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69-454: Yamauchi or Yamanouchi (やまうち or やまのうち, lit. "inside mountains") is a Japanese surname. Either name is written in kanji as 山内 while Yamanouchi can also be written as 山ノ内. Notable people with the surname include: Other uses: Kanji Kanji ( 漢字 , Japanese pronunciation: [kaɲdʑi] ) are the logographic Chinese characters adapted from the Chinese script used in

138-413: A kun -reading) ; kun -only are common for Japanese-coined kanji ( kokuji ). Some common kanji have ten or more possible readings; the most complex common example is 生 , which is read as sei , shō , nama , ki , o-u , i-kiru , i-kasu , i-keru , u-mu , u-mareru , ha-eru , and ha-yasu , totaling eight basic readings (the first two are on , while

207-544: A ⟨g⟩ element to encode any non-standard character or glyph, including gaiji. The g stands for gaiji . There is no definitive count of kanji characters, just as there is none of Chinese characters generally. The Dai Kan-Wa Jiten , which is considered to be comprehensive in Japan, contains about 50,000 characters. The Zhonghua Zihai , published in 1994 in China, contains about 85,000 characters, but

276-737: A label for its sound), kanji are also called mana ( 真名 , literally "true name", in reference to the character being used as a label for its meaning). In modern Japanese, kanji are used to write certain words or parts of words (usually content words such as nouns , adjective stems , and verb stems ), while hiragana are used to write inflected verb and adjective endings, phonetic complements to disambiguate readings ( okurigana ), particles , and miscellaneous words which have no kanji or whose kanji are considered obscure or too difficult to read or remember. Katakana are mostly used for representing onomatopoeia , non-Japanese loanwords (except those borrowed from ancient Chinese ),

345-454: A long gairaigo word may be the reading (this is classed as kun'yomi —see single character gairaigo , below)—the character 糎 has the seven kana reading センチメートル senchimētoru "centimeter", though it is generally written as "cm" (with two half-width characters, so occupying one space); another common example is '%' (the percent sign), which has the five kana reading パーセント pāsento . There are many kanji compounds that use

414-614: A mixture of on'yomi and kun'yomi , known as jūbako ( 重箱 , multi-layered food box) or yutō ( 湯桶 , hot liquid pail) words (depending on the order), which are themselves examples of this kind of compound (they are autological words ): the first character of jūbako is read using on'yomi , the second kun'yomi ( on-kun , Japanese : 重箱読み ). It is the other way around with yu-tō ( kun-on , Japanese : 湯桶読み ). Formally, these are referred to as jūbako-yomi ( 重箱読み , jūbako reading) and yutō-yomi ( 湯桶読み , yutō reading) . In both these words,

483-430: A new kanji spelling is produced. Most often the word is a noun, which may be a simple noun (not a compound or derived from a verb), or may be a verb form or a fusional pronunciation. For example, the word 相撲 ( sumō , “ sumo ”) is originally from the verb 争う ( sumau , “to vie, to compete”), while 今日 ( kyō , “today”) is fusional (from older ke , “this” + fu , “day”). In rare cases, jukujikun

552-520: A number of Chinese characters for their sound, rather than for their meaning. Man'yōgana written in cursive style evolved into hiragana (literally "fluttering kana " in reference to the motion of the brush during cursive writing), or onna-de , that is, "ladies' hand", 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 (literally "partial kana ", in reference to

621-534: A problem for information interchange, as the code point used to represent an external character will not be consistent from one computer or operating system to another. Gaiji were nominally prohibited in JIS X 0208-1997 where the available number of code-points was reduced to only 940. JIS X 0213-2000 used the entire range of code-points previously allocated to gaiji , making them completely unusable. Most desktop and mobile systems have moved to Unicode negating

690-517: A profound influence in shaping Japanese culture, language, literature, history, and records. Inkstone artifacts at archaeological sites dating back to the earlier Yayoi period were also found to contain Chinese characters. Although some characters, as used in Japanese and Chinese, have similar meanings and pronunciations, others have meanings or pronunciations that are unique to one language or

