Kanji

Kanji are special characters used in Japanese writing that 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 pronounced in different ways, depending on how it is used in a word.

The use of kanji in Japan began around the 5th century and has 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. For example, the same character might mean "honest" in both languages but be said in a unique way in each one. Japan has also created new words using kanji that have been adopted in other countries, showing how these characters connect different cultures.

History

Chinese characters first arrived in Japan on items like seals, letters, and swords brought from China. One of the earliest known examples is the King of Na gold seal given to a Japanese emissary in 57 CE. For a long time, the Japanese people did not understand these writings well.

During the fifth century, a scholar named Wani came from the Kingdom of Baekje to Japan and brought knowledge of Chinese characters and Confucianism. Over time, Japanese leaders began sending missions to China, which helped more people learn to read and write in Chinese. Eventually, the Japanese developed their own writing systems, hiragana and katakana, from Chinese characters, which are used alongside kanji today.

Orthographic reform and lists of kanji

Main article: Japanese script reform

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

In 1946, after World War II, the Japanese government made changes to simplify kanji use. They reduced the number of characters and created lists of kanji for each school grade. Some kanji were given simpler shapes, called shinjitai. There are still many kanji outside 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, a big dictionary in Japan, 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 may be used to write one or more different words or morphemes, leading to different pronunciations or "readings." The correct reading may be determined by contextual cues, the exact intended meaning of the word, and its position within the sentence. For example, 今日 is mostly read kyō, meaning "today", but in formal writing it is read konnichi, meaning "nowadays." Furigana is used to specify ambiguous readings, such as rare, literary, or otherwise non-standard readings.

Readings are categorized as either kun'yomi (native Japanese) or on'yomi (borrowed from Chinese). Most kanji have at least a single reading of each category, though some have only one. Some common kanji have ten or more possible readings. The most complex common example is 生, which has many different readings used in various words.

On'yomi (Sino-Japanese reading)

The on'yomi 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." There also exist kanji created by the Japanese and given an on'yomi reading despite not being Chinese-derived. Some kanji were introduced from different parts of China at different times, and so have multiple on'yomi.

Kun'yomi (native reading)

The kun'yomi is a reading based on the pronunciation of a native Japanese word that closely approximated the meaning of the Chinese character when it was introduced. As with on'yomi, there can be multiple kun'yomi for the same kanji, and some kanji have no kun'yomi at all.

Ateji

Ateji are characters used only for their sounds. In this case, pronunciation is still based on a standard reading, or used only for meaning. Therefore, only the full compound—not the individual character—has a reading.

Gairaigo

Longer readings exist for non-Jōyō characters and non-kanji symbols, 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 "centimeter", though it is generally written as "cm".

Mixed readings

There are many kanji compounds that use a mixture of on'yomi and kun'yomi; these may be considered hybrid words. Readings in which the first kanji is on'yomi and the second is kun'yomi are classified as jūbakoyomi, while kun-on words are classified as 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 readings of kanji combinations that have no direct correspondence to the characters' individual on'yomi or kun'yomi. Gikun are other readings assigned to a character instead of its standard readings. An example is reading 寒 (meaning "cold") as fuyu ("winter"). Jukujikun 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, 今朝 ("this morning") is jukujikun.

Single character gairaigo

In some rare cases, kanji may have a reading borrowed from a modern foreign language (gairaigo), though usually gairaigo are written in katakana. Notable 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 classed as kun'yomi, because the character is used for its meaning.

Nanori

Some kanji also have lesser-known readings called nanori, which are mostly used for names (often given names) and, in general, are closely related to the kun'yomi.

When to use which reading

Although there are general rules for when to use on'yomi and when to use kun'yomi, many kanji have multiple on- or kun-readings, and the language is littered with exceptions. A single kanji followed by okurigana (hiragana forming part of a word)—such as the inflectable suffixes forming native verbs and adjectives—always indicates kun'yomi.

Kanji compounds, especially yojijukugo, usually 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.

The isolated kanji versus compound distinction gives words for similar concepts completely different pronunciations. Alone, 北 (north) and 東 (east) use the kun'yomi kita and higashi, but 北東 (northeast), uses the on'yomi hokutō.

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 上手, which can be read in three different ways: jōzu (skilled), uwate (upper part), or kamite (stage left/house right). In addition, 上手い has the reading umai (skilled).

Pronunciation assistance

Because of the ambiguities involved, kanji sometimes have their pronunciation for the given context spelled out in ruby characters known as furigana, or kumimoji (small kana written in-line after the character). This is especially true in texts 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 originated from Chinese writing, most characters used in modern Japanese still carry their original Chinese meanings and looks. However, over many years, some kanji have changed meaning in Japanese, and a few were even created entirely in Japan. These changes happened because of new uses for the characters, different interpretations, and simplifications made after World War II.

One special group of kanji created in Japan is called kokuji. These characters are formed by combining parts of existing kanji 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 appear in other countries too, like Korea and Vietnam, though Japan has more of these unique 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 used in Japanese writing to show 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 found in some names, like the surname 佐々木 (Sasaki). The iteration mark is a simplified form of 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 actually a simplified version of the kanji 箇, which is a general counter. 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 is used to show 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 that depend on the operating system.

Collation

Kanji have thousands of symbols, making them hard to organize like the Latin script. They are often sorted using a method called radical-and-stroke sorting, where characters are grouped by common parts called radicals. They are then ordered by the number of pen strokes. For example, the kanji 桜 for "cherry" is sorted under the radical 木 meaning "tree".

Other sorting methods like the SKIP system also exist. In modern Japanese dictionaries, words with kanji are usually listed by their kana pronunciation, following 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 and 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 learn kanji using different methods. 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, with the highest level covering about six thousand characters.