| Kanji | |
| Sample: | Kanji furigana.svg |
| Type: | Logographic |
| Caption: | Kanji written in kanji with |
| Languages: | Old Japanese,, Japanese, Ryukyuan languages, Hachijō |
| Time: | 5th century AD – present |
| Fam1: | Oracle bone script |
| Fam2: | Seal script |
| Fam3: | Clerical script |
| Fam4: | Regular script |
| Sisters: | Hanja, zhuyin, traditional Chinese, simplified Chinese, chữ Hán, chữ Nôm, Khitan script, Jurchen script, Tangut script, Yi script |
| Iso15924: | Hani |
are the logographic Chinese characters adapted from the Chinese script used in the writing of Japanese.[1] They were made a major part of the Japanese writing system during the time of Old Japanese and are still used, along with the subsequently-derived syllabic scripts of and .[2] [3] The characters have Japanese pronunciations; most have two, with one based on the Chinese sound. A few characters were invented in Japan by constructing character components derived from other Chinese characters. After the Meiji Restoration, Japan made its own efforts to simplify the characters, now known as, by a process similar to China's simplification efforts, with the intention to increase literacy among the common folk. Since the 1920s, the Japanese government has published character lists periodically to help direct the education of its citizenry through the myriad Chinese characters that exist. There are nearly 3,000 kanji used in Japanese names and in common communication.
The term in Japanese literally means "Han characters".[4] It is written in Japanese by using the same characters as in traditional Chinese, and both refer to the character writing system known in Chinese as .[5] The significant use of Chinese characters in Japan first began to take hold around the 5th century AD and has since had a profound influence in shaping Japanese culture, language, literature, history, and records. Inkstone artifacts at archaeological sites dating back to the earlier Yayoi period were also found to contain Chinese characters.[6]
Although some characters, as used in Japanese and Chinese, have similar meanings and pronunciations, others have meanings or pronunciations that are unique to one language or the other. For example, means 'honest' in both languages but is pronounced or in Japanese, and in Standard Mandarin Chinese. Individual kanji characters and multi-kanji words invented in Japan from Chinese morphemes have been borrowed into Chinese, Korean, and Vietnamese in recent times. These are known as Wasei-kango, or Japanese-made Chinese words. For example, the word for telephone, in Japanese, was derived from the Chinese words for "electric" and "conversation." It was then calqued as in Mandarin Chinese, Vietnamese: điện thoại in Vietnamese and Korean: 전화 in Korean.[7]
Chinese characters first came to Japan on official seals, letters, swords, coins, mirrors, and other decorative items imported from China.[8] The earliest known instance of such an import was the King of Na gold seal given by Emperor Guangwu of Han to a Wa emissary in 57 AD.[9] Chinese coins as well as inkstones from the first century AD have also been found in Yayoi period archaeological sites. [6] However, the Japanese people of that era probably had little to no comprehension of the script, and they would remain relatively illiterate until the fifth century AD, when writing in Japan became more widespread. According to the and, a semi-legendary scholar called Wani was dispatched to Japan by the (Korean) Kingdom of Baekje during the reign of Emperor Ōjin in the early fifth century, bringing with him knowledge of Confucianism and Chinese characters.
The earliest Japanese documents were probably written by bilingual Chinese or Korean officials employed at the Yamato court. For example, the diplomatic correspondence from King Bu of Wa to Emperor Shun of Liu Song in 478 AD has been praised for its skillful use of allusion. Later, groups of people called were organized under the monarch to read and write Classical Chinese. During the reign of Empress Suiko (593–628), the Yamato court began sending full-scale diplomatic missions to China, which resulted in a large increase in Chinese literacy at the Japanese court.
In ancient times, paper was so rare that people wrote kanji onto thin, rectangular strips of wood, called . These wooden boards were used for communication between government offices, tags for goods transported between various countries, and the practice of writing. The oldest written kanji in Japan discovered so far were written in ink on wood as a wooden strip dated to the 7th century, a record of trading for cloth and salt.
The Japanese language had no written form at the time Chinese characters were introduced, and texts were written and read only in Chinese. Later, during the Heian period (794–1185), a system known as emerged, which involved using Chinese text with diacritical marks to allow Japanese speakers to read Chinese sentences and restructure them into Japanese on the fly, by changing word order and adding particles and verb endings, in accordance with the rules of Japanese grammar. This was essentially a kind of codified sight translation.
Chinese characters also came to be used to write texts in the vernacular Japanese language, resulting in the modern syllabaries. Around 650 AD, a writing system called (used in the ancient poetry anthology) evolved that used a number of Chinese characters for their sound, rather than for their meaning. written in cursive style evolved into (literally "fluttering " in reference to the motion of the brush during cursive writing), or, that is, "ladies' hand",[10] a writing system that was accessible to women (who were denied higher education). Major works of Heian-era literature by women were written in . (literally "partial ", in reference to the practice of using a part of a kanji character) emerged via a parallel path: monastery students simplified to a single constituent element. Thus the two other writing systems, and, referred to collectively as, are descended from kanji. In contrast with (literally "borrowed name", in reference to the character being "borrowed" as a label for its sound), kanji are also called (literally "true name", in reference to the character being used as a label for its meaning).