759-513: A rubbing tool used for rubbing dyes dating around 6000 to 7000 years ago. The earliest excavated inkstone is dated from the 3rd century BC, and was discovered in a tomb located in modern Yunmeng, Hubei. Usage of the inkstone was popularized during the Han dynasty. Stimulated by the social economy and culture, the demand for inkstones increased during the Tang dynasty (618–905) and reached its height in

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828-499: A single word will have many such kanji spellings. An extreme example is hototogisu ( lesser cuckoo ) , which may be spelt in many ways, including 杜鵑 , 時鳥 , 子規 , 不如帰 , 霍公鳥 , 蜀魂 , 沓手鳥 , 杜宇 , 田鵑 , 沓直鳥 , and 郭公 —many of these variant spellings are particular to haiku poems. Inkstone The inkstone is Chinese in origin and is used in calligraphy and painting . Extant inkstones date from early antiquity in China. The device evolved from

897-450: A surname). This phenomenon is observed in animal names that are shortened and used as suffixes for zoological compound names, for example when 黄金虫 , normally read as koganemushi , is shortened to kogane in 黒黄金虫 kurokogane , although zoological names are commonly spelled with katakana rather than with kanji. Outside zoology, this type of shortening only occurs on a handful of words, for example 大元帥 daigen(sui) , or

966-640: A total of 2,528 characters, showing the standard for kanji used by ministries and agencies and in general society. In 1946, after World War II and under the Allied Occupation of Japan , the Japanese government, guided by the Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers , instituted a series of orthographic reforms, to help children learn and to simplify kanji use in literature and periodicals. The number of characters in circulation

1035-427: Is jukujikun for tonakai , from Ainu, but the on'yomi reading of junroku is also used. In some cases, Japanese coinages have subsequently been borrowed back into Chinese , such as 鮟鱇 ( ankō , “ monkfish ”). The underlying word for jukujikun is a native Japanese word or foreign borrowing, which either does not have an existing kanji spelling (either kun'yomi or ateji ) or for which

1104-401: Is a reading based on the pronunciation of a native Japanese word, or yamato kotoba , 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 ( 当て字 ) are characters used only for their sounds. In this case, pronunciation

1173-534: Is also applied to inflectional words (verbs and adjectives), in which case there is frequently a corresponding Chinese word. The most common example of an inflectional jukujikun is the adjective 可愛い ( kawai-i , “cute”), originally kawafayu-i ; the word ( 可愛 ) is used in Chinese , but the corresponding on'yomi is not used in Japanese. By contrast, "appropriate" can be either 相応しい ( fusawa-shii , as jukujikun ) or 相応 ( sōō , as on'yomi ). Which reading to use can be discerned by

1242-408: Is applied onto the inkstone (by means of a dropper to control the amount of water) before the bottom end of the inkstick is placed on the grinding surface and then gradually ground to produce the ink. More water is gradually added during the grinding process to increase the amount of ink produced, the excess flowing down into the reservoir of the inkstone where it will not evaporate as quickly as on

1311-567: Is determined by contextual cues (such as whether the character represents part of a compound word versus an independent word), 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 instead read konnichi , meaning "nowadays", which is understood from context. Furigana is used to specify ambiguous readings, such as rare, literary, or otherwise non-standard readings. This ambiguity may arise due to more than one reading becoming activated in

1380-478: Is most appreciated for the grain, texture or even sound it produces when the Ink stick is rubbed against it in a circular motion: If you strike the stone hanging on a hook, with a sharp blow with your finger, it should make a beautiful clear sound.” And also: “A good stone is distinguished first and foremost by the fineness and regularity of its grain. It has a softness and mellowness that you feel when you caress it with

