words that can be read multiple ways, similar to English words such as "live" or "read"
jōzu (skilled),
uwate (upper part), or
kamite (upper part). In addition, 上手い has the reading
umai (skilled).
Some famous place names, including those of
Tokyo (東京
Tōkyō) and
Japan itself (日本
Nihon or sometimes
Nippon) are read with
on'yomi; however, the majority of Japanese place names are read with
kun'yomi (e.g. 大阪
Ōsaka, '森
Aomori, 箱根
Hakone). Family names are also usually read with
kun'yomi (e.g., 山"
Yamada, "中
Tanaka, 鈴木
Suzuki). Personal names, although they are not typically considered
jūbako/
yutō, often contain mixtures of
kun'yomi,
on'yomi, and
nanori, and are generally only readable with some experience (e.g., 大助
Daisuke [
on-kun], 夏美
Natsumi [
kun-on]).
Pronunciation assistance
Because of the ambiguities involved, kanji sometimes have their pronunciation for the given context spelled out in
ruby characters known as
furigana (small
kana written above or to the right of the character) or
kumimoji (small
kana written in-line after the character). This is especially true in texts for children or foreign learners and
manga (comics). It is also used in
newspapers for rare or unusual readings and for characters not included in the officially recognized set of essential kanji (see below).
The number of possible characters is disputed. The "
Daikanwa Jiten" contains about 50,000 characters, and this was thought to be comprehensive, but more recent mainland Chinese dictionaries contain 80,000 or more characters, many consisting of obscure variants. Most of these are not in common use in either Japan or China.
In
1946, following
World War II, the Japanese government instituted a series of
orthographic reforms.Some characters were given simplified
glyphs, called 新字" (
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 guidelines, so many characters outside these standards are still widely known and commonly used.
Kyōiku kanji
Main article: Kyōiku kanji.
The Kyōiku kanji 教育漢字 ("education kanji") are 1006 characters that Japanese children learn in elementary school. The number was 881 until 1981. The grade-level breakdown of the education kanji is known as the Gakunen-betsu kanji haitōhyō 学年別漢字配"表), or the
gakushū kanji''.
Jōyō kanji
Main article: Jōyō kanji
The Jōyō kanji 常"漢字 are 1,945 characters consisting of all the kyōiku kanji, plus an additional 939 kanji taught in junior high and high school. In publishing, characters outside this category are often given
furigana. The Jōyō kanji were introduced in 1981. They replaced an older list of 1850 characters known as the General-use kanji (tōyō kanji'' ""漢字) introduced in 1946.
Jinmeiyō kanji
Main article: Jinmeiyō kanji
The
Jinmeiyō kanji 人名"漢字 are 2,928 characters consisting of the Jōyō kanji, plus an additional 983 kanji found in people's names. Over the years, the Minister of Justice has on several occasions added to this list. Sometimes the phrase
Jinmeiyō kanji refers to all 2928, and sometimes it only refers to the 983 that are only used for names.
Japanese Industrial Standards for kanji
The
Japanese Industrial Standards for kanji and kana define character code-points for each kanji and kana, as well as other forms of writing such as
Hindu-Arabic numerals, for use in information processing. They have had numerous revisions. The current standards are:
*
JIS X 0208:1997, the most recent version of the main standard. It has 6,355 kanji.
*
JIS X 0212:1990, a supplementary standard containing a further 5,801 kanji. This standard is rarely used, mainly because the common Shift JIS encoding system could not use it. This standard is effectively obsolete;
*
JIS X 0213:2000, a further revision which extended the JIS X 0208 set with 3,625 additional kanji, of which 2,741 were in JIS X 0212. The standard is in part designed to be compatible with Shift JIS encoding;
* JIS X 0221:1995, the Japanese version of the ISO 10646/
Unicode standard.
Gaiji
Gaiji (外字), literally meaning "external characters", are 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 in reference works, 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 or operating system to another.
