Hiragana (平仮名, ひらがな or ヒラガナ?) is a Japanese syllabary, one basic component of the Japanese writing

system, along with katakana, kanji, and in some cases rōmaji (the Latin-script alphabet).

Hiragana and katakana are both kana systems; they have corresponding character sets in which

each kana, or character, represents one mora (one sound in the Japanese language). Eachkana is either

a vowel such as "a" (hiragana あ); a consonant followed by a vowel such as "ka" (hiragana か);

or "n" (hiragana ん), a nasal sonorant which, depending on the context, sounds either like English m, n,

or ng ([ŋ]), or like the nasal vowels of French. Because the characters of the kana do not represent single

consonants (except in the case of ん "n"), the kana are referred to as syllabaries and not alphabets.[1]

Hiragana is used to write native words for which there are no kanji, including grammatical particles such

as から kara "from", and suffixes such as さん ~san "Mr., Mrs., Miss, Ms." Likewise, hiragana is used to

write words whose kanji form is obscure, not known to the writer or readers, or too formal for the writing

purpose. There is also some flexibility for words that have common kanji renditions to be optionally written

instead in hiragana, according to an individual author's preference. Verb and adjective inflections, as, for example, be-ma-shi-ta (べました) intabemashita (食べました?, "ate"), are written in hiragana, often

following a verb or adjective root (here, "食") that is written in kanji. When Hiragana is used to show

the pronunciation of kanji characters as reading aid, it is referred to as furigana. The article Japanese

writing system discusses in detail how the various systems of writing are used.

There are two main systems of ordering hiragana, the old-fashioned iroha ordering, and the more

prevalent gojūon ordering.

Contents

  [hide] 

1 Writing system

2 Table of hiragana

3 Spelling rules

4 History

5 Stroke order and direction

6 Unicode

7 See also

8 References

9 External links

Writing system[edit]

The hiragana syllabary consists of 48 characters:

5 singular vowels

Notionally, 45 consonant–vowel unions, consisting of 9 consonants in

combination with each of the 5 vowels, of which:

2 (yi, and wu) are unused

3 (ye, wi, and we) are obsolete in modern Japanese

1 (wo) is usually pronounced as a vowel (o) in modern Japanese,

and is preserved in only one use, as a particle

1 singular consonant

These are conceived as a 5×10 grid (gojūon, 五十音, lit. "Fifty Sounds"), as

illustrated in the adjacent table, with the extra character being the

anomalous singular consonant ん (N).

Romanisation of the kana does not always strictly follow the consonant-

vowel scheme laid out in the table. For example, ち, nominally ti, is very

often romanised aschi in an attempt to better represent the actual sound in

Japanese.

These basic characters can be modified in various ways. By adding

a dakuten marker ( ゛), a voiceless consonant is turned into a voiced

consonant: k→g, ts/s→z,t→d, h→b and ch/sh→j. Hiragana beginning with

an h can also add a handakuten marker ( ゜) changing the h to a p.

A small version of the hiragana for ya, yu or yo (ゃ, ゅ or ょ respectively)

may be added to hiragana ending in i. This changes the i vowel sound to a

glide (palatalization) to a, u or o. Addition of the small y kana is

called yōon. For example, き (ki) plus ゃ (small ya) becomes きゃ (kya).

A small tsu っ, called a sokuon, indicates that the following consonant

is geminated (doubled). For example, compare さか saka "hill" with さっか sakka "author". It also sometimes appears at the end of utterances,

where it denotes a glottal stop, as in いてっ! ([iteʔ] Ouch!). However, it

cannot be used to double the na, ni, nu, ne,no syllables' consonants – to

double them, the singular n (ん) is added in front of the syllable.

Hiragana usually spells long vowels with the addition of a second vowel

kana. The chōonpu (long vowel mark) (ー) used in katakana is rarely used

with hiragana, for example in the word らーめん, rāmen, but this usage is

considered non-standard. In informal writing, small versions of the five

vowel kana are sometimes used to represent trailing off sounds

(はぁ haa, ねぇ nee). Standard and voiced iteration marks are written in

hiragana as ゝ and ゞ respectively.

Table of hiragana[edit]

Hiragana base characters

a i u e o

∅ あ い う え お

k か き く け こ

s さ し す せ そ

t た ち つ て と

n な に ぬ ね の

h は ひ ふ へ ほ

m ま み む め も

y や ゆ よ

r ら り る れ ろ

w わ ゐ ゑ を

ん (N)

Functional marksand diacritics

っ ゝ ゛ ゜

     unused/obsolete

The following table shows the complete hiragana together with the Hepburn

romanization and IPA transcription in the gojūon order. Hiragana with dakuten or handakuten follow

the gojūonkana without them, with the yōon kana following. Obsolete and normally unused kana are

shown in gray. For all syllables besides ん, the pronunciation indicated is for word-initial syllables, for mid-

word pronunciations see below.

Hiragana syllabograms

Monographs (gojūon) Digraphs (yōon)

a i u e o ya yu yo

∅ あa [a]

いi [i]

うu [uL ]

えe [e]

おo [o]

K かka [ka]

きki [ki]

くku [kuL ]

けke [ke]

こko [ko]

きゃkya [kʲa]

きゅkyu [kʲuL ]

きょkyo [kʲo]

S さsa [sa]

しshi [ɕi]

すsu [suL ]

せse [se]

そso [so]

しゃsha [ɕa]

しゅshu [ɕuL ]

しょsho [ɕo]

T たta [ta]

ちchi [ tO ɕi]

つtsu [ tO suL ]

てte [te]

とto [to]

ちゃcha [ tO ɕa]

ちゅchu [ tO ɕuL ]

ちょcho [ tO ɕo]

N なna [na]

にni [ni]

ぬnu [nuL ]

ねne [ne]

のno [no]

にゃnya [nʲa]

にゅnyu [nʲuL ]

にょnyo [nʲo]

H はha [ha]

([wa] a

s

particl

e)

ひhi [çi]

ふfu [ɸuL ]

へhe [he]

([e] as

particle)

ほho [ho]

ひゃhya [ça]

ひゅhyu [çuL ]

ひょhyo [ço]

M まma [m

a]

みmi [mi]

むmu [muL ]

めme [me]

もmo [mo]

みゃmya [mʲa]

みゅmyu [mʲuL ]

みょmyo [mʲo]

Y やya [ja]

ゆyu [juL ]

よyo [jo]

R らra [ɽa]

りri [ɽi]

るru [ɽuL ]

れre [ɽe]

ろro [ɽo]

りゃrya [ɽʲa]

りゅryu [ɽʲuL ]

りょryo [ɽʲo]

W わwa [wa

]

ゐi/wi [(w)

i]

ゑe/we [(w)

e]

をo/wo [(w)o] (partic

le)

* んn

[n] [m] [ŋ] before stop consonants;

[ɴ] [ũ͍L ] [ĩ] elsewhere

っ(indicates

a geminat

econsonant)

ゝ(reduplicat

es and

unvoices

syllable)

ゞ(reduplicat

es and

voices

syllable)

Diacritics (gojūon with (han)dakuten) Digraphs with diacritics (yōon with

(han)dakuten)

a i u e o ya yu yo

G がga [ɡa]

ぎgi [ɡi]

ぐgu [ɡuL ]

げge [ɡe]

ごgo [ɡo]

ぎゃgya [ɡʲa]

ぎゅgyu [ɡʲuL ]

ぎょgyo [ɡʲo]

Z ざza [za]

じji [dO ʑi]

ずzu [zuL ]

ぜze [ze]

ぞzo [zo]

じゃja [dO ʑa]

じゅju [dO ʑuL ]

じょjo [dO ʑo]

D だda [da]

ぢji [dO ʑi]

づzu [zuL ]

でde [de]

どdo [do]

ぢゃja [dO ʑa]

ぢゅju [dO ʑuL ]

ぢょjo [dO ʑo]

B ばba [ba]

びbi [bi]

ぶbu [buL ]

べbe [be]

ぼbo [bo]

びゃbya [bʲa]

びゅbyu [bʲuL ]

びょbyo [bʲo]

P ぱpa [pa]

ぴpi [pi]

ぷpu [puL ]

ぺpe [pe]

ぽpo [po]

ぴゃpya [pʲa]

ぴゅpyu [pʲuL ]

ぴょpyo [pʲo]

V ゔvu/u [v(uL

)]

In the middle of words, the g sound (normally [ɡ]) often turns into a velar nasal [ŋ] and less often

(although increasing recently) into the voiced velar fricative [ɣ]. An exception to this is numerals;

15 juugo is considered to be one word, but is pronounced as if it was jū and go stacked end to

end: [dO ʑuL ːɡo].

Additionally, the j sound (normally [dO ʑ]) can be pronounced [ʑ] in the middle of words. For example すうじ sūji [suL ːʑi] 'number'.

In archaic forms of Japanese, there existed the kwa (くゎ [kʷa]) and gwa (ぐゎ [ɡʷa]) digraphs. In modern

Japanese, these phonemes have been phased out of usage and only exist in the

extended katakana digraphs for approximating foreign language words.

The singular n is

pronounced [n] before t, ch, ts, n, r, z, j and d, [m] before m, b and p, [ŋ] before k and g, [ɴ] at the end of

utterances, [ũ͍L ] before vowels, palatal approximants (y), consonants s, sh, h, f and w, and finally [ĩ] after

the voweli if another vowel, palatal approximant or consonant s, sh, h, f or w follows.

In kanji readings, the diphthongs ou and ei are today usually pronounced [oː] (long o) and [eː] (long e)

respectively. For example とうきょう (lit. toukyou) is pronounced [toːkʲoː] 'Tokyo', and せんせい sensei is [seũ͍L seː] 'teacher'. However,とう tou is pronounced [touL ] 'to inquire', because the o and u are

considered distinct, u being the infinitive verb ending. Similarly, している shite iru is

pronounced [ɕiteiɾuL ] 'is doing'.