In modern Japanese, kanji are used to write certain words or parts of words (usually content words such as nouns, adjective stems, and verb stems), while are used to write inflected verb and adjective endings, phonetic complements to disambiguate readings, particles, and miscellaneous words which have no kanji or whose kanji are considered obscure or too difficult to read or remember. are mostly used for representing onomatopoeia, non-Japanese loanwords (except those borrowed from ancient Chinese), the names of plants and animals (with exceptions), and for emphasis on certain words.
See main article: Japanese script reform.
Since ancient times, there has been a strong opinion in Japan that kanji is the orthodox form of writing, but there were also people who argued against it.[11] Kamo no Mabuchi, a scholar of the Edo period, criticized the large number of characters in kanji. He also appreciated the small number of characters in characters and argued for the limitation of kanji.
After the Meiji Restoration and as Japan entered an era of active exchange with foreign countries, the need for script reform in Japan began to be called for. Some scholars argued for the abolition of kanji and the writing of Japanese using only or Latin characters. However, these views were not so widespread.
However, the need to limit the number of kanji characters was understood, and in May 1923, the Japanese government announced 1,962 kanji characters for regular use. In 1940, the Japanese Army decided on the which limited the number of kanji that could be used for weapons names to 1,235. In 1942, the National Language Council announced the with a total of 2,528 characters, showing the standard for kanji used by ministries and agencies and in general society.[12]
In 1946, after World War II and under the Allied Occupation of Japan, the Japanese government, guided by the Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers, instituted a series of orthographic reforms, to help children learn and to simplify kanji use in literature and periodicals.
The number of characters in circulation was reduced, and formal lists of characters to be learned during each grade of school were established.Some characters were given simplified glyphs, called . Many variant forms of characters and obscure alternatives for common characters were officially discouraged.
These are simply guidelines, so many characters outside these standards are still widely known and commonly used; these are known as .
See main article: Kyōiku kanji. The are the 1,026 first kanji characters that Japanese children learn in elementary school, from first grade to sixth grade. The grade-level breakdown is known as the, or the . This list of kanji is maintained by the Japanese Ministry of Education and prescribes which kanji characters and which kanji readings students should learn for each grade.
See main article: Jōyō kanji. The are 2,136 characters consisting of all the kanji, plus 1,110 additional kanji taught in junior high and high school.[13] In publishing, characters outside this category are often given . The kanji were introduced in 1981, replacing an older list of 1,850 characters known as the, introduced in 1946. Originally numbering 1,945 characters, the kanji list was expanded to 2,136 in 2010. Some of the new characters were previously kanji; some are used to write prefecture names:,,,,,,,,, and .
See main article: Jinmeiyō kanji. As of September 25, 2017, the consists of 863 characters. Kanji on this list are mostly used in people's names and some are traditional variants of kanji. There were only 92 kanji in the original list published in 1952, but new additions have been made frequently. Sometimes the term kanji refers to all 2,999 kanji from both the and lists combined.
See main article: Hyōgai kanji. are any kanji not contained in the kanji and kanji lists. These are generally written using traditional characters, but extended forms exist.
The Japanese Industrial Standards for kanji and define character code-points for each kanji and, as well as other forms of writing such as the Latin alphabet, Cyrillic script, Greek alphabet, Arabic numerals, etc. for use in information processing. They have had numerous revisions. The current standards are:
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.
can be either user-defined characters, system-specific characters or third-party add-on products.[17] 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.
were nominally prohibited in JIS X 0208-1997 where the available number of code-points was reduced to only 940.[18] JIS X 0213-2000 used the entire range of code-points previously allocated to, making them completely unusable. Most desktop and mobile systems have moved to Unicode negating the need for for most users. Nevertheless, they persist today in Japan's three major mobile phone information portals, where they are used for emoji (pictorial characters).
Unicode allows for optional encoding of in private use areas, while Adobe's SING (Smart INdependent Glyphlets)[19] [20] technology allows the creation of customized gaiji.
The Text Encoding Initiative uses a (g) element to encode any non-standard character or glyph, including gaiji.[21] (The g stands for .)[22]
There is no definitive count of kanji characters, just as there is none of Chinese characters generally. The, which is considered to be comprehensive in Japan, contains about 50,000 characters. The, published in 1994 in China, contains about 85,000 characters, but the majority of them are not in common use in any country, and many are obscure variants or archaic forms.[23] [24] [25]
A list of 2,136 kanji is regarded as necessary for functional literacy in Japanese. Approximately a thousand more characters are commonly used and readily understood by the majority in Japan and a few thousand more find occasional use, particularly in specialized fields of study but those may be obscure to most out of context. A total of 13,108 characters can be encoded in various Japanese Industrial Standards for kanji.
