Kanji

Definition

The kanji , 漢字, (term sino - Japanese ; in Mandarin hànzì ) are the Chinese Caractères, 字, of the Chinese dynasty 漢 Hàn used in language Japanese and borrowed from the Chinese.

The kanji are also used in Korean, of which 75% of the vocabulary are of Chinese origin, but tend to be used only by the elderly and/or “well-read women”. Each country using them their made undergo more or less Draconian simplifications. Thus, the Republic of China (Taiwan) and the Korea did not make any simplification, the Japan made moderate simplifications while the Popular republic of China simplified the Sinogramme S. much Consequently, the same characters can be differently written from one language with the other. Their qualification of Idéogramme S is largely erroneous: indeed, the ideograms represent only one negligible part of the Sinogramme S.

The kanji are associated between them and with syllabic signs ( Hiragana and Katakana ) to form the words and the sentences Japanese be. Sometimes one uses kana of small size above (horizontal writing) or on the right (vertical writing) the kanjis to specify the pronunciation of it. These characters are then called Furigana .

History

The Chinese characters arrived at Japan about the 4th century, via the Korea. As the Japanese did not have a written form, they tried to use the Chinese characters not only to write Chinese, but also their own language. Certain characters were taken in a purely phonetic value, they are what is called the Man' yōgana (万葉仮名), by reference to the Manyōshū (万葉集) a collection of Poème S of the 8th century. It is a drastic reduction in the number of natures used phonetically (one by its) and a great simplification and stylization of the features which gave rise to the Hiragana (平仮名) and Katakana (片仮名) modern, two Syllabaire S of 46 basic signs. The hiragana are used for the Japanese words or of Chinese origin, the katakana are reserved for the words of foreign origin (other that Chinese), and for the onomatopoeias.

Official kanji

At the beginning of the 20th century, debates on the possibility of spelling reforms take place but they are blocked by the capacity in place, and it is only after the Second world war that the reforms will be able truly to take place.

First of all a reform of the use of the syllabic characters, whose writing was not any more phonetic, made the use of the kana in conformity with the current pronunciation of Japanese, except for two small exceptions (two monosyllabic grammatical elements) any Japanese sentence can from now on be written phonetically according to simple rules.

A reform of the kanji and their use will follow. In 1946 is enacted a list of kanji of everyday usage, them, including/understanding 1850 characters. In 1948 one indicates 881 of them like front being known at the six years exit of compulsory schooling, in parallel, the number of readings of several characters is reduced.

In 1949 one simplifies the form of several characters. In 1951 the list of the tōyō kanji is increased by 92 kanji being able to be used for the proper names.

But the number of characters (1942), as certain choices which were made, are considered to be definitely inappropriate by a great number of Japanese: certain characters of extremely rare use are in the list, whereas others of use very running, like pillow or New Year's Day are not there. Between 1973 and 1980 several additions are made, and finally in 1981 the minister of education publishes a new usual list of kanji, them, which counts a total of 1945 kanjis. In April 1990 is published the list of, a list of 284 acceptable additional natures to the civil statue for the names and first names (either on the whole 2229 kanji says current). The thousand six first kanji that the Japanese learn with the primary education (and who belong to the jōyō kanji ) are them. They are distributed precisely per year of training in.

Apart from the official list of the kanjis of everyday usage, there exist about it much of different used in specialized fields (medicine, philosophy…), or for names of people and places; a good dictionary of kanjis indexes of them more 4 000. Standard JISX0208 brought up to date in 1990 defines a data-processing character set of 6 879 characters, of which 6 355 kanjis divided into two blocks, the first includes 2 965 kanjis usual arranged by most frequent reading order, the second block includes 3 390 kanjis arranged by radical and many features. The same year left the standard JISX0212 which defines an additional character set to use in conjunction of the precedent, and which includes/understands 6 067 additional characters of which 5 081 kanjis. In other words, on a computer with a modern support of Japanese, there are at disposal not less 11 436 kanji different.

Old kanjis

Same the kanji can be sometimes written in several ways. It acts of which has for kanjis 舊字體 in kyūjitai . Currently they are replaced by, holding the kyūjitai mainly for the proper names and certain traditional technical terms. The kyūjitai were used quasi daily until 1950.

An example of new form (shinjitai) is the kanji for which has for old form (kyûjitai) 國.

Use

The Chinese characters make it possible to write either of the words of Chinese origin, or of the Japanese words. Are used they to write the root of the words, the grammatical preparing of the sentence being written phonetically with the kana.

Readings and pronunciations

The pronunciations resulting from Chinese gave what is called to the pronunciations one , in Japanese On' yomi (音読み, reading by the sound), while the pronunciations resulting from Japanese are called kun , in Japanese Kun' yomi (訓読み, reading by the direction).

For corser the things, it can exist more than one reading ONE , according to the time (Chinese having evolved/moved) to which it was introduced in Japan, or according to the area of China from where it came. Among the readings ONE one distinguishes thus the kan' one (漢音, pronunciation of Han), introduced between the {{mini VIIe}} and the 8th century, it is about the group most; the goon (呉音, pronunciation of Wu, imported via Korea, of the south-east of China), introducing mainly Buddhist terms; the tōon (唐音, pronunciation of Tang), introduced at the time of the Song dynasty, they are mainly technical terms; the sōon (宋音, of the beginning of the Song era); the kan' yōon (慣用音, usual pronunciation), they are erroneous pronunciations which became current.