For a more thorough discussion on the sounds of Japanese, please refer to Japanese phonology.

Spelling rules[edit]

With a few exceptions for sentence particles は, を, and へ (pronounced as wa, o, and e), and a few other

arbitrary rules, Japanese, when written in kana, is phonemically orthographic, i.e. there is a one-to-one

correspondence between kana characters and sounds, leaving only words' pitch accent unrepresented.

This has not always been the case: a previous system of spelling, now referred to as historical kana

usage, differed substantially from pronunciation; the three above-mentioned exceptions in modern usage are the legacy of that system. The old spelling is referred to as kanazukai (仮名遣い?).

There are two hiragana pronounced ji (じ and ぢ) and two hiragana pronounced zu (ず and づ), but to

distinguish them, sometimes ぢ is written as di and づ is written as dzu. These pairs are not

interchangeable. Usually, ji is written as じ and zu is written as ず. There are some exceptions. If the first

two syllables of a word consist of one syllable without a dakuten and the same syllable with a dakuten,

the same hiragana is used to write the sounds. For examplechijimeru ('to boil down' or 'to shrink') is

spelled ちぢめる and tsudzuku ('to continue') is つづく. For compound words where the dakuten reflects rendaku voicing, the original hiragana is used. For example, chi (血 'blood') is spelled ち in plain

hiragana. When 鼻 hana ('nose') and 血 chi ('blood') combine to make hanaji 鼻血 'nose bleed'), the sound

of 血 changes from chi to dji. So hanadji is spelled はなぢ according to ち: the basic hiragana used to transcribe 血. Similarly, tsukau (使う/遣う; 'to use') is spelled つかう in hiragana, so kanazukai (仮名遣い;

'kana use', or 'kana orthography') is spelled かなづかい in hiragana.

However, this does not apply when kanji are used phonetically to write words which do not relate directly to the meaning of the kanji (see also ateji). The Japanese word for 'lightning', for example, is inazuma (稲妻). The 稲 component means 'rice plant', is written いな in hiragana and is pronounced: ina. The 

妻 component means 'wife' and is pronounced tsuma (つま) when written in isolation—or frequently

as zuma (ずま) when it features after another syllable. Neither of these components have anything to do

with 'lightning', but together they do when they compose the word for 'lightning'. In this case, the default

spelling in hiragana いなずま rather than いなづま is used.

Officially, ぢ and づ do not occur word-initially pursuant to modern spelling rules. There were words such

as ぢばん jiban 'ground' in the historical kana usage, but they were unified under じ in the modern kana

usage in 1946, so today it is spelled exclusively じばん. However, づら zura 'wig' (from かつら katsura)

and づけ zuke (a sushi term for lean tuna soaked in soy sauce) are examples of word-initial づ today.

Some people write the word for hemorrhoids as ぢ (normally じ) for emphasis.

No standard Japanese words begin with the kana ん (n). This is the basis of the word game shiritori.

ん n is normally treated as its own syllable and is separate from the other n-based kana (na, ni etc.). A

notable exception to this[clarification needed] is the colloquial negative verb conjugation; for example わからない wakaranai meaning "[I] don't understand" is rendered as わからん wakaran. It is however not a

contraction of the former, but instead comes from the classic negative verb conjugation ぬ nu (わからぬ wakaranu).

ん is sometimes directly followed by a vowel (a, i, u, e or o) or a palatal approximant (ya, yu or yo). These

are clearly distinct from the na, ni etc. syllables, and there are minimal pairs such as きんえん kin'en 'smoking forbidden', きねん kinen 'commemoration', きんねん kinnen 'recent years'. In Hepburn

romanization, they are distinguished with an apostrophe, but not all romanization methods make the

distinction. For example past prime minister Junichiro Koizumi's first name is actually じゅんいちろう Jun'ichirō pronounced [dO ʑuL ũ͍L itO ɕiɾoː]

There are a few hiragana which are rarely used. ゐ wi and ゑ we are obsolete outside of Okinawan

dialects. ゔ vu is a modern addition used to represent the /v/ sound in foreign languages such as English,

but since Japanese from a phonological standpoint does not have a /v/ sound, it is pronounced as /b/ and

mostly serves as a more accurate indicator of a word's pronunciation in its original language. However, it

is rarely seen because loanwords and transliteratedwords are usually written in katakana, where the

corresponding character would be written as ヴ. ぢゃ, ぢゅ, ぢょ for ja/ju/jo are theoretically possible

in rendaku, but are practically never used. For example 日本中 'throughout Japan' could be written にほんぢゅう, but is practically always にほんじゅう.

The みゅ myu kana is extremely rare in originally Japanese words; linguist Haruhiko Kindaichi raises the

example of the Japanese family name Omamyūda (小豆生田) and claims it is the only occurrence

amongst pure Japanese words. Its katakana counterpart is used in many loanwords, however.

History[edit]

Hiragana characters' shapes were derived from the Chinese cursive script(sōsho). Shown here is a sample of the cursive

script by Chinese Tang Dynastycalligrapher Sun Guoting, from the late 7th century.

Hiragana developed from man'yōgana, Chinese characters used for their pronunciations, a practice which

started in the 5th century.[2] The oldest example of Man'yōgana is Inariyama Swordwhich is an iron sword

excavated at the Inariyama Kofun in 1968. This sword is thought to be made in year of 辛亥年 (which is

A.D. 471 in commonly accepted theory).[3] The forms of the hiragana originate from the cursive script style

of Chinese calligraphy. The figure below shows the derivation of hiragana from manyōgana via cursive

script. The upper part shows the character in the regular script form, the center character in red shows the

cursive script form of the character, and the bottom shows the equivalent hiragana. Note also that the

cursive script forms are not strictly confined to those in the illustration.

When they were first developed, hiragana were not accepted by everyone. The educated or elites

preferred to use only the kanji system. Historically, in Japan, the regular script (kaisho) form of the characters was used by men and called otokode (男手?), "men's writing", while the cursive script (sōsho)

form of the kanji was used by women. Hence hiragana first gained popularity among women, who were

generally not allowed access to the same levels of education as men. And thus hiragana was first widely

used among court women in the writing of personal communications and literature.[4] From this comes the alternative name of onnade (女手?) "women's writing".[5]For example, The Tale of Genji and other early

novels by female authors used hiragana extensively or exclusively.

Male authors came to write literature using hiragana. Hiragana was used for unofficial writing such as

personal letters, while katakana and Chinese were used for official documents. In modern times, the

usage of hiragana has become mixed with katakana writing. Katakana is now relegated to special uses

such as recently borrowed words (i.e., since the 19th century), names in transliteration, the names of

animals, in telegrams, and for emphasis.

Originally, for all syllables there was more than one possible hiragana. In 1900, the system was simplified so each syllable had only one hiragana. The deprecated hiragana are now known as hentaigana (変体仮名?).

The pangram poem Iroha-uta ("ABC song/poem"), which dates to the 10th century, uses every hiragana

once (except n ん, which was just a variant of む before Muromachi era).

Stroke order and direction[edit]

The following table shows the method for writing each hiragana character. It is arranged in the traditional

way, beginning top right and reading columns down. The numbers and arrows indicate the stroke

order and direction respectively.

Unicode[edit]

Main article: Hiragana (Unicode block)

Hiragana was added to the Unicode Standard in October, 1991 with the release of version 1.0.

The Unicode block for Hiragana is U+3040 ... U+309F. Grey areas indicate non-assigned code points:

Hiragana [1] Unicode.org chart (PDF)

  0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 A B C D E F

U+304x ぁあぃいぅうぇえぉおかがきぎく

U+305xぐけげこごさざしじすずせぜそぞた

U+306xだちぢっつづてでとどなにぬねのは

U+307xばぱひびぴふぶぷへべぺほぼぽまみ

U+308xむめもゃやゅゆょよらりるれろゎわ

U+309xゐゑをんゔゕゖ ゙゚゛゜ゝゞゟ

Notes

1.^ As of Unicode version 6.3

=> Hiragana is the basic Japanese phonetic alphabet. It represents every sound in the Japanese language.

Therefore, you can theoretically write everything in hiragana. However, because Japanese is written with

no spaces, this will create nearly indecipherable text.

=> Hiragana is used along with kanji to write all native Japanese words (including words of Chinese

origin). Hiragana is used for verb and adjective endings (okurigana), particles, words that have no kanji,

words which are commonly written only in kana, words for which the writer does not know the kanji, and

as furigana (hints provided by the writer to the reading of an unfamiliar kanji).

=> Hiragana are used when you can't use kanji, for sound symbolism, particles, help verb, and

conjunctions. Hiragana can also be used for adverbs and names for animals and plants. Often you can see

them together with a kanji to form a word. Hiragana is used for changing meanings of kanji by adding a

hiragana character after the kanji.  Hiragana is also used wherever kanji characters wouldn't be used.

=> Hiragana can be used to express and write all Japanese words without the use of kanji since hiragana

is like an alphabet. If you can't remember the right kanji for a word, you can just spell it out in hiragana.

There are 46 Hiragana to learn. In addition to those 46 hiragana there are some hiragana with different

pronunciation.

How many hiragana characters are used in Japanese Language?

->There are 46 hiragana symbols in Japanese, each with a particular sound but with no independent

meaning.

How do the 46 hiragana characters behave in the Japanese Language?

->Each Japanese "alphabet" has a particular function. Hiragana characters play two major roles.

*Creating grammatical structure

A major function of hiragana is to add grammatical structure to sentences. One way is in the form

of okurigana, the hiragana characters added to the end of words to modify meaning.