| Borrowing typology of Han characters | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Meaning | Pronunciation | ||
| a) semantic | L1 | L1 | |
| b) semantic | L1 | L2 | |
| c) phonetic | — | L1 | |
| d) phonetic | — | L2 | |
| |||
Individual kanji may be used to write one or more different words or morphemes, leading to different pronunciations or "readings." The correct reading is determined by contextual cues (such as whether the character represents part of a compound word versus an independent word), the exact intended meaning of the word, and its position within the sentence. For example, Japanese: 今日 is mostly read, meaning "today", but in formal writing it is instead read, meaning "nowadays", which is understood from context. is used to specify ambiguous readings, such as rare, literary, or otherwise non-standard readings. This ambiguity may arise due to more than one reading becoming activated in the brain.[27]
Kanji readings are categorized as either, from Chinese, or, native Japanese, and most characters have at least two readings—at least one of each.
However, some characters have only a single reading, such as or ; -only are common for Japanese-coined kanji .
Some common kanji have ten or more possible readings; the most complex common example is Japanese: [[Okurigana#生|生]], which is read as,,,,,,,,,,, and, totaling eight basic readings (the first two are, while the rest are), or 12 if related verbs are counted as distinct.
See main article: On'yomi. The, the Sino-Japanese reading, is the modern descendant of the Japanese approximation of the base Chinese pronunciation of the character at the time it was introduced. It was often previously referred to as translation reading, as it was recreated readings of the Chinese pronunciation but was not the Chinese pronunciation or reading itself, similar to the English pronunciation of Latin loanwords. There also exist kanji created by the Japanese and given an reading despite not being a Chinese-derived or a Chinese-originating character. Some kanji were introduced from different parts of China at different times, and so have multiple, and often multiple meanings. Kanji invented in Japan would not normally be expected to have, but there are exceptions, such as the character "to work", which has the "" and the "", and "gland", which has only the ""—in both cases these come from the of the phonetic component, respectively "" and "".
See main article: Kun'yomi. The, the native reading, is a reading based on the pronunciation of a native Japanese word, or, that closely approximated the meaning of the Chinese character when it was introduced. As with, there can be multiple for the same kanji, and some kanji have no at all.
See main article: Ateji. are characters used only for their sounds. In this case, pronunciation is still based on a standard reading, or used only for meaning (broadly a form of, narrowly). Therefore, only the full compound—not the individual character—has a reading. There are also special cases where the reading is completely different, often based on a historical or traditional reading.
The analogous phenomenon occurs to a much lesser degree in Chinese varieties, where there are literary and colloquial readings of Chinese characters—borrowed readings and native readings. In Chinese these borrowed readings and native readings are etymologically related, since they are between Chinese varieties (which are related), not from Chinese to Japanese (which are not related). They thus form doublets and are generally similar, analogous to different, reflecting different stages of Chinese borrowings into Japanese.
Longer readings exist for non- characters and non-kanji symbols, where a long gairaigo word may be the reading (this is classed as —see single character gairaigo, below)—the character has the seven reading Japanese: センチメートル "centimeter", though it is generally written as "cm" (with two half-width characters, so occupying one space); another common example is '%' (the percent sign), which has the five kana reading Japanese: パーセント .
There are many kanji compounds that use a mixture of and, known as or words (depending on the order), which are themselves examples of this kind of compound (they are autological words): the first character of is read using, the second (Japanese: 重箱読み). It is the other way around with (Japanese: 湯桶読み).
Formally, these are referred to as and . In both these words, the has a long vowel; long vowels in Japanese generally are derived from sound changes common to loans from Chinese, hence distinctive of . These are the Japanese form of hybrid words. Other examples include, and .
often use mixed readings. For instance, the city of Sapporo (Japanese: サッポロ), whose name derives from the Ainu language and has no meaning in Japanese, is written with the compound Japanese: 札幌||重箱読み (which includes as if it were a purely compound).
and are readings of kanji combinations that have no direct correspondence to the characters' individual or . From the point of view of the character, rather than the word, this is known as a, and these are listed in kanji dictionaries under the entry for the character.
are other readings assigned to a character instead of its standard readings. An example is reading Japanese: [[:wikt:寒#Japanese|寒]] (meaning "cold") as ("winter") rather than the standard readings or, and instead of the usual spelling for of Japanese: [[:wikt:冬#Japanese|冬]]. Another example is using Japanese: [[:wikt:煙草#Japanese|煙草]] (lit. "smoke grass") with the reading ("tobacco") rather than the otherwise-expected readings of or . Some of these, such as for, have become lexicalized, but in many cases this kind of use is typically non-standard and employed in specific contexts by individual writers. Aided with, could be used to convey complex literary or poetic effect (especially if the readings contradict the kanji), or clarification if the referent may not be obvious.