1449-953: Is still based on a standard reading, or used only for meaning (broadly a form of ateji , narrowly jukujikun ). Therefore, only the full compound—not the individual character—has a reading. There are also special cases where the reading is completely different, often based on a historical or traditional reading. The analogous phenomenon occurs to a much lesser degree in Chinese varieties , where there are literary and colloquial readings of Chinese characters —borrowed readings and native readings. In Chinese these borrowed readings and native readings are etymologically related, since they are between Chinese varieties (which are related), not from Chinese to Japanese (which are not related). They thus form doublets and are generally similar, analogous to different on'yomi , reflecting different stages of Chinese borrowings into Japanese. Longer readings exist for non- Jōyō characters and non-kanji symbols, where

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1518-415: Is written in Japanese by using the same characters as in traditional Chinese , and both refer to the character writing system known in Chinese as hanzi ( traditional Chinese : 漢字 ; simplified Chinese : 汉字 ; pinyin : hànzì ; lit. ' Han characters'). The significant use of Chinese characters in Japan first began to take hold around the 5th century AD and has since had

1587-526: The Nihon Shoki and Kojiki , a semi-legendary scholar called Wani was dispatched to Japan by the (Korean) Kingdom of Baekje during the reign of Emperor Ōjin in the early fifth century, bringing with him knowledge of Confucianism and Chinese characters. The earliest Japanese documents were probably written by bilingual Chinese or Korean officials employed at the Yamato court. For example,

1656-406: The kyōiku kanji, plus 1,110 additional kanji taught in junior high and high school. In publishing, characters outside this category are often given furigana . The jōyō kanji were introduced in 1981, replacing an older list of 1,850 characters known as the tōyō kanji ( 当用漢字 , general-use kanji) , introduced in 1946. Originally numbering 1,945 characters, the jōyō kanji list

1725-474: The on'yomi has a long vowel; long vowels in Japanese generally are derived from sound changes common to loans from Chinese, hence distinctive of on'yomi . These are the Japanese form of hybrid words . Other examples include basho ( 場所 , "place", kun-on , 湯桶読み ) , kin'iro ( 金色 , "golden", on-kun , 重箱読み ) and aikidō ( 合気道 , the martial art Aikido ", kun-on-on , 湯桶読み ) . Ateji often use mixed readings. For instance,

1794-655: The Latin alphabet , Cyrillic script , Greek alphabet , Arabic numerals , etc. for use in information processing. They have had numerous revisions. The current standards are: Gaiji ( 外字 , literally "external characters") are kanji that are not represented in existing Japanese encoding systems . These include variant forms of common kanji that need to be represented alongside the more conventional glyph in reference works and can include non-kanji symbols as well. Gaiji can be either user-defined characters, system-specific characters or third-party add-on products. Both are

1863-698: The Meiji Restoration , Japan made its own efforts to simplify the characters, now known as shinjitai , by a process similar to China 's simplification efforts , with the intention to increase literacy among the common folk. Since the 1920s, the Japanese government has published character lists periodically to help direct the education of its citizenry through the myriad Chinese characters that exist. There are nearly 3,000 kanji used in Japanese names and in common communication . The term kanji in Japanese literally means " Han characters". It

1932-646: The Song dynasty (960–1279). Song dynasty inkstones can be of great size and often display a delicacy of carving. Song dynasty inkstones can also exhibit a roughness in their finishing. Dragon designs of the period often reveal an almost humorous rendition; the dragons often seem to smile. From the subsequent Yuan dynasty, in contrast, dragons display a ferocious appearance. The transition to civil rule under Kangxi Emperor in 1681 saw an increase in imperial inkstone production. Inkstones were often given as gifts, likely in part to help connect existing Chinese literati culture to

2001-580: The 1,026 first kanji characters that Japanese children learn in elementary school, from first grade to sixth grade. The grade-level breakdown is known as the gakunen-betsu kanji haitōhyō ( 学年別漢字配当表 ) , or the gakushū kanji ( 学習漢字 ) . This list of kanji is maintained by the Japanese Ministry of Education and prescribes which kanji characters and which kanji readings students should learn for each grade. The jōyō kanji ( 常用漢字 , regular-use kanji) are 2,136 characters consisting of all

