kanji - Immersion Japanese Club

Japanese Kanji: Its Origins, Characteristics, and Distinctions

Kelsey P. — Fri, 10 Mar 2023 18:43:52 +0000

Oh, kanji… Yep, it’s time to address that possibly most unnerving and difficult aspect of the Japanese language.

There are already several articles in this blog discussing the number of known kanji (the answer: a lot), as well as the different readings of each character and the like.

In this article, we will specifically explore the origins of kanji and its distinct characteristics that make it differ from alphabets (i.e. the ABCs, or rōmaji as they’re called in Japanese) and from syllabaries (that is, the kana).

Origins of Kanji

Kanji is one of the four (yes, you heard me, four) writing systems used in Japan, along with hiragana, katakana, and rōmaji. (In fact, the kana were themselves derived from kanji, but we’ll explore that factoid elsewhere.) It consists of Chinese characters that were adapted and modified to fit the Japanese language: in fact, the very word “kanji” means “Chinese (Han) character.”

As such, we can say that kanji originated from China as “hanzi” (the Chinese word for them) and were introduced to Japan nearly en masse sometime around the 5th century CE. At that time, Japan did not have a writing system of its own, so it adopted Chinese characters to record its own language -- why create when you can borrow, right?

Over time, the Chinese characters were modified somewhat to fit the language better, as well as unique cultural contexts, resulting in a set of characters that were Japan’s very own and are now used exclusively in that country.

(...Unfortunately, they’re still called “Chinese characters,” however, so that’s a bummer, I suppose. “Japanese Chinese characters” is even more confusing, though. Perhaps we should just stick with “kanji,” if only for disambiguation purposes.)

Characteristics of Kanji

Figuring out what kanji are exactly is sadly more difficult than one might suspect at first.

Linguists often consider kanji characters to be generally logographic, which means that each character represents a word or idea rather than a sound. The development of Japanese kanji over time, however, challenges this notion as many characters are used for only the representation of their sound rather than their meaning.

Regardless, this status of carrying meanings (even in characters only meant to represent certain sounds) makes them quite different from alphabets, which represent individual phonemes, and syllabaries, which represent syllables (more accurately called “morae” in the case of Japanese). As an example, I can take think of the word “kanji” alphabetically and break it down to its component phonemes (“k,” “a,” “n,” “j,” “i”); or I can think of it via the Japanese syllabary (let’s use hiragana) and break it down as “か,” “ん,” and “じ.” (Note how there are fewer syllables to break the word down into than phonemes.) Compare that to the logographic version of the word, 漢字 (kanji), and we notice that we only need two character to represent it: “漢” and “字.”

To dive into the deep end for a moment, kanji characters themselves can often be broken down even further into smaller components, many of which can serve as stand alone characters. For example, 字 (“character”) above has a component 子 (“child”) in it that is its own character. Every kanji also has some one extra-special component that is called its radical and that gives us clues to the meaning and pronunciation of the character.

One further unique characteristic of specifically the Japanese version of these Chinese characters is that each character can have multiple pronunciations, depending on the context in which it is used. This is because many of the kanji characters were adapted from Chinese, and Chinese has many homophones (words that sound the same but have different meanings). And this may also be the straw that breaks the camel’s back for what makes Japanese the most difficult language to learn for native speakers of English. A quick example of this is the character 風 which can be pronounced as "kaze" (wind) or "fū" (style), depending on the context.

One of the most daunting tasks for beginning Japanese learners is most certainly that kanji require memorization of a (very) large number of characters. There are over 2,000 kanji characters that are commonly used in Japanese (known as the Jōyō kanji), and the average educated Japanese person probably knows around 3,000 to 4,000 characters. Daunting, yes, but it is nonetheless essential for eventually reading and writing in the language.

Differences from Alphabets and Syllabaries

It’s important to stress again that one of the main differences between kanji and alphabets/syllabaries is that kanji characters are not phonetic. The pronunciation of a word cannot be determined by simply looking at its written form, as is the case with alphabets and syllabaries. (Alternatively, characters in alphabets and syllabaries don’t carry inherent meanings with them as kanji do.)

This means that we learners of Japanese must memorize the pronunciation (or “reading”) of each individual character and how it is used in words and phrases. That said, there are certainly means and methods to learning these readings in an efficient manner, which I’ll detail further in another post.

For now, perhaps another incentive for learning these wacky characters, beyond being able to understand written Japanese, is that Chinese characters are not themselves used exclusively in Japan (even if we can say that kanji are). Chinese languages as well as several other East Asian countries, including Korea and Vietnam, have utilized in the present or the past their own passed-down versions of these characters.

Which means that if I’m visiting somebody’s Chinese YouTube channel, one can often at least get the gist of what the topic of conversation is, and perhaps what’s being said, even if one’s Chinese is perhaps subpar. We could even go as far as to say that this makes kanji a valuable tool for communication and cultural exchange in the region.

In summary, kanji is a unique writing system that originated from China and was adapted over the years to fit the Japanese language and culture. Its logographic nature and use of component parts make it a distinctive way of representing words and ideas. While it requires memorization of a large number of characters, it is an essential part of reading and writing in Japanese. Despite its differences from alphabets and syllabaries, kanji is also an invaluable tool for communication and cultural exchange in East Asia.

And if you're interested in mastering these and other important aspects of Japanese kanji, I recommend looking no further than IJC's Cracking the Kanji Code Course, as well as it's sequel for starting with your first 80 JLPT N5-Level kanji in our Level 2 Kanji Course.