are when the standard kanji for a word are related to the meaning, but not the sound. The word is pronounced as a whole, not corresponding to sounds of individual kanji. For example, Japanese: [[:wikt:今朝#Japanese|今朝]] ("this morning") is . This word is not read as, the expected of the characters, and only infrequently as, the of the characters. The most common reading is, a native bisyllabic Japanese word that may be seen as a single morpheme, or as a compound of (“this”, as in, the older reading for Japanese: [[:wikt:今日#Japanese|今日]], “today”), and, “morning”.[28] Likewise, Japanese: [[:wikt:今日#Japanese|今日]] ("today") is also, usually read with the native reading ; its,, does occur in certain words and expressions, especially in the broader sense "nowadays" or "current", such as Japanese: [[:wikt:今日的#Japanese|今日的]] ("present-day"), although in the phrase ("good day"), is typically spelled wholly with rather than with the kanji .
are primarily used for some native Japanese words, such as Yamato (Japanese: [[:wikt:大和#Japanese|大和]] or Japanese: [[:wikt:倭#Japanese|倭]], the name of the dominant ethnic group of Japan, a former Japanese province as well as ancient name for Japan), and for some old borrowings, such as Japanese: [[:wikt:柳葉魚#Japanese|柳葉魚]] (literally "willow leaf fish") from Ainu, Japanese: [[:wikt:煙草#Japanese|煙草]] (literally “smoke grass”) from Portuguese, or Japanese: [[:wikt:麦酒#Japanese|麦酒]] (literally “wheat alcohol”) from Dutch, especially if the word was borrowed before the Meiji period. Words whose kanji are are often usually written as (if native), or (if borrowed); some old borrowed words are also written as, especially Portuguese loanwords such as Japanese: [[:wikt:かるた#Japanese|かるた]] from Portuguese "Portuguese: [[:wikt:carta#Portuguese|carta]]" (English “card”) or Japanese: [[:wikt:てんぷら#Japanese|てんぷら]] from Portuguese "Portuguese: [[:wikt:tempora#Portuguese|tempora]]" (English “times, season”), as well as Japanese: [[:wikt:たばこ#Japanese|たばこ]] .
Sometimes, can even have more kanji than there are syllables, examples being (Japanese: [[:wikt:啄木鳥#Japanese|啄木鳥]], “woodpecker”), (Japanese: [[:wikt:胡頽子#Japanese|胡頽子]], “silver berry, oleaster”),[29] and (Japanese: [[:wikt:八月朔日#Japanese|八月朔日]], a surname).[30] This phenomenon is observed in animal names that are shortened and used as suffixes for zoological compound names, for example when Japanese: [[:wikt:黄金虫#Japanese|黄金虫]], normally read as, is shortened to in Japanese: [[:wikt:黒黄金虫#Japanese|黒黄金虫]], although zoological names are commonly spelled with katakana rather than with kanji. Outside zoology, this type of shortening only occurs on a handful of words, for example Japanese: [[:wikt:大元帥#Japanese|大元帥]], or the historical male name suffix Japanese: [[:wikt:右衛門#Japanese|右衛門]], which was shortened from the word .
The kanji compound for is often idiosyncratic and created for the word, and there is no corresponding Chinese word with that spelling. In other cases, a kanji compound for an existing Chinese word is reused, where the Chinese word and may or may not be used in Japanese. For example, Japanese: [[:wikt:馴鹿#Japanese|馴鹿]] (“reindeer”) is for, from Ainu, but the reading of is also used. In some cases, Japanese coinages have subsequently been borrowed back into Chinese, such as Japanese: [[:wikt:鮟鱇#Japanese|鮟鱇]] (“monkfish”).
The underlying word for is a native Japanese word or foreign borrowing, which either does not have an existing kanji spelling (either or) or for which a new kanji spelling is produced. Most often the word is a noun, which may be a simple noun (not a compound or derived from a verb), or may be a verb form or a fusional pronunciation. For example, the word Japanese: [[:wikt:相撲#Japanese|相撲]] (“sumo”) is originally from the verb Japanese: [[:wikt:争う#Japanese|争う]] (“to vie, to compete”), while Japanese: [[:wikt:今日#Japanese|今日]] (“today”) is fusional (from older, “this” +, “day”).
In rare cases, is also applied to inflectional words (verbs and adjectives), in which case there is frequently a corresponding Chinese word. The most common example of an inflectional is the adjective Japanese: [[:wikt:可愛い#Japanese|可愛い]] (“cute”), originally ; the word is used in Chinese, but the corresponding is not used in Japanese. By contrast, "appropriate" can be either Japanese: [[:wikt:相応しい#Japanese|相応しい]] (as) or Japanese: [[:wikt:相応#Japanese|相応]] (as). Which reading to use can be discerned by the presence or absence of the ending . A common example of a verb with is Japanese: [[:wikt:流行る#Japanese|流行る]] (“to spread, to be in vogue”), corresponding to Japanese: [[:wikt:流行#Japanese|流行]] . A sample deverbal (noun derived from a verb form) is Japanese: [[:wikt:強請#Japanese|強請]] (“extortion”), from Japanese: [[:wikt:強請る#Japanese|強請る]] (“to extort”), spelling from Japanese: [[:wikt:強請#Japanese|強請]] (“extortion”). Note that there are also compound verbs and, less commonly, compound adjectives, and while these may have multiple kanji without intervening characters, they are read using the usual . Examples include Japanese: [[:wikt:面白い#Japanese|面白い]] (“interesting”, literally “face + white”) and Japanese: [[:wikt:狡賢い#Japanese|狡賢い]] (“sly”, “cunning, crafty + clever, smart”).