2070-485: The 7th century, a record of trading for cloth and salt. The Japanese language had no written form at the time Chinese characters were introduced, and texts were written and read only in Chinese. Later, during the Heian period (794–1185), a system known as kanbun emerged, which involved using Chinese text with diacritical marks to allow Japanese speakers to read Chinese sentences and restructure them into Japanese on

2139-615: The Chinese pronunciation but was not the Chinese pronunciation or reading itself, similar to the English pronunciation of Latin loanwords. There also exist kanji created by the Japanese and given an on'yomi reading despite not being a Chinese-derived or a Chinese-originating character. Some kanji were introduced from different parts of China at different times, and so have multiple on'yomi , and often multiple meanings. Kanji invented in Japan ( kokuji ) would not normally be expected to have on'yomi , but there are exceptions, such as

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2208-419: The Japanese court. In ancient times, paper was so rare that people wrote kanji onto thin, rectangular strips of wood, called mokkan ( 木簡 ). These wooden boards were used for communication between government offices, tags for goods transported between various countries, and the practice of writing. The oldest written kanji in Japan discovered so far were written in ink on wood as a wooden strip dated to

2277-417: The brain. Kanji readings are categorized as either on'yomi ( 音読み , literally "sound reading" ) , from Chinese, or kun'yomi ( 訓読み , literally "meaning reading" ) , native Japanese, and most characters have at least two readings—at least one of each. However, some characters have only a single reading, such as kiku ( 菊 , "chrysanthemum", an on -reading) or iwashi ( 鰯 , "sardine",

2346-687: The broader sense "nowadays" or "current", such as 今日的 ("present-day"), although in the phrase konnichi wa ("good day"), konnichi is typically spelled wholly with hiragana rather than with the kanji 今日 . Jukujikun are primarily used for some native Japanese words, such as Yamato ( 大和 or 倭 , the name of the dominant ethnic group of Japan, a former Japanese province as well as ancient name for Japan), and for some old borrowings, such as 柳葉魚 ( shishamo , literally "willow leaf fish") from Ainu, 煙草 ( tabako , literally “smoke grass”) from Portuguese, or 麦酒 ( bīru , literally “wheat alcohol”) from Dutch, especially if

2415-400: The character 働 "to work", which has the kun'yomi " hatara(ku) " and the on'yomi " dō ", and 腺 "gland", which has only the on'yomi " sen "—in both cases these come from the on'yomi of the phonetic component, respectively 動 " dō " and 泉 " sen ". The kun'yomi ( 訓読み , [kɯɰ̃jomi] , lit. "meaning reading") , the native reading,

2484-431: The characters' individual on'yomi or kun'yomi . From the point of view of the character, rather than the word, this is known as a nankun ( 難訓 , "difficult reading") , and these are listed in kanji dictionaries under the entry for the character. Gikun are other readings assigned to a character instead of its standard readings. An example is reading 寒 (meaning "cold") as fuyu ("winter") rather than

2553-514: The characters, and only infrequently as konchō , the on'yomi of the characters. The most common reading is kesa , a native bisyllabic Japanese word that may be seen as a single morpheme , or as a compound of ke (“this”, as in kefu , the older reading for 今日 , “today”), and asa , “morning”. Likewise, 今日 ("today") is also jukujikun , usually read with the native reading kyō ; its on'yomi , konnichi , does occur in certain words and expressions, especially in

2622-454: The city of Sapporo ( サッポロ ), whose name derives from the Ainu language and has no meaning in Japanese, is written with the on-kun compound [札幌] Error: {{Lang}}: invalid parameter: |4= ( help ) (which includes sokuon as if it were a purely on compound). Gikun ( 義訓 ) and jukujikun ( 熟字訓 ) are readings of kanji combinations that have no direct correspondence to

2691-488: The diplomatic correspondence from King Bu of Wa to Emperor Shun of Liu Song in 478 AD has been praised for its skillful use of allusion . Later, groups of people called fuhito were organized under the monarch to read and write Classical Chinese . During the reign of Empress Suiko (593–628), the Yamato court began sending full-scale diplomatic missions to China, which resulted in a large increase in Chinese literacy at

