Kanji

Kanji are special characters used in Japanese writing. They came from ancient Chinese. These characters help people write and read in Japanese, along with two other writing styles called hiragana and katakana. Each kanji has its own meaning and can be said in different ways, depending on how it is used in a word.

The use of kanji in Japan began around the 5th century. They have greatly shaped Japanese culture, language, and history. Over time, Japan made some of these characters simpler to help more people learn to read and write. Today, there are nearly 3,000 kanji used in everyday Japanese, including names and common words.

Even though kanji come from Chinese, some of their meanings and sounds in Japanese are different from those in Chinese. Japan has also created new words using kanji that have been adopted in other countries. This shows how these characters connect different cultures.

History

Chinese characters first came to Japan on things like seals, letters, and swords from China. One early example is the King of Na gold seal given to a Japanese emissary in 57 CE. At first, the Japanese people did not understand these writings well.

In the fifth century, a scholar named Wani came from the Kingdom of Baekje to Japan. He brought knowledge of Chinese characters and Confucianism. Over time, Japanese leaders sent missions to China. This helped more people learn to read and write in Chinese. The Japanese then created their own writing systems, hiragana and katakana, from Chinese characters. These are used with kanji today.

Orthographic reform and lists of kanji

Main article: Japanese script reform

For a long time, people in Japan have talked about whether kanji is the best way to write their language. After the Meiji Restoration, some people suggested using only kana or Latin characters instead of kanji. But most people agreed that the number of kanji should be limited.

In 1946, after World War II, the Japanese government made changes to make kanji easier to use. They reduced the number of characters and made lists of kanji for each school grade. Some kanji were given simpler shapes, called shinjitai. There are still many kanji not on these lists, known as hyōgaiji.

Main article: Kyōiku kanji

The kyōiku kanji are the 1,026 kanji characters that Japanese children learn from first to sixth grade in elementary school. The Ministry of Education decides which kanji and their readings students should learn each year.

Main article: Jōyō kanji

The jōyō kanji are 2,136 characters used regularly in publishing. They include all the kyōiku kanji plus extra ones learned in junior high and high school. Characters not on this list often have furigana.

Main article: Jinmeiyō kanji

The jinmeiyō kanji are 863 characters used mainly in personal names. They include some traditional variants of jōyō kanji.

Main article: Hyōgai kanji

Hyōgai kanji are any kanji not on the jōyō or jinmeiyō lists. They are usually written with traditional shapes.

The Japanese Industrial Standards for kanji and kana define code points for each character, used in computers and other devices. The current standards include JIS X 0208 with 6,355 kanji, JIS X 0212 with 5,801 additional kanji, and JIS X 0213 with 3,695 more kanji. These standards help ensure characters display correctly across different systems.

Total number of kanji

There is no exact number of kanji characters, just like there isn’t a set number of Chinese characters. The Dai Kan-Wa Jiten lists about 50,000 characters. In China, the Zhonghua Zihai has around 85,000, but many are rarely used.

For everyday reading in Japanese, you need to know about 2,136 jōyō kanji. Many more are used sometimes, especially in special subjects, and over 13,000 can be found in special coding systems like the Japanese Industrial Standards for kanji.

Readings

Individual kanji can be used to write different words or parts of words, which means they can be pronounced in different ways or "readings." The right way to read a kanji depends on the word it is part of and where it appears in the sentence. For example, 今日 is usually read kyō, meaning "today," but in formal writing it is read konnichi, meaning "nowadays." Furigana is used to show the reading when it might not be clear, like for rare or special uses.

Readings are divided into two main types: kun'yomi (native Japanese) and on'yomi (borrowed from Chinese). Most kanji have at least one reading of each type, but some have only one. Some common kanji can have ten or more different readings. The kanji 生, for example, has many different readings used in different words.

On'yomi (Sino-Japanese reading)

The on'yomi is the modern Japanese version of how the character sounded in Chinese when it was first brought into Japan. It was sometimes called a "translation reading." There are also kanji made by the Japanese that have an on'yomi, even though they are not from Chinese. Because kanji could come from different places in China at different times, some have more than one on'yomi.

Kun'yomi (native reading)

The kun'yomi is a reading based on a native Japanese word that matches the meaning of the Chinese character when it was brought to Japan. Like on'yomi, a kanji can have more than one kun'yomi, and some kanji have no kun'yomi at all.

Ateji

Ateji are characters used only for their sound. In this case, the pronunciation follows a standard reading, or is used for meaning only. So, only the whole word—not the single character—has a reading.

Gairaigo

Longer readings exist for characters that are not commonly used and for symbols that are not kanji, where a long gairaigo word may be the reading. The character 糎 has the seven kana reading センチメートル senchimētoru meaning "centimeter," though it is usually written as "cm".

Mixed readings

Many kanji words mix on'yomi and kun'yomi; these can be called hybrid words. Readings where the first kanji is on'yomi and the second is kun'yomi are called jūbakoyomi, while kun-on words are called yutōyomi. Examples include basho (場所; "place", kun-on), kin'iro (金色; "golden", on-kun) and aikidō (合気道; the martial art Aikido, kun-on-on).

