Kanji

Kanji ({{Audio|ja-kanji.ogg|??}}, literally "Han characters") are Chinese characters used in Japanese. Kanji are one of the five character sets used in the modern Japanese writing system, the other four being hiragana, katakana, the Roman alphabet (r?maji), and Arabic numerals.

History

There is some disagreement about how the use of Chinese characters began in Japan, but it is generally accepted that Buddhist monks brought Chinese texts back to Japan in about the 5th century. These texts were in the Chinese language and would have been read as such at first. Over time, however, a system known as kanbun (??) emerged; it essentially used Chinese text with diacritical marks to allow Japanese speakers to read it in accordance with the rules of Japanese grammar.

Related Topics:
Japan - Buddhist - Monk - Text - 5th century - Chinese language - Kanbun - Diacritical mark - Grammar

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The Japanese language itself had no written form at the time. Eventually a writing system called man'y?gana (used in the ancient poetry anthology Man'y?sh?) evolved that used a limited set of Chinese characters for their phonetic value alone, not for their semantic value, which was much more convenient for writing Japanese poetry. Manyogana written in curvilinear 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. Hiragana and katakana are referred to collectively as kana.

Related Topics:
Man'y?gana - Man'y?sh? - Phonetic - Semantic - Hiragana - Higher education - Heian - Literature - Katakana - Monastery - Kana

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In modern Japanese, kanji is used to write certain 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. Conversely, katakana is used for representing onomatopoeia and non-Chinese loanwords. Note, however, that the usage of katakana to write loan words developed at a late stage. Originally they were written using kanji, chosen either for their meaning (?? or ? tabako; "tobacco") or to spell the word phonetically (??? or ??? tempura).

Related Topics:
Nouns - Adjective - Stems - Verb - Inflected - Okurigana - Particles - Onomatopoeia - Loanword - Phonetically - Tempura

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