*Showing pronunciation

Hiragana characters are often written next to unusual kanji characters to show their pronunciation in the

same way that we have added roman characters to the sentence above. In this case the hiragana

characters are referred to as furigana or yomigana. In addition, hiragana is also used to write native

Japanese words that have no kanji of their own.

Japanese Hiragana

Hiragana developed from Chinese characters, as shown below. Hiragana were originally

called onnade or 'women's hand' as were used mainly by women - men wrote in kanji and katakana.

By the 10th century, hiragana were used by everybody. The word hiragana means "oridinary syllabic

script".

In early versions of hiragana there were often many different characters to represent the same

syllable, however the system was eventually simplified so that there was a one-to-one relationship

between spoken and written syllables. The present orthography of hiragana was codified by the

Japanese government in 1946.

Hiragana and the kanji from which they developedIn each column the rōmaji appears on the left, the hiragana symbols in the middle and the kanji from

which they developed on the right. There is some dispute about the orgins of some of the symbols

The symbols for 'wi' and 'we' were made obsolete by the Japanese Minsitry of Education in 1946 as

part of its language reforms. The symbols 'ha', 'he' and 'wo' are pronounced 'wa', 'e' and 'o'

respectively when used as grammatical particles.

Hirgana syllabary (平仮名 / ひらがな)

The symbols on the right are the basic hiragana syllabary in the order they appear in dictionaries

and indices (reading from left to right and top to bottom). Additional sounds (the symbols on the

right) are represented by diacritics and combinations of symbols.

Long vowels

Download this chart in Word, or PDF format (also includes katakana).

See a Hiragana chart by Kayo Takumyo (JPG, 409K).

Pronunciation

Characteristics and usage of hiraganaThe hiragana syllabary consists of 48 syllables and is mainly used to write word endings, known

as okurigana in Japanese. Hiragana are also widely used in materials for children, textbooks,

animation and comic books, to write Japanese words which are not normally written with kanji, such

as adverbs and some nouns and adjectives, or for words whose kanji are obscure or obselete.

Hiragana are also sometimes written above or along side kanji to indicate pronunciation, especially if

the pronunication is obscure or non-standard. Hiragana used in this way are known as furigana or

ruby. In horizontal texts, the furigana appear above the kanji and in vertical texts, the furigana

appear on the right of the kanji. In newspapers it is a legal requirement for furigana to be attached to

kanji which are not included in the official list of the 1,945 most frequently-used kanji. Newspapers in

fact rarely use kanji not included in this list.

Furigana in actionThe furigana in the following text are the small hiragana above or beside the kanji.

Horizontal text with furigana

This text in hiragana

This text in standard Japanese (without furigana)

Transliteration (rōmaji)

Subete no ningen wa, umare nagara ni shite jiyū de ari, katsu, songen to kenri to ni tsuite byōdō de

aru. Ningen wa, risei to ryōshin to o sazukerareteari, tagai ni dōhō no seishin o motte

kōdōshinakerebanaranai.

A recording of this text

Translation

All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and

conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.

(Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights)

Hiragana are sometimes used to write words which would normally written with katakana to make

them appear more "feminine", particularly in comic books and cartoons for young girls. In children's

video games texts are often written entirely in hiragana or katakana.

KATAKANAJapanese has two forms of phonetic writing, hiragana and katakana. In modern Japanese, most writing is done in a mixture of hiragana and kanji (Chinese characters). What is the other script, katakana, used for?

In modern Japanese, katakana is most often used for transcription of words from foreign languages. For example, "tomato" is written トマト (tomato). Similarly for foreign names. For example, "America" is written アメリカ (amerika) and "John" is written ジョン (jon). To see how a particular English word is represented in katakana, try the following tool which converts English into katakana based on a dictionary of pronunciations:

Turn English into katakana:

The names of animal and plant species and minerals are commonly written in katakana. See 1.3.2.   How are animal and plant names written in Japanese?.

Katakana are also often used for Japanese company names. For example Suzuki is スズキ,and Mitsubishi is ミツビシ. Katakana are also used for emphasis, especially on signs and advertisements. For example, ゴミ gomi(rubbish) or メガネ megane (glasses).

Japanese contains many words borrowed from Chinese up to a thousand years ago. These words are usually written in kanji. Words from modern Chinese are often written in katakana. For example,

Katakana Kanji Rōmaji Meaning

マージャン 麻雀 mājan mahjong

Convert to katakana

ウーロン 烏龍茶 ūroncha oolong tea

チャーハン 炒飯 chāhan fried rice

チャーシュー 叉焼 chāshū roast pork

シューマイ 焼売 shūmai a kind of dim sum

ラーメン 拉麺 rāmen Chinese-style noodles

Telegrams are written in katakana, and before the introduction of multibyte characters in computer systems in the 1980s, computer output was entirely in katakana. The Japanese banking system still requires account names to be in katakana. See 14.3.   What is half- width katakana?

Katakana are also sometimes used to indicate words being spoken in a foreign accent or "robotic" speech. For example, in a manga, the speech of a foreign character or a robot may be represented by コンニチ ワ ("konnichiwa") instead of the more usual hiragana こんにちは ("konnichi wa").

Katakana are sometimes used instead of hiragana as furigana (see 1.3.3.   What is   furigana? ). Katakana are often used to indicate the on'yomi readings (see 1.2.7.   Why do   kanji   have several different pronunciations?) of a kanji in a kanji dictionary (see 1.2.11.   How is a kanji dictionary used?).

Some personal names are written in katakana, especially female ones. This was more common in the past, hence women of past generations often had katakana names such as セツ (setsu). This is less common today. Nowadays most female babies are given kanji or hiragana names.

Words with uncommon kanji are sometimes partly written in katakana. For example, in the word "dermatologist", hifuka (皮膚科), the second kanji, 膚, is quite unusual, and thus the word is

commonly written as 皮フ科, with the second character in katakana only.

Katakana are also used when letters are used to represent sounds. For example hii (ヒー), meaning "sigh" is usually written in katakana, as are the calls of animals (see 15.3.   What noises do animals make?).

Historically, katakana was used in a different way. Until the end of World War 2, official documents used a mix of katakana and kanji in the same way that hiragana and kanji are mixed in modern Japanese texts, that is, katakana were used for okurigana (see 1.1.8.   What is   okurigana? ) and particles (see 2.3.   Particles ( 助 詞 ) ) such as wa or wo.

  

What is Katakana?Katakana, like hiragana, is a phonetic script much like English where each character has a unique sound and the characters can be written one after the next to spell out a word. Learning katakana is usually the second step in learning how to read and write Japanese - hiragana is usually taught first. Katakana is used to represent foreign words which have been adopted into the Japanese language (loan words) and foreign names (personal and country names).

Japanese Katakana

OriginThe katakana syllabary was derived from abbreviated Chinese characters used by Buddhist monks

to indicate the correct pronunciations of Chinese texts in the 9th century. At first there were many

different symbols to represent one syllable of spoken Japanese, but over the years the system was

streamlined. By the 14th century, there was a more or less one-to-one correspondence between

spoken and written syllables.

The word katakana "part (of kanji) syllabic script". The "part" refers to the fact that katakana

characters represent parts of kanji.

Characteristics and usage of katakanaThe katakana syllabary consists of 48 syllables and was originally considered "men's writing". Since

the 20th century, katakana have been used mainly to write non-Chinese loan words, onomatopoeic

words, foreign names, in telegrams and for emphasis (the equivalent of bold, italic or upper case text

in English). Before the 20th century all foreign loanwords were written with kanji.

Katakana are also used to write Ainu, a language spoken on the northern Japanese island of

Hokkaido.

Katakana and the kanji from which they developedIn each column the rōmaji appears on the left, the katakana symbols in the middle and the kanji from

which the symbols were derived on the right.

The symbols for 'wi' and 'we' were made obsolete by the Japanese Minsitry of Education in 1946 as

part of its language reforms.

Katakana syllabary (片仮名 / カタカナ)The symbols on the right are the basic katakana syllabary in the order they appear in dictionaries

and indices (reading from left to right and top to bottom). Additional sounds (the symbols on the

right) are represented by diacritics and combinations of symbols.

Long vowels

Download this chart in Word, or PDF format (also includes hiragana).

Pronunciation

Sample text in Katakana

This text in standard Japanese

Transliteration (rōmaji)

Subete no ningen wa, umarenagara ni shite jiyū de ari, katsu, songen to kenri to ni tsuite byōdō de

aru. Ningen wa, risei to ryōshin to o sazukerarete ori, tagai ni dōhō no seishinn o motte kōdō

shinakereba naranai.

A recording of this text

Translation

All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and

conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.

(Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights)

KatakanaFrom Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Katakana

カタカナ

Type Syllabary

Languages Japanese, Okinawan, Ainu,Palauan   [1]   

Time period ~800 AD to the present

Parent systemsOracle Bone Script

Seal Script    Clerical Script    Regular script    (Kanji) Man'yōgana    Katakana

カタカナ

Sister systems Hiragana, Hentaigana

ISO 15924 Kana, 411

Direction Left-to-right

Unicode alias Katakana

Unicode range U+30A0–U+30FF,

U+31F0–U+31FF,

U+3200–U+32FF,

U+FF00–U+FFEF,

U+1B000–U+1B0FF

This article contains IPA phonetic symbols. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Unicode characters.

Japanese writing

Kanji

Kana

Hiragana   

Katakana

Hentaigana   

Man'yōgana   

Sogana   

Uses

Furigana   

Okurigana   

Braille

Rōmaji

Hepburn    (colloquial)

Kunrei    (ISO)

Nihon    (ISO translit.)