Gaiji were nominally prohibited in JIS X 0208-1997, and JIS X 0213-2000 used the range of code-points previously allocated to
gaiji, making them completely unusable. Nevertheless, they persist today with
NTT DoCoMo's "
i-mode" service, where they are used for pictorial characters.
Unicode allows for optional encoding of
gaiji in
private use areas.
Main article: Chinese character classification
A Chinese scholar
Xu Shen (許慎), in the
Shuōwén Jiězì (說文解字) ca. 100 CE, classified Chinese characters into six categories (Japanese: 六書
rikusho). The traditional classification is still taught but is problematic and no longer the focus of modern lexicographic practice, as some categories are not clearly defined, nor are they mutually exclusive: the first four refer to structural composition, while the last two refer to usage.
(For a table of all the
kyōiku kanji (教育漢字) broken down by category see
this page, from which the above description has been extracted.)
Shōkei-moji (象形文字)
These characters are sketches of the object they represent. For example, 目 is an eye, 木 is a tree, etc. The current forms of the characters are very different from the original, and it is now hard to see the origin in many of these characters. It is somewhat easier to see in
seal script. This kind of character is often called a "
pictograph" in English (
Shōkei -- 象形 is also the Japanese word for Egyptian hieroglyphs). These make up a small fraction of modern characters.
Shiji-moji (指事文字)
Shiji-moji are called "
logograms", "simple
ideographs", "simple indicatives", and sometimes just "symbols" in English. They are usually graphically simple and represent an abstract concept such as a direction: e.g. 上 representing "up" or "above" and 下 representing "down" or "below". These make up a tiny fraction of modern characters.
Kaii-moji (会意文字)
Often called "compound indicatives", "associative compounds", "compound ideographs", or just "ideographs". These are usually a combination of pictographs that combine to present an overall meaning. An example is the
kokuji 峠 (mountain pass) made from 山 (mountain), 上 (up) and 下 (down). Another is 休 (rest) from 人 (person) and 木 (tree). These make up a tiny fraction of modern characters.
Keisei-moji (形声文字)
These are called "phono-semantic", "semantic-phonetic", "semasio-phonetic" or "phonetic-ideographic" characters in English. They are by far the largest category, making up about 90% of characters. Typically they are made up of two components, one of which indicates the meaning or semantic context, and the other the pronunciation. (The pronunciation really relates to the original Chinese, and may now only be distantly detectable in the modern Japanese
on'yomi of the kanji. The same is true of the semantic context, which may have changed over the centuries or in the transition from Chinese to Japanese.) As a result, it is a common error in folk etymology to fail to recognize a phono-semantic compound, typically instead inventing a compound-indicative explanation.
As examples of this, consider the kanji with the 言 shape: 語, 記, 訳, 説, etc. All are related to word/language/meaning. Similarly kanji with the 雨 (rain) shape (雲, 電, 雷, 雪, 霜, etc.) are almost invariably related to weather. Kanji with the 寺 (
temple) shape on the right (詩, 持, 時, 侍, etc.) usually have an
on'yomi of "shi" or "ji". Sometimes one can guess the meaning and/or reading simply from the components. However, exceptions do exist -- for example, neither 需 nor 霊 have anything to do with weather (at least in their modern usage), and 待 has an
on'yomi of "tai". That is, a component may play a semantic role in one compound, but a phonetic role in another.
Tenchū-moji (転注文字)
This group have variously been called "derivative characters", or "mutually explanatory" or "mutually synonymous" characters; this is the most problematic of the six categories, as it is vaguely defined. It may refer to kanji where the meaning or application has become extended. For example, 楽 is used for 'music' and 'comfort, ease', with different pronunciations in Chinese reflected in the two different
on'yomi,
gaku 'music' and
raku 'pleasure'.