2760-574: The entire word—rather than each part of the word being centered over its corresponding character, as is often done for the usual phono-semantic readings. Broadly speaking, jukujikun can be considered a form of ateji , though in narrow usage, " ateji " refers specifically to using characters for sound and not meaning (sound-spelling), whereas " jukujikun " refers to using characters for their meaning and not sound (meaning-spelling). Many jukujikun (established meaning-spellings) began as gikun (improvised meaning-spellings). Occasionally,

2829-488: The flat grinding surface, until enough ink has been produced for the purpose in question. The Chinese grind their ink in a circular motion with the end flat on the surface whilst the Japanese push one edge of the end of the inkstick back and forth. Water can be stored in a water-holding cavity on the inkstone itself, as was the case for many Song dynasty (960–1279) inkstones. The water-holding cavity or water reservoir in time became an ink reservoir on later inkstones. Water

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2898-462: The fly, by changing word order and adding particles and verb endings, in accordance with the rules of Japanese grammar . This was essentially a kind of codified sight translation . Chinese characters also came to be used to write texts in the vernacular Japanese language , resulting in the modern kana syllabaries. Around 650 AD, a writing system called man'yōgana (used in the ancient poetry anthology Man'yōshū ) evolved that used

2967-433: The historical male name suffix 右衛門 -emon , which was shortened from the word uemon . The kanji compound for jukujikun is often idiosyncratic and created for the word, and there is no corresponding Chinese word with that spelling. In other cases, a kanji compound for an existing Chinese word is reused, where the Chinese word and on'yomi may or may not be used in Japanese. For example, 馴鹿 (“reindeer”)

3036-400: The imperial workshop. Inkstone design outside the palace developed largely in parallel with imperial inkstone design, although they occasionally intersected. Gu Erniang was the most famous inkstone-maker among Chinese scholars in the early Qing dynasty. Records indicate her inkstones were elegant and relatively simple, as was the preferred style at the time. However, by the late Qing dynasty,

3105-544: The ink is less beautiful... The best stones have always come from Chinese quarries on the south bank of the Xijiang in Guangdong . But quarrying these stones was dangerous and strenuous, as they were usually found in caves particularly hard hit by violent floods. Even today, many mines are still in operation, and the oldest stones over a hundred years old, also known as guyàn / ko-ken (古硯), are much more sought-after than

3174-416: The inkstone market had turned to favoring highly intricate and novel designs. Inkstones can be made from a variety of materials, such as ceramics, lacquered wood, glass, or old bricks. However, they are typically made from stones harvested specifically for inkstone-making. Different stones yield different quality ink; as such, the material of an inkstone is critical to its functionality. Inkstones made from

3243-412: The limitation of kanji. After the Meiji Restoration and as Japan entered an era of active exchange with foreign countries, the need for script reform in Japan began to be called for. Some scholars argued for the abolition of kanji and the writing of Japanese using only kana or Latin characters. However, these views were not so widespread. However, the need to limit the number of kanji characters

3312-705: The majority of them are not in common use in any country, and many are obscure variants or archaic forms. A list of 2,136 jōyō kanji is regarded as necessary for functional literacy in Japanese. Approximately a thousand more characters are commonly used and readily understood by the majority in Japan and a few thousand more find occasional use, particularly in specialized fields of study but those may be obscure to most out of context. A total of 13,108 characters can be encoded in various Japanese Industrial Standards for kanji . Individual kanji may be used to write one or more different words or morphemes , leading to different pronunciations or "readings." The correct reading

3381-485: The names of plants and animals (with exceptions), and for emphasis on certain words. Since ancient times, there has been a strong opinion in Japan that kanji is the orthodox form of writing, but there were also people who argued against it. Kamo no Mabuchi , a scholar of the Edo period , criticized the large number of characters in kanji. He also appreciated the small number of characters in kana characters and argued for