Typographically, the for are often written so they are centered across the entire word, or for inflectional words over the entire root—corresponding to the reading being related to the entire word—rather than each part of the word being centered over its corresponding character, as is often done for the usual phono-semantic readings.
Broadly speaking, can be considered a form of, though in narrow usage, "" refers specifically to using characters for sound and not meaning (sound-spelling), whereas "" refers to using characters for their meaning and not sound (meaning-spelling). Many (established meaning-spellings) began as (improvised meaning-spellings). Occasionally, a single word will have many such kanji spellings. An extreme example is, which may be spelt in many ways, including Japanese: [[:wikt:杜鵑#Japanese|杜鵑]], Japanese: [[:wikt:時鳥#Japanese|時鳥]], Japanese: [[:wikt:子規#Japanese|子規]], Japanese: [[:wikt:不如帰#Japanese|不如帰]], Japanese: [[:wikt:霍公鳥#Japanese|霍公鳥]], Japanese: [[:wikt:蜀魂#Japanese|蜀魂]], Japanese: [[:wikt:沓手鳥#Japanese|沓手鳥]], Japanese: [[:wikt:杜宇#Japanese|杜宇]],Japanese: [[:wikt:田鵑#Japanese|田鵑]], Japanese: [[:wikt:沓直鳥#Japanese|沓直鳥]], and Japanese: [[:wikt:郭公#Japanese|郭公]]—many of these variant spellings are particular to haiku poems.
In some rare cases, an individual kanji has a reading that is borrowed from a modern foreign language (gairaigo), though most often these words are written in . Notable examples include,,, and . These are classed as of a single character, because the character is being used for meaning only (without the Chinese pronunciation), rather than as, which is the classification used when a gairaigo term is written as a compound (2 or more characters). However, unlike the vast majority of other, these readings are not native Japanese, but rather borrowed, so the "" label can be misleading. The readings are also written in, unlike the usual for native . Note that most of these characters are for units, particularly SI units, in many cases using new characters coined during the Meiji period, such as .
See main article: Nanori. Some kanji also have lesser-known readings called, which are mostly used for names (often given names) and, in general, are closely related to the . Place names sometimes also use or, occasionally, unique readings not found elsewhere.
Although there are general rules for when to use and when to use, the language is littered with exceptions, and it is not always possible for even a native speaker to know how to read a character without prior knowledge (this is especially true for names, both of people and places); further, a given character may have multiple or . When reading Japanese, one primarily recognizes words (multiple characters and) and their readings rather than individual characters and only guesses the readings of characters when trying to "sound out" an unrecognized word.
Homographs exist, which can sometimes be deduced from context, and sometimes cannot, requiring a glossary. For example, may be read either as "today (informal)" (special fused reading for native word) or as "these days (formal)" ; in formal writing, this will generally be read as . Multiple readings are common, such as in "pork soup", which is commonly pronounced both as (mixed) and, with being somewhat more common nationally. Inconsistencies abound—for example, "beef" and "mutton" have readings, but "pork" and "poultry" have readings.
The main guideline is that a single kanji followed by (characters that are part of the word)—as used in native verbs and adjectives—always indicates, while kanji compounds usually use, which is usually ; however, other are also common, and are also commonly used in . For a kanji in isolation without, it is typically read using their, though there are numerous exceptions. For example, "iron" is usually read with the rather than the . Chinese which are not the common reading are a frequent cause of difficulty or mistakes when encountering unfamiliar words or for inexperienced readers, though skilled natives will recognize the word; a good example is, where is usually instead read as .
are used with to mark the inflected ending of a native verb or adjective, or by convention. Japanese verbs and adjectives are closed class, and do not generally admit new words (borrowed Chinese vocabulary, which are nouns, can form verbs by adding at the end, and adjectives via or, but cannot become native Japanese vocabulary, which inflect). For example: "red", "new", "(to) see". can be used to indicate which to use, as in versus (casual), both meaning "(to) eat", but this is not always sufficient, as in, which may be read as or, both meaning "(to) open". Japanese: [[Okurigana#生|生]] is a particularly complicated example, with multiple and . is also used for some nouns and adverbs, as in "sympathy", "invariably", but not for "money", for instance. is an important aspect of kanji usage in Japanese; see that article for more information on orthography
Kanji occurring in are generally read using, especially for four-character compounds . Though again, exceptions abound, for example, "information", "school", and "bullet train" all follow this pattern. This isolated kanji versus compound distinction gives words for similar concepts completely different pronunciations. "north" and "east" use the and, being stand-alone characters, but "northeast", as a compound, uses the . This is further complicated by the fact that many kanji have more than one : is read as in "teacher" but as in "one's whole life". Meaning can also be an important indicator of reading; is read when it means "simple", but as when it means "divination", both being for this character.