The new dictionary of english-japanese natures of Halpern Jack, published in 1990 adds some additional, non-classiques and less current categories to it: the chūon (中音, Chinese pronunciation), they are pronunciations inspired of the modern Mandarin; the gaion (外音, foreign pronunciation), which does not result from Chinese, but other languages (like English); and the waon (和音, Japanese pronunciation) which is pronunciations ONE create by analogy similar characters for the characters kanji create by the Japanese and non-existent in Chinese, the kokuji (国字, national characters).

In addition to all that, there are also possible readings which are neither of the readings ONE , nor of the readings kun . They are the ateji (当て字, plated characters) which are used only phonetically (it is thus here about the choice of a pronunciation ONE, but without reference none to the direction of this pronunciation). This use nowadays fell in disuse, one uses the katakana to transcribe words phonetically. In last special reading, one finds the jukujikun (熟字訓, reading of special character), it is about a Japanese word which is written with Chinese characters which give the direction of them, but without bond between a given character and part of the word; it may be even that the word thus writing has more kanji that syllables.

Yaeko S. Habein and Gerald B. Mathias, in their “Handbook of Kanji usual” gather the kanjis in three categories:

kanjis “ with base form ” coming from pictograms, signs unit, relatively simple, not being able to be broken up (like 日: sun or 月: the moon)
the kanjis of the made up type “ semantics ”, which result from the combination from two or several base forms whose significances come into play the direction of made up (Ex: 明 = 日 + 月 = light)
Kanjis of the made up type “ phonetics ”: association of an element which represents a direction and an element which represents the sound. In addition, the phonetic component transmits its direction to new the kanji. This category is most numerous (1310 among the 1945 Jōyō kanji. Ex: 扶 (delivery “fu”) = 扌 (hand) + 夫 which decides “fu” and means “man”: hand + man = assistance, support).

Training

The knowledge of a great number of kanjis is a mark of culture and scholarship; the professors of literature can know until sept-mille kanjis. In the official publications, the not-official kanjis must be accompanied by a guide of reading (small characters hiragana or katakana on the side in the case of the writing in column and above in the case of the writing on line, in this employment one speaks about Furigana ).

The study of the kanjis request much for work, as well as a constant practice. Indeed, for each kanji, it is necessary to memorize:

the drawing of the features: the order and the manner of drawing these features are important. There it is also important to know the number and of knowing of it to locate the key (see further);
readings or pronunciations. In addition to there are two types of reading, the reading one , inherited Chinese, and the reading kun inherited the Japanese morpheme associated with the sign during its adaptation to the Japanese, certain characters can have several readings one or several different readings kun ; in certain extreme cases, fortunately rare, one has more than twenty different pronunciations;
significances, and the pronunciation to which it is attached.

Conversely, the same sound can be written with a great quantity of kanjis different, and to know to write a word in kanjis it is necessary to know which to use. For example in the index of the second edition of the dictionary of kanji of Nelson, there are 184 kanji different having reading KŌ.

There exists in Japan a specific examination of kanji, the Kanken, declined in a dozen levels. The simplest levels are accessible to a foreigner learning Japanese, and it is possible to pass the examination in certain big cities outside Japan, of which Paris.

Some electronic dictionaries, like Casio XD-SW7200, allow the research based on kanjis seized the stylet, which helps to find their reading even with the beginners.

Classification

The kanjis can be classified in a dictionary mainly according to:

their key;
their number of features.

The keys correspond to part of the character which makes it possible to gather kanjis. One counts 214 traditionally of them, but certain dictionaries function with a more reduced number of keys.

Other more modern criteria of classification exist, such as the method SKIP which consists in recognizing the fitting between the constituent elements, the method of the 5 features, especially used in Chinese, who bases itself on the orientation of the first feature of the kanji.

Most of the time, of the index combining these criteria allow to find the character wished.

One also nowadays finds dictionaries electronic which use the data-processing number of code (in the standard JIS or Unicode) like criterion of classification and research, or which allows a recognition starting from a character traced the hand or the mouse.

Detailed informations on each kanji

You can obtain detailed informations on kanji in particular in wikipedia by finding it in one of the lists of kanji:

Classifications:

per many features
by key
by school level
by code SKIP

Official lists:

Tōyō kanji
Jōyō kanji
Kyōiku kanji
Gakunenbetsu kanji haitōhyō (list by school level)

Examples

Example of kanji: 木 (see with 木 for the decomposition of the layout and more information)

Significance: tree, wood (matter)

Pronunciations: BOKU/MOKU/ki (according to conventions on the matter, the pronunciations one are in Majuscule S, the pronunciations kun in small letters)

Clé: 木 (the tree)

Many features: 4

Examples of words: 木 ( ki ) tree, 木星 ( moku sei) Jupiter (here it is the direction “wood”, in its direction of one of the 5 elements: (fire, water, wood, metal, ground), the planet of the element wood is Jupiter), 木曜日 ( moku yōbi) Thursday (the day of Jupiter)

Another example: 本 (see with 本)

Significance: deliver, root, bases, origin, meter for cylindrical objects

Prononciations: Key HON/motor bike

: 木 (the tree)

Many features: 5

Examples of words: 本 ( hon ) delivers, 山本 (yama' moto' ) proper name, ビール二本 (biiru ni' hon' ) two quills (or bottles) of beer

Another example: 日 (see with 日)

Significance: sun, day

Pronunciation: NICHI/Key JITSU/hi/Bi

: 日 (sun)