3450-407: The need for gaiji for most users. Nevertheless, they persist today in Japan's three major mobile phone information portals, where they are used for emoji (pictorial characters). Unicode allows for optional encoding of gaiji in private use areas , while Adobe's SING (Smart INdependent Glyphlets) technology allows the creation of customized gaiji. The Text Encoding Initiative uses

3519-532: The new Manchu imperial culture. The Qianlong Emperor had his own imperial collection of inkstones catalogued into a twenty-four chapter compendium entitled Xiqing yanpu (Hsi-ch'ing yen-p'u). Many of these inkstones are housed in the National Palace Museum collection in Taipei. Qing dynasty emperors often had their inkstones made of Songhua stones, but this choice was not popular outside of

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3588-435: The newer ones known as xinyàn / shin-ken (新硯). Some regions of Japan also produce good quality stones. A beginner can use very simple stones, which can later be upgraded to higher-quality ink stones as they progress. Four kinds of Chinese inkstones are especially noted in inkstone art history and are popularly known as the "Four Famous Inkstones". Traditional Chinese ink is solidified into inksticks . Usually, some water

3657-604: The original list published in 1952, but new additions have been made frequently. Sometimes the term jinmeiyō kanji refers to all 2,999 kanji from both the jōyō and jinmeiyō lists combined. Hyōgai kanji ( 表外漢字 , "unlisted characters") are any kanji not contained in the jōyō kanji and jinmeiyō kanji lists. These are generally written using traditional characters, but extended shinjitai forms exist. The Japanese Industrial Standards for kanji and kana define character code-points for each kanji and kana , as well as other forms of writing such as

3726-485: The other. For example, 誠 means 'honest' in both languages but is pronounced makoto or sei in Japanese, and chéng in Standard Mandarin Chinese . Individual kanji characters and multi-kanji words invented in Japan from Chinese morphemes have been borrowed into Chinese, Korean, and Vietnamese in recent times. These are known as Wasei-kango , or Japanese-made Chinese words. For example,

3795-403: The palm of your hand. It has a satin sheen. Thanks to these qualities, it picks up the ink as the stick passes over it, accelerating the grinding process and producing fine, dense ink. An infinitesimal part of its grain is also said to pass into the ink, giving it a superior patina. On a stone that is too hard, the stick is not grasped but pushed away, it slips; the grinding is done irregularly and

3864-407: The practice of using a part of a kanji character) emerged via a parallel path: monastery students simplified man'yōgana to a single constituent element. Thus the two other writing systems, hiragana and katakana , referred to collectively as kana , are descended from kanji. In contrast with kana ( 仮名 , literally "borrowed name", in reference to the character being "borrowed" as

3933-594: The presence or absence of the -shii ending ( okurigana ). A common example of a verb with jukujikun is 流行る ( haya-ru , “to spread, to be in vogue”), corresponding to on'yomi 流行 ( ryūkō ). A sample jukujikun deverbal (noun derived from a verb form) is 強請 ( yusuri , “extortion”), from 強請る ( yusu-ru , “to extort”), spelling from 強請 ( kyōsei , “extortion”). Note that there are also compound verbs and, less commonly, compound adjectives, and while these may have multiple kanji without intervening characters, they are read using

4002-402: The readings contradict the kanji), or clarification if the referent may not be obvious. 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 . This word is not read as *ima'asa , the expected kun'yomi of

4071-482: The rest are kun ), or 12 if related verbs are counted as distinct. The on'yomi ( 音読み , [oɰ̃jomi] , lit. "sound(-based) reading") , the Sino-Japanese reading, 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 , as it was recreated readings of

4140-575: The standard readings samu or kan , and instead of the usual spelling for fuyu of 冬 . Another example is using 煙草 (lit. "smoke grass") with the reading tabako ("tobacco") rather than the otherwise-expected readings of *kemuri-gusa or *ensō . Some of these, such as for tabako , have become lexicalized , but in many cases this kind of use is typically non-standard and employed in specific contexts by individual writers. Aided with furigana , gikun could be used to convey complex literary or poetic effect (especially if