JSL    (transliteration)

Wāpuro    (keyboard)

Punctuation

Katakana (片仮名, カタカナ or かたかな?) is a Japanese syllabary, one component of the Japanese writing

system along with hiragana,[2] kanji, and in some cases the Latin script (known asromaji). The

word katakana means "fragmentary kana", as the katakana characters are derived from components of more

complex kanji. Katakana and hiragana are both kana systems; they have corresponding character sets in which

each kana, or character, represents one mora (one sound in the Japanese language). Each kana is either a

vowel such as "a" (katakana ア); a consonant followed by a vowel such as "ka" (katakana カ); or "n"

(katakana ン), a nasal sonorant which, depending on the context, sounds either like English m, n, or ng ([ŋ]), or

like thenasal vowels of Portuguese or French.

In contrast to the hiragana syllabary, which is used for those Japanese language words and grammatical

inflections which kanji does not cover, the katakana syllabary is primarily used fortranscription of foreign

language words into Japanese and the writing of loan words (collectively gairaigo). It is also used for emphasis,

to represent onomatopoeia, and to write certain Japanese language words, such as technical and scientific

terms, and the names of plants, animals, and minerals. Names of Japanese companies are also often written in

katakana rather than the other systems.

Katakana are characterized by short, straight strokes and angular corners, and are the simplest of the

Japanese scripts.[3] There are two main systems of ordering katakana: the old-fashioned iroha ordering, and the

more prevalent gojūon ordering.

Contents

  [hide] 

1   Writing system

o 1.1   Script

o 1.2   Japanese

1.2.1   Syllabary and orthography

1.2.2   Usage

o 1.3   Ainu

o 1.4   Taiwanese

o 1.5   Okinawan

2   Table of katakana

3   History

4   Stroke order

5   Computer encoding

o 5.1   Half-width kana

o 5.2   Unicode

6   See also

7   References

8   External links

Writing system[edit]

Script[edit]

Gojūon – Katakana characters with nucleus

a i u e o

∅ ア イ ウ エ オ

K カ キ ク ケ コ

S サ シ ス セ ソ

T タ チ ツ テ ト

N ナ ニ ヌ ネ ノ

H ハ ヒ フ ヘ ホ

M マ ミ ム メ モ

Y ヤ ユ ヨ

R ラ リ ル レ ロ

W ワ ヰ ヱ ヲ

Katakana coda character

n ン

Katakana diacritics

dakuten ゛

handakuten ゜

The complete katakana script consists of 48 characters, not counting functional and diacritic marks:

5 nucleus vowels – V

42 core   or   body  (onset-nucleus) syllabograms – CV, consisting of 9 consonants in combination with each

of the 5 vowels, of which 3 possible combinations (yi, ye, wu) are not canonical

1 coda consonant – C

These are conceived as a 5×10 grid (gojūon, 五十音, lit. "Fifty Sounds") which inherits its vowel and consonant

order from Sanskrit practice. In vertical textcontexts, which used to be the default case, the grid is usually

presented as 10 columns by 5 rows, with vowels on the right hand side and ア (a) on top. Unlike other

syllabaries, katakana glyphs in the same row or column do not share common graphic characteristics. Three of

the syllabograms to be expected, yi, yeand wu, may have been used idiosyncratically with varying glyphs, but

never became conventional in any language and are not present at all in modern Japanese.

The 50-sound table is often amended with an extra character, the nasal stop ン (n). This can appear in several

positions, most often next to the N signs or, because it developed from one of many mu hentaigana, below

the u column. It may also be appended to the vowel row or the a column. Here, it is shown in a table of its own.

The script includes two diacritic marks that change the initial sound of a syllabogram. Both appear mutually

exclusive at the upper right of the base character. A double dot, called dakuten, indicates a primary alteration,

most often it voices the consonant: k→g, s→z, t→d and h→b. Secondary alteration, where possible, is shown

by a circular handakuten: h→p. Diacritics are a comparatively new feature of the script, only becoming

mandatory in the Japanese writing system in the second half of

the 20th century. Their application is strictly limited in proper

writing systems, but may be more extensive in academic

transcriptions.

Furthermore, some characters may have special semantics when

used in smaller size after a normal one (see below), but this does

not make the script trulybicameral.

The layout of the gojūon table promotes a systematic view of

kana syllabograms as being always pronounced with the same

single consonant followed by a vowel. This is, however, not the

case today (synchronically) and also never has been

(diachronically). Therefore existing schemes for the romanization

of Japanese either are based on the systematic nature of the

script, e.g. nihon-siki チ ti, or they apply some

Western graphotactics, usually the English one, to the common

Japanese pronunciation of the kana signs, e.g. Hepburn-

shiki チ chi. Both approaches conceal the fact, though, that many

consonant-based katakana signs, especially those canonically

ending in u, can be used in coda position, too, where the vowel is

not pronounced, or only as a weak schwa.

Japanese[edit]

Syllabary and orthography[edit]

Of the 48 katakana syllabograms described above, only 46 are

used in modern Japanese, and one of these is preserved for only

a single use:

wi and we are pronounced as vowels in modern Japanese

and are therefore obsolete, being supplanted

by i and e respectively.

wo is now used only as a particle, and is normally

pronounced the same as vowel オ o. As a particle, it is

usually written in hiragana (を) and the katakana form, ヲ, is

uncommon.

Katakana used in Japanese orthography

a i u e o

∅ ア イ ウ エ オ

K カ キ ク ケ コ

G ガ ギ グ ゲ ゴ

S サ シ ス セ ソ

Z ザ ジ ズ ゼ ゾ

T タ チ ツ テ ト

D ダ ヂ ヅ デ ド

N ナ ニ ヌ ネ ノ

H ハ ヒ フ ヘ ホ

B バ ビ ブ ベ ボ

P パ ピ プ ペ ポ

M マ ミ ム メ モ

Y ヤ ユ ヨ

R ラ リ ル レ ロ

W ワ ヰ ヱ ヲ

n ン

A small version of the katakana for ya, yu or yo (ャ, ュ or ョ respectively) may be added to katakana ending

in i. This changes the i vowel sound to a glide (palatalization) to a, u or o, e.g. キャ (ki + ya) /kja/. Addition of

the small y kana is called yōon.

Small versions of the five vowel kana are sometimes used to represent trailing off sounds (ハァ haa, ネェ nee),

but in katakana they are more often used in yōon-like extended digraphs designed to representphonemes not

present in Japanese; examples include チェ (che) in チェンジ chenji ("change"), and ウィ (wi) and ディ (di) in

ウィキペディア Wikipedia.

A character called a sokuon, which is visually identical to a small tsu ッ, indicates that the following consonant

is geminated (doubled); this is represented in rōmaji by doubling the consonant that follows thesokuon. For

example, compare Japanese サカ saka "hill" with サッカ sakka "author". Geminated consonants are common

in transliterations of foreign loanwords; for example English "bed" is represented as ベッド (beddo). The

sokuon also sometimes appears at the end of utterances, where it denotes a glottal stop. However, it cannot be

used to double the na, ni, nu, ne, no syllables' consonants – to double these, the singular n (ン) is added in

front of the syllable. The sokuon may also be used to approximate a non-native sound; Bach is written バッハ 

(Bahha); Mach as マッハ (Mahha).

Both katakana and hiragana usually spell native long vowels with the addition of a second vowel kana, but

katakana uses a vowel extender mark, called a chōonpu ("long vowel mark"), in foreign loanwords. This is a

short line (ー) following the direction of the text, horizontal for yokogaki (horizontal text), and vertical

for tategaki (vertical text). For example, メール mēru is the gairaigo for e-mail taken from the English word

"mail"; the ー lengthens the e. There are some exceptions, such as ローソク (rōsoku (蝋燭?, "candle")) or ケー

タイ(kētai (携帯?, "mobile phone")), where Japanese words written in katakana use the elongation mark, too.

Standard and voiced iteration marks are written in katakana as ヽ and ヾ respectively.

Usage[edit]

Main article: Japanese writing system

In modern Japanese, katakana is most often used for transcription of words from foreign languages (other than

words historically imported from Chinese), called gairaigo.[4] For example, "television" is written テレビ (terebi).

Similarly, katakana is usually used for country names, foreign places, and foreign personal names. For

example, the United States is usually referred to as アメリカ Amerika, rather than in its ateji kanji spelling of 亜

米利加 Amerika.

Katakana are also used for onomatopoeia,[4] words used to represent sounds – for example, ピンポン (pinpon),

the "ding-dong" sound of a doorbell.

Technical and scientific terms, such as the names of animal and plant species and minerals, are also

commonly written in katakana.[5] Homo sapiens (ホモ・サピエンス Homo sapiensu?), as a species, is written ヒ

ト (hito), rather than its kanji 人.

Katakana are also often, but not always, used for transcription of Japanese company names. For

example Suzuki is written スズキ, and Toyota is written トヨタ. Katakana are also used for emphasis,

especially on signs, advertisements, and hoardings (i.e., billboards). For example, it is common to see コ

コ koko ("here"), ゴミ gomi ("trash"), or メガネ megane ("glasses"). Words the writer wishes to emphasize in a

sentence are also sometimes written in katakana, mirroring the European usage of italics.[4]

Pre-World War II official documents mix katakana and kanji in the same way that hiragana and kanji are mixed

in modern Japanese texts, that is, katakana were used for okurigana and particles such as wa or o.

Katakana were also used for telegrams in Japan before 1988, and for computer systems – before the

introduction of multibyte characters – in the 1980s. Most computers in that era used katakana instead of kanji

or hiragana for output.

Although words borrowed from ancient Chinese are usually written in kanji, loanwords from modern Chinese

dialects which are borrowed directly use katakana rather than the Sino-Japanese on'yomi readings.

Examples of Chinese loanwords in Japanese

Japanese Rōmaji Meaning Chinese Romanization Source language

マージャン mājan mahjong 麻將 májiàng

Mandarinウーロン茶 ūroncha Oolong tea 烏龍茶 wūlóngchá

チャーハン chāhan fried rice 炒飯 chǎofàn

チャーシュー

chāshū barbecued pork 叉焼 cha siu

Cantonese

シューマイ shūmai a form of dim sum 焼賣 siu maai

The very common Chinese loanword rāmen, written in katakana as ラーメン in Japanese, is rarely written with

its kanji (拉麺).