Special readings

Gikun and jukujikun are special ways to read groups of kanji that do not match the usual readings of the individual characters. Gikun are different readings given to a character instead of its normal readings. For example, 寒 (meaning "cold") can be read as fuyu ("winter"). Jukujikun are when the kanji used for a word match its meaning but not its sound. The word is read as a whole, not based on the sounds of each kanji. For example, 今朝 ("this morning") is an example of jukujikun.

Single character gairaigo

Sometimes, kanji can have a reading taken from a modern foreign language (gairaigo), though most gairaigo are written in katakana. Examples include pēji (頁、ページ; page), botan (釦／鈕、ボタン; button), zero (零、ゼロ; zero), and mētoru (米、メートル; meter). These are considered kun'yomi, because the character is used for its meaning.

Nanori

Some kanji have special readings called nanori, which are mainly used in names (often given names) and are usually related to kun'yomi.

When to use which reading

There are general rules for when to use on'yomi and kun'yomi, but many kanji have several options, and there are many exceptions. A single kanji followed by okurigana (small hiragana letters that come after the kanji)—like the endings of verbs and adjectives—always uses kun'yomi.

Kanji words, especially four-character words called yojijukugo, often use on'yomi, but not always. In ge-doku (解毒; detoxification, anti-poison), 解 is read with its kan-on reading instead of its more common go-on reading, kai.

Using a kanji by itself or in a word can give very different pronunciations for similar ideas. Alone, 北 (north) and 東 (east) use the kun'yomi kita and higashi, but 北東 (northeast) uses the on'yomi hokutō.

Having many readings has created some words that sound the same but have different meanings, depending on how they are read. One example is 上手, which can be read three different ways: jōzu (skilled), uwate (upper part), or kamite (stage left/house right). Also, 上手い is read umai (skilled).

Pronunciation assistance

Because there can be confusion about how to say a kanji, its pronunciation is sometimes shown in small letters called furigana, or kumimoji (small kana written after the character). This is common in books for children or foreign learners. It is also used in newspapers and manga for rare or unusual readings.

Local developments and divergences from Chinese

Since kanji started from Chinese writing, most characters used in Japanese still look like their original Chinese forms and keep their original meanings. But over time, some kanji have changed meaning in Japanese. A few were even made only in Japan. These changes happened because of new ways to use the characters, different ways to see them, and simplifications after World War II.

One special group of kanji made in Japan is called kokuji. These characters are made by putting parts of existing kanji together in new ways. For example, the kanji 働 (dō), meaning "work," is made by combining the "person" symbol with a symbol for "movement." There are about nine kokuji officially recognized today. Similar ideas are found in other countries too, like Korea and Vietnam, but Japan has more of these special characters.

Types of kanji by category

Main article: Chinese character classification

Long ago, a scholar named Xu Shen sorted Chinese characters into six groups. These groups help us understand how characters are built and used.

One group, called shōkei moji, are pictures of things like eyes or trees. Another group, shiji moji, shows ideas like "up" or "down". The biggest group, keisei moji, mixes meaning and sound parts to create most characters we use today. Other groups have special uses, like sharing sounds or changing meanings over time.

Related symbols

See also: Japanese typographic symbols

The iteration mark (々) is a special symbol in Japanese writing. It shows that a kanji character should be repeated. It works like the ditto mark in English. For example, 色々 (いろいろ, iroiro) means "various," and 時々 (ときどき, tokidoki) means "sometimes." This mark is also used in some names, like the surname 佐々木 (Sasaki). The iteration mark comes from the kanji 仝, which is a variant of 同 (どう, dō), meaning "same."

Another useful symbol is ヶ. It looks like a small katakana ke but is a simplified version of the kanji 箇. When used to show quantity, like in 六ヶ月 (ろっかげつ, rokkagetsu), meaning "six months," it is pronounced ka. If it shows possession, as in 関ヶ原 (せきがはら, sekigahara), it is pronounced ga. These symbols can be typed on computers using special keyboard shortcuts.

Collation

Kanji have thousands of symbols, so they need special ways to organize them. One common way is called radical-and-stroke sorting. This groups kanji by parts called radicals and then orders them by how many strokes they have. For example, the kanji 桜 for "cherry" is grouped under the radical 木 meaning "tree".

Other methods like the SKIP system also exist. In modern Japanese dictionaries, words with kanji are often listed by their kana pronunciation, using the gojūon order.

Kanji education

Japanese schoolchildren learn 1,026 basic kanji characters by the end of sixth grade. These characters are taught in a fixed order. They are part of a larger list of 2,136 kanji that students should know by the end of ninth grade. Learning kanji involves repetition and studying the parts that make up each character, called radicals.

Students who are learning Japanese as a new language often use different methods to learn kanji. Some copy the characters repeatedly, while others use memory aids or study the history behind each symbol. There are also tests, like the Kanji kentei, that check how well someone can read and write kanji.