These rules of thumb have many exceptions. compound words are not as numerous as those with, but neither are they rare. Examples include "letter", "parasol", and the famous "divine wind". Such compounds may also have, such as (also written) "Chinese-style fried chicken" and, although many of these can also be written with the omitted (for example, or). In general, compounds coined in Japan using Japanese roots will be read in while those imported from China will be read in .
Similarly, some characters can also be used as words in isolation: "love",, "mark, dot". Most of these cases involve kanji that have no, so there can be no confusion, although exceptions do occur. Alone may be read as "gold" or as "money, metal"; only context can determine the writer's intended reading and meaning.
Multiple readings have given rise to a number of homographs, in some cases having different meanings depending on how they are read. One example is, which can be read in three different ways: (skilled), (upper part), or (stage left/house right). In addition, has the reading (skilled). More subtly, has three different readings, all meaning "tomorrow": (casual), (polite), and (formal). (reading glosses) is often used to clarify any potential ambiguities.
Conversely, in some cases homophonous terms may be distinguished in writing by different characters, but not so distinguished in speech, and hence potentially confusing. In some cases when it is important to distinguish these in speech, the reading of a relevant character may be changed. For example, (privately established, esp. school) and (city established) are both normally pronounced in speech these may be distinguished by the alternative pronunciations and . More informally, in legal jargon "preamble" and "full text" are both pronounced, so may be pronounced for clarity, as in "Have you memorized the preamble [not 'whole text'] of the constitution?". As in these examples, this is primarily using a for one character in a normally term.
As stated above, and readings are also not uncommon. Indeed, all four combinations of reading are possible:,, and .
Certain words take different readings depending on whether the context concerns legal matters or not. For example:
| Word | Common reading | Legalese reading | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Japanese: 懈怠 ("negligence") | |||
| Japanese: 競売 ("auction") | |||
| Japanese: 兄弟姉妹 ("siblings") | |||
| Japanese: 境界 ("metes and bounds") | |||
| Japanese: 競落 ("acquisition at an auction") | |||
| Japanese: 遺言 ("will") |
In some instances where even context cannot easily provide clarity for homophones, alternative readings or mixed readings can be used instead of regular readings to avoid ambiguity. For example:
There are also cases where the words are technically heterophones, but they have similar meanings and pronunciations, therefore liable to mishearing and misunderstanding.
| Word with an alternative reading | Word that may be confused with | |
|---|---|---|
| , alternatively, jūbako | ||
| , alternatively, yutō[31] |
Several famous place names, including those of Japan itself (or sometimes), those of some cities such as Tokyo and Kyoto, and those of the main islands Honshu, Kyushu, Shikoku, and Hokkaido are read with ; however, the majority of Japanese place names are read with :,, . Names often use characters and readings that are not in common use outside of names. When characters are used as abbreviations of place names, their reading may not match that in the original. The Osaka and Kobe baseball team, the Hanshin Tigers, take their name from the of the second kanji of and the first of . The name of the Keisei railway line—linking Tokyo and Narita —is formed similarly, although the reading of from is, despite already being an in the word .
Japanese family names are also usually read with :,, . Japanese given names often have very irregular readings. Although they are not typically considered or, they often contain mixtures of, and, such as [{{transl|ja|on-kun}}], [{{transl|ja|kun-on}}]. Being chosen at the discretion of the parents, the readings of given names do not follow any set rules, and it is impossible to know with certainty how to read a person's name without independent verification. Parents can be quite creative, and rumours abound of children called ("Earth") and ("Angel"); neither are common names, and have normal readings and respectively. Some common Japanese names can be written in multiple ways, e.g., Akira can be written as,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, and many other characters and kanji combinations not listed,[32] Satoshi can be written as,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, etc.,[33] and Haruka can be written as,,,,,,,, and several other possibilities.[34] Common patterns do exist, however, allowing experienced readers to make a good guess for most names. To alleviate any confusion on how to pronounce the names of other Japanese people, most official Japanese documents require Japanese to write their names in both and kanji.[30]
Chinese place names and Chinese personal names appearing in Japanese texts, if spelled in kanji, are almost invariably read with . Especially for older and well-known names, the resulting Japanese pronunciation may differ widely from that used by modern Chinese speakers. For example, Mao Zedong's name is pronounced as in Japanese, and the name of the legendary Monkey King, Sun Wukong, is pronounced in Japanese.