There are rare instances where the opposite has occurred, with kanji forms created from words originally

written in katakana. An example of this is コーヒー kōhī, ("coffee"), which can be alternatively written as 珈琲.

This kanji usage is occasionally employed by coffee manufacturers or coffee shops for novelty.

Katakana are used to indicate the on'yomi (Chinese-derived readings) of a kanji in a kanji dictionary. For

instance, the kanji 人 has a Japanese pronunciation, written in hiragana as ひと hito (person), as well as a

Chinese derived pronunciation, written in katakana as ジン jin (used to denote groups of people). Katakana are

sometimes used instead of hiragana as furigana to give the pronunciation of a word written in Roman

characters, or for a foreign word, which is written as kanji for the meaning, but intended to be pronounced as

the original.

Katakana are also sometimes used to indicate words being spoken in a foreign or otherwise unusual accent.

For example, in a manga, the speech of a foreign character or a robot may be represented by コンニチ

ワ konnichiwa ("hello") instead of the more typical hiragana こんにちは. Some Japanese personal names are

written in katakana. This was more common in the past, hence elderly women often have katakana names.

It is very common to write words with difficult-to-read kanji in katakana. This phenomenon is often seen

with medical terminology. For example, in the word 皮膚科 hifuka ("dermatology"), the second kanji, 膚, is

considered difficult to read, and thus the word hifuka is commonly written 皮フ科 or ヒフ科, mixing kanji and

katakana. Similarly, the difficult-to-read kanji such as 癌 gan ("cancer") are often written in katakana or

hiragana.

Katakana is also used for traditional musical notations, as in the Tozan-ryū of shakuhachi, and

in sankyoku ensembles with koto, shamisen and shakuhachi.

Some instructors for Japanese as a foreign language "introduce katakana after the students have learned to

read and write sentences in hiragana without difficulty and know the rules."[6] Most students who have learned

hiragana "do not have great difficulty in memorizing" katakana as well.[7] Other instructors introduce the

katakana first, because these are used with loanwords. This gives students a chance to practice reading and

writing kana with meaningful words. This was the approach taken by the influential American linguistics

scholar Eleanor Harz Jorden in Japanese: The Written Language (parallel to Japanese: The Spoken

Language).[8]

Ainu[edit]

Main article: Ainu language#Writing

Katakana is commonly used to write the Ainu language by Japanese linguists. In Ainu language katakana

usage, the consonant that comes at the end of a syllable is represented by a small version of a katakana that

corresponds to that final consonant and with an arbitrary vowel. For instance "up" is represented by ウㇷ゚ (ウ

プ [u followed by small pu]). Ainu also uses three handakuten modified katakana, セ゜ ([tse]), and ツ゜ or ト゜

([tuc ]). In Unicode, the Katakana Phonetic Extensions block (U+31F0–U+31FF) exists for Ainu language

support. These characters are used for the Ainu language only.

Taiwanese[edit]

Main article: Taiwanese kana

Taiwanese kana (タイ  ヲァヌ  ギイ  カア  ビェン ) is a katakana-based writing system once used

to write Holo Taiwanese, when Taiwan was under Japanese control. It functioned as a phonetic guide

for Chinese characters, much like furigana in Japanese or Zhuyin fuhao in Chinese. There were similar

systems for other languages in Taiwan as well, including Hakka and Formosan languages.

Unlike Japanese or Ainu, Taiwanese kana are used similarly to the Zhùyīn fúhào characters, with kana serving

as initials, vowel medials and consonant finals, marked with tonal marks. A dot below the initial kana

represented aspirated consonants, and チ, ツ, サ, セ, ソ, ウ and オ with a superpositional bar represented

sounds found only in Taiwanese.

Okinawan[edit]

Main article: Okinawan scripts

Katakana is used as a phonetic guide for the Okinawan language, unlike the various other systems to

represent Okinawan, which use hiragana with extensions. The system was devised by the Okinawa Center of

Language Study of the University of the Ryukyus. It uses many extensions and yōon to show the many non-

Japanese sounds of Okinawan.

Table of katakana[edit]

For modern digraph additions that are used mainly to transcribe other languages, see Transcription

into Japanese.

This is a table of katakana together with their Hepburn romanization and rough IPA transcription for their

use in Japanese. Katakana with dakuten or handakuten follow the gojūon kana without them.

Characters shi シ and tsu ツ, and so ソ and n(g) ン, look very similar in print except for the slant and

stroke shape. These differences in slant and shape are more prominent when written with an ink brush.

  Grey background  indicates obsolete characters.

Katakana syllabograms

Monographs (gojūon)

a i u e

∅ アa [a]

イi [i]

ウu [uA]

エe [e]

K カka [ka]

キki [ki]

クku [kuA]

ケke [ke]

S サsa [sa]

シshi [ɕi]

スsu [suA]

セse [se]

T タta [ta]

チchi [tCɕi]

ツtsu [tCsuA]

テte [te]

N ナna [na]

ニni [nʲi]

ヌnu [nuA]

ネne [ne]

H ハha [ha]

ヒhi [çi]

フfu [ɸuA]

ヘhe [he]

M マma [ma]

ミmi [mi]

ムmu [muA]

メme [me]

Y ヤya [ja]

[n 1] ユyu [juA]

[n 1]

R ラ リ ル レ

ra [ɽa] ri [ɽi] ru [ɽuA] re [ɽe]

W ワwa [wa]

ヰwi [i]   [n 2]   

[n 1] ヱwe [e]   [n 2]   

Final nasal monograph

ンn [n] [m] [ŋ] before stop consonants;

n[ɴ] [ũ͍A]   [ĩ]    elsewhere(before geminate

Monographs with diacritics: gojūon with (han)dakuten

a i u e

G ガga [ɡa]

ギgi [ɡi]

グgu [ɡuA]

ゲge [ɡe]

Z ザza [za]

ジji [dOʑi]

ズzu [zuA]

ゼze [ze]

D ダda [da]

ヂji [dOʑi]   [n 3]   

ヅzu [zuA]   [n 3]   

デde [de]

B バba [ba]

ビbi [bi]

ブbu [buA]

ベbe [be]

P パpa [pa]

ピpi [pi]

プpu [puA]

ペpe [pe]

Notes

1. ^ Jump up to: a  b c Theoretical combinations yi, ye and wu are   unused .

2. ^ Jump up to: a  b c The characters in positions wi and we are   obsolete  in modern Japanese, and have

been replaced by イ (i) and エ (e). The character wo, in practice normally pronounced o, is preserved

in only one use: as a particle. This is normally written in hiragana (を), so katakana ヲ sees only limited

use. See Gojūon and the articles on each character for details.

3. ^ Jump up to: a  b c d e The ヂ (di) and ヅ (du) kana (often romanised as ji and zu) are primarily used

for   etymologic spelling , when the unvoiced equivalents チ (ti) and ツ (tu) (often romanised

as chi and tsu) undergo a sound change (rendaku) and become voiced when they occur in the middle

of a compound word. In other cases, the identically-pronounced ジ (ji) and ズ (zu) are used instead. ヂ 

(di) and ヅ (du) can never begin a word, and they are not common in katakana, since the concept

of rendaku does not apply to transcribed foreign words, one of the major uses of katakana.

History[edit]

Katakana was developed in the early Heian Period (AD 794 to 1185) by Buddhist monks from parts

of man'yōgana characters as a form of shorthand. For example, ka カ comes from the left side of ka 加

"increase". The adjacent table shows the origins of each katakana: the red markings of the

original Chinese character eventually became each corresponding symbol.[9]

Recent findings by Yoshinori Kobayashi, professor of Japanese at Tokushima Bunri University suggest the

possibility that the comma which is used in Okototen (ヲコト点?) (reading guide marks) may have

originated in the eighth century on the Korean Peninsula (possibly from Silla Dinasty) and been introduced

to Japan through Buddhist texts.[10][11]

Stroke order[edit]

The following table shows the method for writing each katakana character. It is arranged in the traditional

way, beginning top right and reading columns down. The numbers and arrows indicate the stroke

order and direction respectively.

Computer encoding[edit]

This section does not cite any references or sources. Please help improve this section by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged andremoved. (September 2009)

In addition to fonts intended for Japanese text and Unicode catch-all fonts (like Arial Unicode MS), many

fonts intended for Chinese (such as MS Song) and Korean (such as Batang) also include katakana.

Half-width kana[edit]

Main article: Half-width kana

In addition to the usual full-width (全角 zenkaku?) display forms of characters, katakana has a second

form, half-width (半角 hankaku?) (there are no half-width hiragana or kanji). The half-width forms were

originally associated with theJIS X 0201 encoding. Although their display form is not specified in the

standard, in practice they were designed to fit into the same rectangle of pixels as Roman letters to enable

easy implementation on the computer equipment of the day. This space is narrower than the square space

traditionally occupied by Japanese characters, hence the name "half-width". In this scheme, diacritics

(dakuten and handakuten) are separate characters. When originally devised, the half-width katakana were

represented by a single byte each, as in JIS X 0201, again in line with the capabilities of contemporary

computer technology.

In the late 1970s, two-byte character sets such as JIS X 0208 were introduced to support the full range of

Japanese characters, including katakana, hiragana and kanji. Their display forms were designed to fit into

an approximately square array of pixels, hence the name "full-width". For backwards compatibility,

separate support for half-width katakana has continued to be available in modern multi-byte encoding

schemes such as Unicode, by having two separate blocks of characters – one displayed as usual (full-

width) katakana, the other displayed as half-width katakana.