Happy studies!

The post Japanese Kanji: Its Origins, Characteristics, and Distinctions first appeared on Immersion Japanese Club.

Kun-yomi vs. On-yomi Explained: Why do Japanese kanji have multiple readings?

Kelsey P. — Sat, 04 Mar 2023 19:49:21 +0000

Japanese kanji, the logographic characters borrowed from China, are an essential part of the Japanese writing system.

However, one of the most challenging aspects of learning kanji is that many of them have multiple readings. This can be confusing, especially for newbies to this aspect of the language, and especially when said newbies discover that some kanji have more than two, three, even -- wait for it -- more than twenty readings. (Yes, I'm looking at you, 生 ...)

So why do Japanese kanji have multiple readings, and what is the difference between kun-yomi and on-yomi? In this article, we'll explore these questions and shed some light on this important topic.

The Origin of Multiple Readings

To understand why kanji have multiple readings, it's important to know a bit about their history.

Kanji were first introduced to Japan over a thousand years ago, perhaps as early as the late 50s CE. Since then, they've evolved in distinctly unique (read: distinctly Japanese) ways.

The Japanese language already had its own set of native words and grammar rules, so the imported Chinese characters had to be adapted (in some cases, a lot) to fit the Japanese language.

One of the ways this was done was to give some of the kanji new pronunciations that were based on the sounds of existing Japanese words. These new readings were called kun-yomi, which literally means something like "instructional reading" or "meaning reading," but is probably best remembered as "Japanese reading."

The other type of reading for kanji is called on-yomi, which refers to the original Chinese pronunciation of the character (albeit from a region and time in China when they barely if ever resembled Mandarin). When kanji were first introduced to Japan, they were read using these on-yomi readings, and sometimes we can still see a loose connection in this regard between the Chinese hanzi and their Japanese equivalents (kanji).

Adopting kanji with their given on-yomi readings allowed Japanese people to read Chinese texts and communicate with Chinese traders and officials. Over time, the on-yomi readings became an important part of the Japanese language and can be found about as pervasively throughout the language today as French words are in English (as when I ask you if this isn't a most fine instruction of today's topic).

Kun-yomi vs. On-yomi

So, what is the difference exactly between kun-yomi and on-yomi readings?

Well, as mentioned earlier, kun-yomi readings are based on the sounds of Japanese words that existed prior to kanji's arrival to the country. These readings are used when a kanji has been "grafted" onto all or part of a Japanese word, either on its own (such as in 木, or ki) or as part of a compound word (as in 持ち帰り, mochikaeri), though somewhat less rarely than is the case for their on-yomi counterparts.

Kun-yomi readings are often the case as well when we see okurigana (or whatever hiragana comprises part of a word along with the word's kanji). A case in point: 行きたくない (ikitakunai), or "I don't want to go," requires okurigana to help us with declining the verb 行く (iku), and as such relies on a version of "to go" that utilizes the kanji's kun-yomi for 行 (which would otherwise be read "gyou" or "kou").

On-yomi readings, on the other hand, are based on the original Chinese pronunciation of the character. These readings are very often used when a kanji is used in combination with other kanji to form a compound word.

For example, the kanji for "big" (大) has the on-yomi reading of "dai" and the kun-yomi reading of "o'okii." When combined with other kanji (e.g. 学, "to study/learn") to form a compound word, it is usually read with the on-yomi reading (e.g. 大学, or daigaku, which means college/university).

Compound words in Japanese often have Chinese origins (again, think of big fancy French words used now in everyday English) that were imported into the language along with their readings. This makes on-yomi as necessarily relevant to daily Japanese conversation and reading as kun-yomi. So much for choosing favorites.

Why Learn Multiple Readings?

With so many kanji having multiple readings, it can be challenging to learn them all. (Seriously, there's eleven reading variations to the kanji we used above, 行. What gives?!)

However, as any good-natured Japanese native or language teacher will tell you, it is an unavoidable, arduous, and fairly thankless task that you signed up for the moment you told yourself that one time, "Kanji are cool! I'll bet I can learn 50 of them a day and have all the jouyou ones down before Anya says 'chichi' again!" (Bad, Anya, bad!)

It's most certainly worth it, though. For one thing, knowing both kun-yomi and on-yomi readings allows you to understand the meaning of a much wider variety of words than if you only chose one or the other. This inherently makes reading Japanese texts much easier, consider the vast number of words that are written using kanji.

Another less obvious reason to take the time to learn these multiple readings is that they can provide hints as to the meaning of unfamiliar words. For example, the kanji for "fire" (火) has the on-yomi reading of "ka" and the kun-yomi reading of "hi." Knowing both readings can help you recognize the kanji (and therefore its associations) when you hear it in other words, such as "kayoubi (火曜日 , "Tuesday"), "kazan" (火山, "volcano"), or "hibana" (火花, "spark").

In other words, kanji often serves as the link between disparate-seeming words (e.g. "ie" and "kazoku" both share 家) which we can only really appreciate and take advantage of knowing if we do our due diligence of studying both its kun- and on-yomi readings. Put in the effort, and you'll slowly but surely begin to see the code of the Matrix that is the Japanese language reveal itself to you.

In conclusion, the reason why Japanese kanji have multiple readings is due to their evolution over time and the need to adapt them to the peculiarities and idiosyncrasies of the Japanese language.

Happy studies!

The post Kun-yomi vs. On-yomi Explained: Why do Japanese kanji have multiple readings? first appeared on Immersion Japanese Club.