Today, Chinese names that are not well known in Japan are often spelled in instead, in a form much more closely approximating the native Chinese pronunciation. Alternatively, they may be written in kanji with . Many such cities have names that come from non-Chinese languages like Mongolian or Manchu. Examples of such not-well-known Chinese names include:
| English name | Japanese name | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Kanji | ||||
| Harbin | Japanese: ハルビン | |||
| Ürümqi | Japanese: ウルムチ | |||
| Qiqihar | Japanese: チチハル | |||
| Lhasa | Japanese: ラサ | |||
| English name | Mandarin name (pinyin) | Hokkien name (Tâi-lô) | Cantonese name (Yale) | Japanese name | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Kanji | |||||||
| Hong Kong | / | Japanese: ホンコン | |||||
| Macao/Macau | / / | / | Japanese: マカオ | ||||
| Shanghai | / / | Japanese: シャンハイ | |||||
| Beijing/Peking | Japanese: ペキン | ||||||
| Nanjing/Nanking | Japanese: ナンキン | ||||||
| Taipei | Japanese: タイペイ / Japanese: タイホク | / | |||||
| Kaohsiung | / | / / | / | / | Japanese: カオシュン / Japanese: タカオ | / | |
Notes:
In some cases the same kanji can appear in a given word with different readings. Normally this occurs when a character is duplicated and the reading of the second character has voicing, as in Japanese: 人人 "people" (more often written with the iteration mark as), but in rare cases the readings can be unrelated, as in .
Because of the ambiguities involved, kanji sometimes have their pronunciation for the given context spelled out in ruby characters known as, (small written above or to the right of the character) or (small written in-line after the character). This is especially true in texts for children or foreign learners. It is also used in newspapers and for rare or unusual readings, or for situations like the first time a character's name is given, and for characters not included in the officially recognized set of essential kanji. Works of fiction sometimes use to create new "words" by giving normal kanji non-standard readings, or to attach a foreign word rendered in as the reading for a kanji or kanji compound of the same or similar meaning.
Conversely, specifying a given kanji, or spelling out a kanji word—whether the pronunciation is known or not—can be complicated, due to the fact that there is not a commonly used standard way to refer to individual kanji (one does not refer to "kanji #237"), and that a given reading does not map to a single kanji—indeed there are many homophonous words, not simply individual characters, particularly for (with). It is easiest to write the word out—either on paper or tracing it in the air—or look it up (given the pronunciation) in a dictionary, particularly an electronic dictionary; when this is not possible, such as when speaking over the phone or writing implements are not available (and tracing in air is too complicated), various techniques can be used. These include giving for characters—these are often unique—using a well-known word with the same character (and preferably the same pronunciation and meaning), and describing the character via its components. For example, one may explain how to spell the word via the words,, and —the first two use the, the third is a well-known compound—saying ",, as in ."
In dictionaries, both words and individual characters have readings glossed, via various conventions. Native words and Sino-Japanese vocabulary are glossed in (for both and readings), while borrowings —including modern borrowings from Chinese—are glossed in ; this is the standard writing convention also used in . By contrast, readings for individual characters are conventionally written in for on readings, and for kun readings. Kun readings may further have a separator to indicate which characters are, and which are considered readings of the character itself. For example, in the entry for, the reading corresponding to the basic verb may be written as Japanese: た.べる (ta.beru), to indicate that ta is the reading of the character itself. Further, kanji dictionaries often list compounds including irregular readings of a kanji.
Since kanji are essentially Chinese hanzi used to write Japanese, the majority of characters used in modern Japanese still retain their Chinese meaning, physical resemblance with some of their modern traditional Chinese characters counterparts, and a degree of similarity with Classical Chinese pronunciation imported to Japan from the 5th to 9th centuries.[35] Nevertheless, after centuries of development, there is a notable number of kanji used in modern Japanese which have different meaning from hanzi used in modern Chinese. Such differences are the result of:
Likewise, the process of character simplification in mainland China since the 1950s has resulted in the fact that Japanese speakers who have not studied Chinese may not recognize some simplified characters.
See main article: Kokuji. In Japanese, refers to Chinese characters made outside of China. Specifically, kanji made in Japan are referred to as . They are primarily formed in the usual way of Chinese characters, namely by combining existing components, though using a combination that is not used in China. The corresponding phenomenon in Korea is called, a cognate name; there are however far fewer Korean-coined characters than Japanese-coined ones. Other languages using the Chinese family of scripts sometimes have far more extensive systems of native characters, most significantly Vietnamese Vietnamese: [[chữ Nôm]], which comprises over 20,000 characters used throughout traditional Vietnamese writing, and Zhuang sawndip, which comprises over 10,000 characters, which are still in use.
In addition to, there are kanji that have been given meanings in Japanese that are different from their original Chinese meanings. These are not considered but are instead called and include characters such as the following:
| Japanese | Chinese | |||||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Reading | Meaning | Pinyin | Meaning | |||||||||||||||||||||
| rattan, cane, vine | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| offing, offshore | rinse, minor river (Cantonese) | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| Camellia japonica | Toona spp. | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| catfish (rare, usually written Chinese: 鯰) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| blossom | smile (rare, usually written) | |||||||||||||||||||||||
See main article: Chinese character classification. Han-dynasty scholar Xu Shen, in his 2nd-century dictionary, classified Chinese characters into six categories (Japanese:). The traditional classification is still taught but is problematic and is 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.[36]
(Mandarin:) characters are pictographic sketches of the object they represent. For example, is an eye, while is a tree. The current forms of the characters are very different from the originals, though their representations are more clear in oracle bone script and seal script. These pictographic characters make up only a small fraction of modern characters.
