Kanbun

Before the appearance of different the writings from Japanese and spelling-books Kana, the kanbun was used to write the Japanese texts. Nowadays, the kanbun is used to annotate traditional or literary Chinese and is an obligatory discipline in higher education, and consequently in modern Japanese, the word " kanbun" is also used to evoke the traditional Chinese literature like a whole.

The modern kanbun uses a character set known as or. For example, sentences following of Han Fei Zi:

zh-Japn 楚人有鬻盾與矛者

would be written in kaeriten in the following way:

ja 楚人有_下鬻_二盾與_一レ矛者_上

To read this, the noted character is put at the place of the character, and the same the character is put at the place of the character. Indicates that the order of the adjacent characters must be reversed. Elements taken one by one, the sentence becomes:

ja 楚人盾矛與鬻者有

And the final sentence thus follows henceforth the Japanese order Subject-Object-Verb. A conjugation can also be added with the Okurigana S and the corresponding characters (such ja 與) must be removed:

ja 楚人に盾と矛とを鬻ぐ者有り

sometimes, the reading of character can be annotated with Furigana S:

楚 ( そ ) 人 ( ひと ) ja に 盾 ( たて ) と 矛 ( ほこ ) とを 鬻 ( ひさ ) ぐ 者 ( もの ) 有 ( あ ) り

The complete translation is known under the name of.

External bonds

• Kanbun in Unicode