4209-455: The stones of specific quarries, and from specific caves within those quarries, are highly sought out by collectors. Two types of rock are mainly used to make inkstones: The ink stone consists of a flat part called the “hill” ( qiū [丘] or gāng [冈]; oka [丘] or [岡] in Japanese), and a hollow part “the sea”, hǎi , 海 ( umi in Japanese) intended to collect the ink created. An ink stone

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4278-411: The usual kun'yomi . Examples include 面白い ( omo-shiro-i , “interesting”, literally “face + white”) and 狡賢い ( zuru-gashiko-i , “sly”, lit. “cunning, crafty + clever, smart”). Typographically, the furigana for jukujikun are often written so they are centered across the entire word, or for inflectional words over the entire root—corresponding to the reading being related to

4347-623: The word for telephone , 電話 denwa in Japanese, was derived from the Chinese words for "electric" and "conversation." It was then calqued as diànhuà in Mandarin Chinese, điện thoại in Vietnamese and 전화 jeonhwa in Korean. Chinese characters first came to Japan on official seals, letters, swords, coins, mirrors, and other decorative items imported from China . The earliest known instance of such an import

4416-725: The word was borrowed before the Meiji period . Words whose kanji are jukujikun are often usually written as hiragana (if native), or katakana (if borrowed); some old borrowed words are also written as hiragana , especially Portuguese loanwords such as かるた ( karuta ) from Portuguese " carta " (English “card”) or てんぷら ( tempura ) from Portuguese " tempora " (English “times, season”), as well as たばこ ( tabako ). Sometimes, jukujikun can even have more kanji than there are syllables, examples being kera ( 啄木鳥 , “woodpecker”), gumi ( 胡頽子 , “silver berry, oleaster”), and Hozumi ( 八月朔日 ,

4485-460: The writing of Japanese . They were made a major part of the Japanese writing system during the time of Old Japanese and are still used, along with the subsequently-derived syllabic scripts of hiragana and katakana . The characters have Japanese pronunciations ; most have two, with one based on the Chinese sound. A few characters were invented in Japan by constructing character components derived from other Chinese characters. After

4554-475: Was expanded to 2,136 in 2010. Some of the new characters were previously jinmeiyō kanji; some are used to write prefecture names: 阪 , 熊 , 奈 , 岡 , 鹿 , 梨 , 阜 , 埼 , 茨 , 栃 and 媛 . As of September 25, 2017, the jinmeiyō kanji ( 人名用漢字 , kanji for use in personal names) consists of 863 characters. Kanji on this list are mostly used in people's names and some are traditional variants of jōyō kanji. There were only 92 kanji in

4623-526: Was reduced, and formal lists of characters to be learned during each grade of school were established. Some characters were given simplified glyphs , called shinjitai ( 新字体 ) . Many variant forms of characters and obscure alternatives for common characters were officially discouraged. These are simply guidelines, so many characters outside these standards are still widely known and commonly used; these are known as hyōgaiji ( 表外字 ) . The kyōiku kanji ( 教育漢字 , lit. "education kanji") are

4692-550: Was the King of Na gold seal given by Emperor Guangwu of Han to a Wa emissary in 57 AD. Chinese coins as well as inkstones from the first century AD have also been found in Yayoi period archaeological sites. However, the Japanese people of that era probably had little to no comprehension of the script, and they would remain relatively illiterate until the fifth century AD, when writing in Japan became more widespread. According to

4761-639: Was understood, and in May 1923, the Japanese government announced 1,962 kanji characters for regular use. In 1940, the Japanese Army decided on the "Table of Restricted Kanji for Weapons Names" ( 兵器名称用制限漢字表 , heiki meishō yō seigen kanji hyō ) which limited the number of kanji that could be used for weapons names to 1,235. In 1942, the National Language Council announced the "Standard Kanji Table" ( 標準漢字表 , hyōjun kanji-hyō ) with

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