Kasha-moji (仮借文字)
These are called "
phonetic loan characters." For example, 来 in ancient Chinese was originally a pictograph for 'wheat'. Its syllable was homophonous with the verb meaning 'to come' and the character is used for that verb as a result, without any embellishing "meaning" element attached.
The
ideographic iteration mark (々) is used to indicate that the preceding kanji is to be repeated, functioning similarly to a
ditto mark in English. It is pronounced as though the kanji were written twice in a row, for example 色々 (
iroiro "various") and 時々 (
tokidoki "sometimes"). This mark also appears in personal and place names, as in the
surname Sasaki (佐々木). This symbol is a simplified version of the kanji 仝.
Another frequently used symbol is ヶ (a small
katakana "ke"), pronounced "ka" when used to indicate quantity (such as 六ヶ月,
rokkagetsu "six months") or "ga" in place names like
Kasumigaseki (霞ヶ関). This symbol is a simplified version of the kanji 箇.
Kanji, whose thousands of symbols defy ordering by convention such as is used with the
Roman Alphabet, uses
radical-and-stroke sorting to order a list of Kanji words. In this system, common components of characters are identified; these are called
radicals in Chinese and logographic systems derived from Chinese, such as Kanji.
Characters are then grouped by their primary radical, then ordered by number of pen strokes within radicals. When there is no obvious radical or more than one radical, convention governs which is used for collation. For example, the Chinese character for "mother" (媽) is sorted as a thirteen-stroke character under the three-stroke primary radical (女).
Main article: Kanji Kentei
The Japanese government provides the
Kanji kentei (日本漢字能力検定試"
Nihon kanji nōryoku kentei shiken; "Test of Japanese Kanji Aptitude") which tests the ability to read and write kanji. The highest level of the
Kanji kentei tests about 6000 kanji.
This list will be continually updated with their phonetics, as well as their meanings and additional kanji:
一二三人日四"六七八九十月曜火水木金土本山目見行来方東西上下中大小刀分切手口入出川外言貝寺時売買主持夫"力車読者林明士自子女"年先学"竹筆書文立事物仕化工天白心史百千万代交左右母父校毎古今
* DeFrancis, John (1990).
The Chinese Language: Fact and Fantasy. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press. ISBN 0824810686.
* Hannas, William. C. (1997).
Asia's Orthographic Dilemma. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press. ISBN 082481892X (paperback); ISBN 0824818423 (hardcover).
* Kaiser, Stephen (1991). Introduction to the Japanese Writing System. In
Kodansha's Compact Kanji Guide. Tokyo: Kondansha International. ISBN 4-7700-1553-4.
* Mitamura, Joyce Yumi and Mitamura, Yasuko Kosaka (1997).
Let's Learn Kanji. Tokyo: Kondansha International. ISBN 4-7700-2068-6.
* Unger, J. Marshall (1996).
Literacy and Script Reform in Occupation Japan: Reading Between the Lines. ISBN 0195101669
*
Sino-Japanese*
Chinese character*
Learning kanji*
List of kanji by concept*
List of kanji by stroke count*
Japanese typefaces (
Shotai)
*
Four-character idiom*
Han unification*
Stroke order*
Japanese Calligraphy Japanese dictionary
*
Dictionary of Kokuji in Japanese
*
Learn Japanese Kanji How to write Kanji in Japanese
*
Change in Script Usage in Japanese: A Longitudinal Study of Japanese Government White Papers on Labor, discussion paper by Takako Tomoda in the
Electronic Journal of Contemporary Japanese Studies,
19 August 2005.
*
Jim Breen's WWWJDIC server used to find Kanji from English or romanized Japanese
*
Kanji alive, an interactive tool for learning Kanji
*
Japanese Kanji Dictionary Each character is presented by a grade, stroke count,
stroke order, phonetic reading and native Japanese reading. You can also listen to the pronunciation.
*
Drill the kanji, Java flashcards (Asahi-net)
*
Kanji flashcards, learn the Kanji with these simple online flashcards
*
Kanji to hiragana converter