Although often said to be obsolete, in fact the half-width katakana are still used in many systems and

encodings. For example, the titles of mini discs can only be entered in ASCII or half-width katakana, and

half-width katakana are commonly used in computerized cash register displays, on shop receipts, and

Japanese digital television and DVD subtitles. Several popular Japanese encodings such as EUC-

JP, Unicode and Shift-JIS have half-width katakana code as well as full-width. By contrast, ISO-2022-

JP has no half-width katakana, and is mainly used over SMTP and NNTP.

Unicode[edit]

Main articles: Katakana (Unicode block), Halfwidth and Fullwidth Forms (Unicode block), and Katakana

Phonetic Extensions

Katakana was added to the Unicode Standard in October, 1991 with the release of version 1.0.

The Unicode block for (full-width) katakana is U+30A0 ... U+30FF.

Encoded in this block along with the katakana are the nakaguro word-separation middle dot,

the chōon vowel extender, the katakana iteration marks, and a ligature of コト sometimes used in vertical

writing.

Katakana [1] Unicode.org chart (PDF)

  0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 A B C D E F

U+30Ax ゠ァアィイゥウェエォオカガキギク

U+30Bx グケゲコゴサザシジスズセゼソゾタ

U+30Cx ダチヂッツヅテデトドナニヌネノハ

U+30Dx バパヒビピフブプヘベペホボポマミ

U+30Ex ムメモャヤュユョヨラリルレロヮワ

U+30Fx ヰヱヲンヴヵヶヷヸヹヺ・ーヽヾヿ

Notes

1.^ As of Unicode version 6.3

Half-width equivalents to the usual full-width katakana also exist in Unicode. These are encoded within

the halfwidth and fullwidth forms block (U+FF00–U+FFEF) (which also includes full-width forms of Latin

characters, for instance), starting at U+FF65 and ending at U+FF9F (characters U+FF61–U+FF64 are

half-width punctuation marks). This block also includes the half-width dakuten and handakuten. The full-

width versions of these characters are found in the Hiragana block.

Segment of halfwidth and fullwidth formsUnicode.org chart (PDF)

  0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 A B C D E F

U+FF6x ｠ ｡ ｢ ｣ ､ ･ ｦ ｧ ｨ ｩ ｪ ｫ ｬ ｭ ｮ ｯ

U+FF7x ｰ ｱ ｲ ｳ ｴ ｵ ｶ ｷ ｸ ｹ ｺ ｻ ｼ ｽ ｾ ｿ

U+FF8x ﾀ ﾁ ﾂ ﾃ ﾄ ﾅ ﾆ ﾇ ﾈ ﾉ ﾊ ﾋ ﾌ ﾍ ﾎ ﾏ

U+FF9x ﾐ ﾑ ﾒ ﾓ ﾔ ﾕ ﾖ ﾗ ﾘ ﾙ ﾚ ﾛ ﾜ ﾝ ﾞ ﾟ

Circled katakana are code points U+32D0 to U+32FE in the Enclosed CJK Letters and Months block

(U+3200 - U+32FF). A circled ン (n) is not included.

Segment of Enclosed CJK Letters and MonthsUnicode.org chart (PDF)

  0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 A B C D E F

U+32Dx ㋐㋑㋒㋓㋔㋕㋖㋗㋘㋙㋚㋛㋜㋝㋞㋟

U+32Ex ㋠㋡㋢㋣㋤㋥㋦㋧㋨㋩㋪㋫㋬㋭㋮㋯

U+32Fx ㋰㋱㋲㋳㋴㋵㋶㋷㋸㋹㋺㋻㋼㋽㋾

Extensions to Katakana for phonetic transcription of Ainu and other languages were added to the Unicode

Standard in March, 2002 with the release of version 3.2.

The Unicode block for Katakana Phonetic Extensions is U+31F0 ... U+31FF:

Katakana Phonetic Extensions [1]

Unicode.org chart (PDF)

  0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 A B C D E F

U+31Fx ㇰ ㇱ ㇲ ㇳ ㇴ ㇵ ㇶ ㇷ ㇸ ㇹ ㇺ ㇻ ㇼ ㇽ ㇾ ㇿ

Notes

1.^ As of Unicode version 6.3

Historic and variant forms of Japanese kana characters were added to the Unicode Standard in October,

2010 with the release of version 6.0.

The Unicode block for Kana Supplement is U+1B000 ... U+1B0FF. Grey areas indicate non-assigned code

points:

Kana Supplement[1]

Unicode.org chart (PDF)

  0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 A B C D E F

U+1B00x 𛀀 𛀀

U+1B01x

... (omitted; not used yet)

U+1B0Fx

Notes

1.^ As of Unicode version 6.3

KANJI

KanjiFrom Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article is about the Chinese characters used in Japanese writing. For other uses, see Kanji

(disambiguation).

Kanji (漢字; Japanese pronunciation: [kandʑi]   listen) are the adopted logographic Chinese characters (hanzi)

[1] that are used in the modern Japanese writing system along with hiragana, katakana, Hindu-Arabic numerals,

and the occasional use of the Latin alphabet. The Japanese language term kanji for the Chinese characters

literally means "Han characters"[2] and is written using the same characters as the Chinese

language word hanzi (simplified Chinese: 汉字; traditional Chinese: 漢字).[3]

Japanese writing

Kanji

Kana

Hiragana   

Katakana   

Hentaigana   

Man'yōgana   

Sogana   

Uses

Furigana   

Okurigana   

Braille

Rōmaji

Hepburn    (colloquial)

Kunrei    (ISO)

Nihon    (ISO translit.)

JSL    (transliteration)

Wāpuro    (keyboard)

Punctuation

V  

 

T  

 

E  

Kanji

Type Logographic

Languages Old Japanese, Japanese

Parent systemsOracle Bone Script

Seal Script    Clerical Script    Kaishu    Kanji

Sister systems Hanja, Zhuyin, Simplified Chinese,Nom, Khitan 

script, Jurchen script

ISO 15924 Hani, 500

Direction Left-to-right

Unicode alias Han

This article contains IPA phonetic symbols. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Unicode characters.

Chinese characters

Scripts

Precursors   

 

Oracle bone script   

 

Bronze script   

Seal script    

large   

 

small   

 

 

Clerical script   

Cursive script   

 

Regular script   

 

Semi-cursive script   

Type styles

Imitation Song   

 

Ming   

 

Sans-serif   

Properties

Strokes   

 

Stroke order   

 

Radicals   

 

Classification   

Variants

Standards on character forms

Kangxi Dictionary form

 

Xin Zixing

Commonly Used Characters   

Standard Form of National Characters

List of Forms of Frequently Used Characters

Standards on grapheme usage

Graphemic variants   

 

Hanyu Tongyong Zi   

Hanyu Changyong Zi   

 

Tōyō kanji   

 

Jōyō kanji   

Reforms

Chinese 

traditional   

 

simplified   

 

simplified, 1st round   

simplified, 2nd round   

 

debate   

 

 

Japanese    

old   

new   

 

Ryakuji   

 

 

Korean 

Yakja   

 

 

Singaporean

jiăntǐzì biǎo   

Homographs

Literary and colloquial readings   

Use in other scripts

Zetian characters   

 

Nü Shu   

 

Kanji (Kokuji)

Kana    (Man'yōgana)

 

Idu   

 

Hanja    (Gukja)

 

Nom   

Sawndip   

V  

 

T  

 

E  

For a list of words relating to 

kokuji, see the Japanese-

coined CJKV

characters   category of 

words in Wiktionary, the free 

dictionary.

Contents

  [hide] 

1   History

2   Local developments and divergences from Chinese

o 2.1   Kokuji

o 2.2   Kokkun

3   Readings

o 3.1   On'yomi   (Sino-Japanese reading)

o 3.2   Kun'yomi   (Japanese reading)

o 3.3   Mixed readings

o 3.4   Special readings

o 3.5   Single character gairaigo

o 3.6   Other readings

o 3.7   When to use which reading

o 3.8   Pronunciation assistance

o 3.9   Spelling words

4   Total number of kanji

5   Orthographic reform and lists of kanji

o 5.1   Kyōiku kanji

o 5.2   Jōyō kanji

o 5.3   Jinmeiyō kanji

o 5.4   Hyōgaiji

o 5.5   Japanese Industrial Standards for kanji

5.5.1   Gaiji

6   Types of Kanji: by category

o 6.1   Shōkei moji   ( 象形文字 )

o 6.2   Shiji moji   ( 指事文字 )

o 6.3   Kaii moji   ( 会意文字 )

o 6.4   Keisei moji   ( 形声文字 )

o 6.5   Tenchū moji   ( 転注文字 )

o 6.6   Kasha moji   ( 仮借文字 )

7   Related symbols

8   Collation

9   Kanji education

10   See also

11   Notes

12   References

13   External links

o 13.1   Glyph conversion

History[edit]

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 was the King of Na Gold Seal given

by Emperor Guangwu of Han to a Yamato emissary in 57 AD.[4] Chinese coins from the 1st century AD have

been found in Yayoi periodarchaeological sites.[5] However, the Japanese of that era probably had no

comprehension of the script, and would remain illiterate until the 5th century AD.[5] According to the Nihon

Shoki and Kojiki, a semi-legendary scholar called Wani (王仁) was dispatched to Japan by the Kingdom of

Baekje during the reign of Emperor Ōjin in the early 5th century, bringing with him knowledge of Confucianism

and Chinese characters.[6]

The earliest Japanese documents were probably written by bilingual Chinese or Korean officials employed at

the Yamato court.[5] For example, the diplomatic correspondence from King Bu of Wa to Emperor Shun of Liu

Song in 478 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 the Japanese court.[6]

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 however, a system known as kanbun emerged,

which involved using Chinese text with diacritical marks to allow Japanese speakers to restructure and read

Chinese sentences, by changing word order and adding particles and verb endings, in accordance with the

rules of Japanese grammar.

