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.

Readings

A kanji character may have several (in rare cases ten or more) possible pronunciations, depending on its context, intended meaning, use in compounds, and location in the sentence. These pronunciations, or readings, are typically categorized as either on'yomi or kun'yomi (often abbreviated on and kun).

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On'yomi (Chinese reading)

The on'yomi (???) of a kanji (also called its on reading or Chinese reading) is based on the Japanese approximation of the original Chinese pronunciation of the character at the time it was introduced. Some kanji were reintroduced from different parts of China at different times, and so have multiple on'yomi (and often multiple meanings as well). Contrariwise, wasei kanji typically have no on'yomi at all. Generally, on'yomi are classified into three types:

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• Go-on (??; literally Wu sound) readings derive from the pronunciation the Wu region (in the vicinity of modern Shanghai), during the 5th and 6th centuries.
• Kan-on (??; literally Han sound) readings derive from the pronunciation during the Tang Dynasty in the 7th to 9th centuries, primarily from the standard speech of the capital, Chang'an.
• T?-on (???literally Tang sound) readings derive from the pronunciation of later dynasties, such as the Song and Ming.

For example, the kanji for light or next (?) may be pronounced my?, a go-on reading, or as mei, a kan-on reading, min, a T?-on reading. However, the kanji ? is Japanese, not Chinese, in origin, and thus lacks any on'yomi.

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Due to trade/navigation patterns, a great volume of Chinese vocabulary was introduced to Japan by natives of southern China, thus many common pronunciations more closely mirror those of Southern Chinese languages ("dialects") rather than Northern pronunciations--of course it must be noted that Chinese languages have changed over time and pronunciations used at the time of introduction of vocabulary from China to Japan may no longer be used in a recognizable form by contemporary Chinese.

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On'yomi are phonologically characterized by their tendency toward single-syllable readings, since each character expressed a single Chinese syllable. However, 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 (written as y in consonant clusters and the consonants ch, sh and j in these environments), as well as syllabic n, were likely added to the Japanese phonotactic system to better simulate Chinese; none of these features occur in words of native Japanese origin.)

Related Topics:
Tonality - Middle Chinese - Stop consonant - Phonotactics - Moras - Linguistic drift

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On'yomi primarily occur in multi-kanji compound words (?? 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, than their native counterparts. The major exception to this rule is surnames, in which the native kun'yomi reading is used (see below).

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Kun'yomi (Japanese reading)

The kun'yomi (???) of a kanji (also called its kun reading, Japanese reading, or somewhat misleadingly its 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.

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For instance, the kanji for east, ?, has the on reading t?. However, Japanese already had two words for east, higashi and azuma. Thus, the kanji character ? had the latter pronunciations grafted onto it as kun'yomi. However, the kanji ?, denoting a Chinese unit of measurement (slightly over an inch), had no native Japanese equivalent; thus it has only its on'yomi, sun.

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Kun'yomi are characterized by the strict (C)V syllable structure common to yamatokotoba, passingly similar to that of the nearby Polynesian languages. 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).

Related Topics:
Polynesian languages - Hiragana - Okurigana

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In a number of cases, multiple kanji were assigned to cover a single word. Typically when this occurs, the different kanji have slightly different meanings. For instance, the word ???, naosu, when written ?? means to heal an illness or sickness. When written ?? it means to fix something (e.g. a bicycle or TV). Sometimes the differences are very clear, other times they are quite subtle. Sometimes you will get differences of opinion depending on which reference work you look at -- one dictionary may say the kanji are equivalent, while another dictionary may draw distinctions of use between them. Because of this confusion, even Japanese people have trouble knowing which kanji to use in some cases. One workaround is simply to write the word in hiragana, a method frequently employed with more complex cases such as ?? moto (which has at least 4 different kanji, 3 of which have only very subtle differences).

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Other readings

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).

Related Topics:
Nanori - Given name

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Gikun (??) 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 ?? 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.

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Many ateji (kanji used only for their phonetic value) have meanings derived from their usage: for example, the now-archaic ??? ajia was formerly used to write "Asia" in kanji; the character ? now means Asia in such compounds as ?? t?a, "East Asia". From the written ???? amerika, the second character was taken, resulting in the semi-formal coinage ?? beikoku, lit. "rice country" but meaning "United States of America".

Related Topics:
Ateji - Asia - United States of America

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When to use which reading

The division between on'yomi and kun'yomi can seem arbitrary and unnecessarily difficult to the learner of Japanese. Words for similar concepts, such as "east" (?), "north" (?) and "northeast" (??), can have completely different pronunciations: the kun readings higashi and kita are used for the first two, while the on reading t?hoku is used for the third. However, the situation is actually no less coherent than the similar mixture of pronunciations in English which resulted from similar borrowings from other languages.

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To complicate the matter, there are two basic guidelines for determining the pronunciation of a particular kanji in a given context. First, and most simply, kanji occurring in compounds are usually read using on'yomi. These sorts of words are sometimes called jukugo (??). For example, ?? j?h? "information", ?? gakk? "school", and ??? shinkansen "bullet train" all follow this pattern.

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Secondly, kanji occurring in isolation -- that is, written adjacent only to kana, not to other kanji -- 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. ? tsuki "moon", ?? nasake "sympathy", ??akai "red", ????atarashii "new ", ?? miru "(to) see". Kanji compounds that also have okurigana, such as ??? (also written ???) karaage "fried food" and ??? origami "artistic paper folding", also fall into this category. It should be noted, however, that many of the latter category of compounds can be written alternatively with the okurigana omitted (e.g. ?? or ??).

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There are numerous exceptions to both rules. ?? tegami "letter", ?? higasa "parasol", and the famous ?? kamikaze "divine wind" all use kun'yomi despite being simple kanji compounds. Fortunately, most exceptions to the second rule are simple nouns: ? ai "love", ? Zen, ? ten "mark, dot" -- most of these cases involve kanji that have no kun'yomi, so there can be no confusion.

Related Topics:
Kamikaze - Zen

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The situation is further complicated by the fact that many kanji have more than one on'yomi: witness ?? sensei "teacher" versus ?? issh? "one's whole life".

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There are even kanji compounds that use a mixture of on'yomi and kun'yomi, known as j?bako (??) or yut? (??) words. The words j?bako and yut? themselves are examples: the first character of j?bako is read using on'yomi, the second kun'yomi, while it is the other way around with yut?. Other examples include ?? kin'iro "golden" (on-kun) and ??? aikid? "the martial art Aikido" (kun-on-on).

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Finally, there are some words that can be read multiple ways -- in some cases the words have different meanings depending on how it is read. One example is ??, which can be read in three different ways -- j?zu (skilled), uwate (upper part), or kamite (upper part). In addition, ??? has the reading umai (skilled).

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Some famous place names, including those of Tokyo (?? T?ky?) and Japan itself (?? Nihon or sometimes Nippon) are read with on'yomi; however, the majority of Japanese place names are read with kun'yomi (e.g. ?? ?saka, ?? Aomori, ?? Hakone). Family names are also usually read with kun'yomi (e.g., ?? Yamada, ?? Tanaka, ?? Suzuki). Personal names, although they are not typically considered j?bako/yut?, often contain mixtures of kun'yomi, on'yomi, and nanori, and are generally only readable with some experience (e.g., ?? Daisuke , ?? Natsumi ).

Related Topics:
Tokyo - Japan

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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).

Related Topics:
Ruby character - Furigana - Kana - Kumimoji - Manga - Newspaper

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