(Mandarin:) characters are ideographs, often called "simple ideographs" or "simple indicatives" to distinguish them and tell the difference from compound ideographs (below). They are usually simple graphically and represent an abstract concept such as "up" or "above" and "down" or "below". These make up a tiny fraction of modern characters.
(Mandarin:) characters are compound ideographs, often called "compound indicatives", "associative compounds", or just "ideographs". These are usually a combination of pictographs that combine semantically to present an overall meaning. An example of this type is (rest) from (person radical) and (tree). Another is the (mountain pass) made from (mountain), (up) and (down). These make up a tiny fraction of modern characters.
(Mandarin:) characters are phono-semantic or radical-phonetic compounds, sometimes called "semantic-phonetic", "semasio-phonetic", or "phonetic-ideographic" characters, are by far the largest category, making up about 90% of the characters in the standard lists; however, some of the most frequently used kanji belong to one of the three groups mentioned above, so will usually make up less than 90% of the characters in a text. Typically they are made up of two components, one of which (most commonly, but by no means always, the left or top element) suggests the general category of the meaning or semantic context, and the other (most commonly the right or bottom element) approximates the pronunciation. The pronunciation relates to the original Chinese, and may now only be distantly detectable in the modern Japanese of the kanji; it generally has no relation at all to . 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.
(Mandarin:) characters have variously been called "derivative characters", "derivative cognates", or translated as "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, is used for 'music' and 'comfort, ease', with different pronunciations in Chinese reflected in the two different, "music" and "pleasure".
(Mandarin:) are rebuses, sometimes called "phonetic loans". The etymology of the characters follows one of the patterns above, but the present-day meaning is completely unrelated to this. A character was appropriated to represent a similar-sounding word. For example, 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 character for wheat, originally meant "to come", being a having 'foot' at the bottom for its meaning part and "wheat" at the top for sound. The two characters swapped meaning, so today the more common word has the simpler character. This borrowing of sounds has a very long history.
See also: Japanese typographic symbols.
The iteration mark 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 and . This mark also appears in personal and place names, as in the surname Sasaki (Japanese: 佐々木). This symbol is a simplified version of the kanji, a variant of .
Another abbreviated symbol is, in appearance a small, but actually a simplified version of the kanji, a general counter. It is pronounced when used to indicate quantity (such as Japanese: 六ヶ月, "six months") or if used as a genitive (as in Japanese: 関ヶ原 "Sekigahara").
The way how these symbols may be produced on a computer depends on the operating system. In macOS, typing will reveal the symbol as well as, and . To produce, type . Under Windows, typing will reveal some of these symbols, while in Google IME, may be used.
Kanji, whose thousands of symbols defy ordering by conventions such as those used for the Latin script, are often collated using the traditional Chinese radical-and-stroke sorting method. In this system, common components of characters are identified; these are called radicals. Characters are grouped by their primary radical, then ordered by number of pen strokes within radicals. For example, the kanji character, meaning "cherry", is sorted as a ten-stroke character under the four-stroke primary radical Japanese: 木 meaning "tree". When there is no obvious radical or more than one radical, convention governs which is used for collation.
Other kanji sorting methods, such as the SKIP system, have been devised by various authors.
Modern general-purpose Japanese dictionaries (as opposed to specifically character dictionaries) generally collate all entries, including words written using kanji, according to their representations (reflecting the way they are pronounced). The ordering of is normally used for this purpose.
Japanese schoolchildren are expected to learn 1,026 basic kanji, the kanji, before finishing the sixth grade. The order in which these characters are learned is fixed. The kanji list is a subset of a larger list, originally of 1,945 kanji and extended to 2,136 in 2010, known as the kanji required for the level of fluency necessary to read newspapers and literature in Japanese. This larger list of characters is to be mastered by the end of the ninth grade.[37] Schoolchildren learn the characters by repetition and radical.
Students studying Japanese as a foreign language are often required by a curriculum to acquire kanji without having first learned the vocabulary associated with them. Strategies for these learners vary from copying-based methods to mnemonic-based methods such as those used in James Heisig's series Remembering the Kanji. Other textbooks use methods based on the etymology of the characters, such as Mathias and Habein's The Complete Guide to Everyday Kanji and Henshall's A Guide to Remembering Japanese Characters. Pictorial mnemonics, as in the text Kanji Pict-o-graphix by Michael Rowley, are also seen.
The Japan Kanji Aptitude Testing Foundation provides the (; "Test of Japanese Kanji Aptitude"), which tests the ability to read and write kanji. The highest level of the tests about six thousand kanji.[38]