Chinese characters also came to be used to write Japanese words,[when?] resulting in the modern kana

syllabaries. A writing system called man'yōgana (used in the ancient poetry anthology Man'yōshū)

evolved[when?] that used a number of Chinese characters for their sound, rather than for their meaning.

Man'yōgana written in cursive style evolved intohiragana,[when?] 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. Katakanaemerged via a parallel path:[when?] 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 actually descended from kanji.

In modern Japanese, kanji are used to write parts of the language such as nouns, adjective stems,

and verb stems, while hiragana are used to write inflected verb and adjective endings and as phonetic

complements to disambiguate readings (okurigana), particles, and miscellaneous words which have no kanji or

whose kanji is considered obscure or too difficult to read or remember. Katakana are used for

representing onomatopoeia, non-Japanese loanwords (except those borrowed from ancient Chinese), the

names of plants and animals (with exceptions), and for emphasis on certain words.

Local developments and divergences from Chinese[edit]

While kanji are essentially Chinese hanzi used to write Japanese, there are now significant differences

between kanji used in Japanese and Chinese characters used in Chinese. Such differences include (i) the use

of characters created in Japan, (ii) characters that have been given different meanings in Japanese, and (iii)

post-World War II simplifications of the kanji. Likewise, the process of character simplification in mainland

China since the 1950s has the result that Japanese speakers who have not studied Chinese may not recognize

some simplified characters.

Kokuji[edit]

See also: Gukja and Chinese family of scripts#Adaptations for other languages

Kokuji (国字, "national characters") are characters particular to Japan, generally devised in Japan. The

term wasei kanji (和製漢字, "kanji made in Japan") is also used to refer to kokuji. These are primarily formed in

the usual way of Chinese characters, namely by combining existing components, though using a combination

that is not used in China. The corresponding phenomenon in Korea is called gukja (國字), which is the cognate

term; there are however far fewer Korean-coined characters than Japanese-coined ones. Other

languages using theChinese family of scripts sometimes have far more extensive systems of native characters,

most significantly Vietnamese chữ nôm, which comprises over 20,000 characters used throughout traditional

Vietnamese writing, and Zhuang sawndip, which comprises over 10,000 characters, which are still in use.

Since kokuji are generally devised for existing native words, these usually only have native kun   readings .

However, they occasionally have a Chinese on   reading , derived from a phonetic, as in 働, dō, from 動, and in

rare cases only have an on reading, as in 腺, sen, from 泉, which was derived for use in technical compounds

(腺 means "gland", hence used in medical terminology).

The majority of kokuji are ideogrammatic compounds (会意字), meaning that they are composed of two (or

more) characters, with the meaning associated with the combination. For example, 働 is composed of 亻

(person radical) plus 動 (action), hence "action of a person, work". This is in contrast to kanji generally, which

are overwhelmingly phono-semantic compounds. This difference is because kokuji were coined to express

Japanese words, so borrowing existing (Chinese) readings could not express these – combining existing

characters to logically express the meaning was the simplest way to achieve this. Other illustrative examples

(below) include 榊 sakaki tree, formed as 木 "tree" and 神 "god", literally "divine tree", and 辻 tsuji "crossroads,

street" formed as 辶 (⻌) "road" and 十 "cross", hence "cross-road".

In terms of meanings, these are especially for natural phenomena (esp. species) that were not present in

ancient China, including a very large number of fish, such as 鰯 (sardine). In other cases they refer to

specifically Japanese abstract concepts, everyday words (like 辻), or later technical coinages (such as 腺).

There are hundreds of kokuji in existence.[7] Many are rarely used, but a number have become commonly used

components of the written Japanese language. These include the following:

Jōyō kanji has about 9 kokuji; there is some dispute over classification, but generally includes these:

働 どう dō, はたら(く) hatara(ku) "work", the most commonly used kokuji, used in the fundamental verb 働

く hatara(ku) "work", included in elementary texts and on the Japanese Language Proficiency Test N5, for

example.

込 こ(む) ko(mu), used in the fundamental verb 込む（こむ） komu "to be crowded"

匂 にお(う) nio(u), used in common verb 匂う（におう） niou "to smell, to be fragrant"

畑 はたけ hatake "field of crops"

腺 せん sen, "gland"

峠 とうげ tōge "mountain pass"

枠 わく waku, "frame"

塀 へい hei, "wall"

搾 しぼ（る） shibo(ru), "to squeeze" (disputed; see below)

Jinmeiyō kanji:

榊 さかき sakaki "tree, genus Cleyera"

辻 つじ tsuji "crossroads, street"

匁 もんめ monme (unit of weight)

Hyōgaiji:

躾 しつ（け） shitsu(ke) "training, rearing (an animal, a child)"

Some of these characters (for example, 腺, "gland"[8]) have been introduced to China. In some cases the

Chinese reading is the inferred Chinese reading, interpreting the character as a phono-semantic compound (as

in how on readings are sometimes assigned to these characters in Chinese), while in other cases (such as 働),

the Japanese on reading is borrowed (in general this differs from the modern Chinese pronunciation of this

phonetic). Similar coinages occurred to a more limited extent in Korea and Vietnam.

Historically, some kokuji date back to very early Japanese writing, being found in the Man'yōshū, for example –

鰯 iwashi "sardine" dates to the Nara period (8th century) – while they have continued to be created as late as

the late 19th century, when a number of characters were coined in the Meiji era for new scientific concepts. For

example, some characters were produced as regular compounds for some (but not all) SI units, such as 粁 (米

"meter" + 千 "thousand, kilo-") for kilometer – see Chinese characters for SI units for details.

In Japan the kokuji category is strictly defined as characters whose earliest appearance is in Japan. If a

character appears earlier in the Chinese literature, it is not considered a kokuji even if the character was

independently coined in Japan and unrelated to the Chinese character (meaning "not borrowed from Chinese").

In other words, kokuji are not simply characters that were made in Japan, but characters that were first made in

Japan. An illustrative example isankō (鮟鱇?, monkfish). This spelling was created in Edo period Japan from

the ateji (phonetic kanji spelling) 安康 for the existing word ankō by adding the 魚 radical to each character –

the characters were "made in Japan". However, 鮟 is not considered kokuji, as it is found in ancient Chinese

texts as a corruption of 鰋 (魚匽). 鱇 is considered kokuji, as it has not been found in any earlier Chinese text.

Casual listings may be more inclusive, including characters such as 鮟.[9] Another example is 搾, which is

sometimes not considered kokuji due to its earlier presence as a corruption of Chinese 榨.

Kokkun[edit]

In addition to kokuji, there are kanji that have been given meanings in Japanese different from their original

Chinese meanings. These are not considered kokuji but are instead called kokkun (国訓) and include

characters such as:

藤 fuji (wisteria; Ch. téng rattan, cane, vine)

沖 oki (offing, offshore; Ch. chōng rinse, minor

river (Cantonese))

椿 tsubaki (Camellia japonica;

Ch. chūn Ailanthus)

Readings[edit]

Because of the way they have been adopted into

Japanese, a single kanji may be used to write one or

more different words (or, in some

cases, morphemes), and thus the same character

may be pronounced in different ways. From the point

of view of the reader, kanji are said to have one or

more different "readings". Deciding which reading is

appropriate depends on recognizing which word it

represents, which can usually be determined from

context, intended meaning, whether the character

occurs as part of a compound word or an independent word, and sometimes location within the sentence. For

example, (今日?) is usually read kyō, meaning "today", but in formal writing is instead read konnichi,meaning

Borrowing Typology of Han Characters

Meaning Pronunciation

a) semantic on L1 L1

b) semantic kun L1 L2

c) phonetic on — L1

d) phonetic kun — L2

*With L1 representing the language borrowed from (Chinese) and L2 

representing the borrowing language (Japanese).[10]

"nowadays"; this is understood from context. Nevertheless, some cases are ambiguous and require

a furigana gloss, which are also used simply for difficult readings or to specify a non-standard reading.

Kanji readings are categorized as either on'yomi (literally "sound reading", from Chinese) or kun'yomi (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) (on) or iwashi (鰯?,

sardine) (kun); 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 8 basic readings (first 2 are on, rest are kun), or 12

if related verbs are counted as distinct; see okurigana: 生  for details.

Most often a character will be used for both sound and meaning, and it is simply a matter of choosing the

correct reading based on which word it represents. In other cases, a character is used only for sound (ateji), in

which case pronunciation is still based on an standard reading, or used only for meaning (broadly a form

of ateji, narrowly jukujikun), in which case the individual character does not have a reading, only the full

compound; this is significantly more complicated; see special readings, below.

The analogous phenomenon occurs to a much lesser degree in Chinese languages, 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 languages

(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.

On'yomi (Sino-Japanese reading)[edit]

The on'yomi (音読み), the Sino-Japanese reading, is the modern descendant of the Japanese approximation

of the Chinese pronunciation of the character at the time it was introduced. 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 would not normally be expected to have on'yomi, but there are exceptions,

such as the character 働 "to work", which has thekun'yomi "hataraku" 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".

Generally, on'yomi are classified into four types:

Go-on  (呉音?, "Wu sound") readings are from the pronunciation during the Southern and Northern

Dynasties during the 5th and 6th centuries. There is a high probability of Go referring to the Wu region (in

the vicinity of modernShanghai), which still maintains linguistic similarities with modern Sino-Japanese

vocabulary.

Kan-on  (漢音?, "Han sound") readings are from the

pronunciation during the Tang Dynasty in the 7th to 9th

centuries, primarily from the standard speech of the

capital, Chang'an (長安 or 长安, modern Xi'an).

Here, Kan is used in the sense of China.

Tō-on  (唐音?, "Tang sound") readings are from the

pronunciations of later dynasties, such as the Song (宋)

and Ming (明). They cover all readings adopted from

the Heian era (平安) to the Edo period (江戸). This is

also known asTōsō-on (唐宋音), "Tang and Song

sound".

Kan'yō-on (慣用音?, "Customary sound") readings,

which are mistaken or changed readings of the kanji

that have become accepted into the language. In some

cases, they are the actual readings that accompanied

the character's introduction to Japan, but do not match

how the character “should” be read according to the

rules of character construction and pronunciation.

The most common form of readings is the kan-on one, and

use of a non-kan-on reading in a word where the kan-

on reading is well-known is a common cause of reading

mistakes or difficulty, such as in ge-doku (解毒?,

detoxification, anti-poison) (go-on), where (解?) is usually

instead read as kai. The go-on readings are especially

common in Buddhist terminology such as gokuraku 極楽

"paradise", as well as in some of the earliest loans, such as

the Sino-Japanese numbers. The tō-on readings occur in

some later words, such as isu 椅子 "chair",futon 布団

"mattress", and andon 行灯, "a kind of paper lantern". The

go-on, kan-on, and tō-on readings are generally cognate (with rare exceptions of homographs; see below),

having a common origin in Old Chinese, and hence form linguistic doublets or triplets, but they can differ

significantly from each other and from modern Chinese pronunciation.

In Chinese, most characters are associated with a single Chinese sound, though there are distinct literary and

colloquial readings of Chinese characters. However, some homographs called 多音字 (pinyin: duōyīnzì) such

as 行 (pinyin: háng or xíng) (Japanese: an, gō, gyō) have more than one reading in Chinese representing

Examples (rare readings in parentheses)

Kanji Meaning Go-on Kan-on Tō-on Kan'yō-on

明 bright myō mei (min) —

行 go gyō

gō

kō

kō

(an) —

極 extreme goku kyoku — —

珠 pearl shu shu ju (zu)

度 degree do (to) — —

輸 transport (shu) (shu) — yu

雄 masculine — — — yū

熊 bear — — — yū

子 child shi shi su —

清 clear shō sei (shin) —

京 capital kyō kei (kin) —

兵 soldier hyō hei — —

強 strong gō kyō — —

different meanings, which is reflected in the carryover to Japanese as well. Additionally, many Chinese

syllables, especially those with an entering tone, did not fit the largely consonant-vowel (CV) phonotactics of

classical Japanese. Thus most on'yomi are composed of two morae (beats), the second of which is either a

lengthening of the vowel in the first mora, the vowel i, or one of the syllables ku, ki, tsu, chi, or moraic n, chosen

for their approximation to the final consonants of Middle Chinese. It may be that palatalized consonants before

vowels other than   i  developed in Japanese as a result of Chinese borrowings, as they are virtually unknown in

words of native Japanese origin.

On'yomi primarily occur in multi-kanji compound words (熟語 jukugo), many of which are the result of the

adoption, along with the kanji themselves, of Chinese words for concepts that either did not exist in Japanese

or could not be articulated as elegantly using native words. This borrowing process is often compared to

the English borrowings from Latin, Greek, and Norman French, since Chinese-borrowed terms are often more

specialized, or considered to sound more erudite or formal, than their native counterparts. The major exception

to this rule isfamily names, in which the native kun'yomi are usually used (though on'yomi are found in many

personal names, especially men's names).

Kun'yomi (Japanese reading)[edit]

The kun'yomi (訓読み), Japanese reading, or native reading (literally, meaning reading), is a reading based

on the pronunciation of a native Japanese word, or yamato kotoba, that closely approximated the meaning of

the Chinesecharacter 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.

For instance, the kanji for east, 東, has the on'yomi tō. However, Japanese already had two words for

"east": higashi and azuma. Thus the kanji 東 had the latter readings added as kun'yomi. In contrast, the

kanji 寸, denoting a Chinese unit of measurement (about 30 mm or 1.2 inch), has no

native Japanese equivalent; it only has an on'yomi, sun, with no native kun'yomi. Most kokuji, Japanese-

created Chinese characters, only have kun'yomi (although some have back-formed a pseudo-on'yomi by

analogy with similar characters, such as 働 dō, from 動 dō), though some, such as 腺 sen "gland", have only

an on'yomi.

Kun'yomi are characterized by the strict (C)V syllable structure of yamato kotoba. Most noun or

adjective kun'yomi are two to three syllables long, while verb kun'yomi are usually between one and three

syllables in length, not counting trailing hiragana called okurigana. Okurigana are not considered to be part of

the internal reading of the character, although they are part of the reading of the word. A beginner in the

language will rarely come across characters with long readings, but readings of three or even four syllables are

not uncommon. This contrasts with on'yomi, which are monosyllabic, and is unusual in the Chinese family of

scripts, which generally use one character per syllable – not only in Chinese, but also in Korean, Vietnamese,

and Zhuang; polysyllabic Chinese characters are rare and considered non-standard.

承る uketamawaru, 志 kokorozashi, and 詔 mikotonori have five syllables represented by a single kanji, the

longest readings in the Jōyō character set. These unusually long readings are due a single character

representing a compound word. In detail, due respectively to 承る being a single character for a compound

verb, one component of which has a long reading (alternative spelling as 受け賜る u(ke)-tamawa(ru), hence

(1+1)+3=5; compare common 受け付ける u(ke)-tsu(keru), to 志 being a nominalization of the verb 志す which

has a long reading kokoroza(su) (due to being derived from a noun-verb compound, 心指す kokoro-za(su)), the

nominalization removing the okurigana, hence increasing the reading by one mora, yielding 4+1=5 (compare

common 話 hanashi 2+1=3, from 話す hana(su), and 詔 being a triple compound (alternative spelling 御言

宣 mi-koto-nori, hence 1+2+2=5). Longer readings exist for non-Jōyō characters and non-kanji symbols, where

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. Further, some Jōyō characters have long

non-Jōyō readings (students learn the character, but not the reading), such as omonpakaru for 慮る.

In a number of cases, multiple kanji were assigned to cover a single Japanese word. Typically when this

occurs, the different kanji refer to specific shades of meaning. For instance, the word なおす, naosu, when

written 治す, means "to heal an illness or sickness". When written 直す it means "to fix or correct something".

Sometimes the distinction is very clear, although not always. Differences of opinion among reference works is

not uncommon; one dictionary may say the kanji are equivalent, while another dictionary may draw distinctions

of use. As a result, native speakers of the language may have trouble knowing which kanji to use and resort to

personal preference or by writing the word inhiragana. This latter strategy is frequently employed with more

complex cases such as もと moto, which has at least five different kanji: 元, 基, 本, 下, and 素, the first three of

which have only very subtle differences. Another notable example is sakazuki "sake cup", which may be spelt

as at least five different kanji: 杯, 盃, 巵/卮, and 坏; of these, the first two are common – formally 杯 is a small

cup and 盃 a large cup.

Local dialectical readings of kanji are also classified under kun'yomi, most notably readings for words

in Ryukyuan languages. Further, in rare cases gairaigo (borrowed words) have a single character associated

with them, in which case this reading is formally classified as a kun'yomi, because the character is being used

for meaning, not sound. This is discussed under other readings, below.

Mixed readings[edit]

A jūbako (重箱?), which has a mixed on-kun reading.

A yutō (湯桶?), which has a mixed kun-on reading.

There are many kanji compounds that use 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), while it is the other way around with yutō (kun-on). Formally,

these are referred to as jūbako-yomi (重箱読み?, jūbako reading) and yutō-yomi (湯桶読み?, yutō reading). Note

that in both these words, the on'yomi has a long vowel; long vowels in Japanese generally come from Chinese,

hence distinctive of on'yomi. These are the Japanese form of hybrid words. Other examples include 場

所 basho "place" (kun-on), 金色 kin'iro "golden" (on-kun) and 合気道 aikidō "the martial art Aikido" (kun-on-on).

Special readings[edit]

Gikun (義訓) and jukujikun (熟字訓) are readings of kanji combinations that have no direct correspondence to

the characters' individual on'yomi or kun'yomi, but rather are connected with their meaning – this is the

opposite of ateji. 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 when

non-standard kanji are used, generally for effect, such as using 寒 with reading fuyu (ふゆ, "winter"), rather

than the standard character 冬.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, and read neither as *ima'asa, the kun'yomi of the characters,

nor konchō, the on'yomi of the characters, nor any combination thereof. Instead it is read as kesa—a native

Japanese word with two syllables (which may be seen as a single morpheme, or as a fusion

of kyō (previously kefu), "today", and asa, "morning"). Jukujikun are primarily used for some native Japanese

words, and for some old borrowings, such as 柳葉魚 (shishamo, literally "willow leaf fish"), from Ainu, or 煙草

(tabako, literally "smoke grass"), from Portuguese. 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.

Jukujikun are quite varied. Often the kanji compound for jukujikun is idiosyncratic and created for the word, with

the corresponding Chinese word not existing; in other cases a kanji compound for an existing Chinese word is

reused, with the Chinese word and on'yomi may or may not be used in Japanese; for example, (馴鹿?,

reindeer) is jukujikun for tonakai, from Ainu, but theon'yomi junroku is also used. In some cases Japanese

coinages have subsequently been borrowed back into Chinese, such as ankō (鮟鱇?, 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 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 sumō (相撲?, sumo) is originally from the verb suma-u (争う?, to vie),

while kyō (今日?, today) is fusional. In rare cases jukujikun is also applied to inflectional words (verbs and

adjectives), in which case there is frequently a corresponding Chinese word.

Examples of jukujikun for inflectional words follow. The most common example of a jukujikun adjective

is kawai-i (可愛い?, cute), originally kawayu-i; the word (可愛?) is used in Chinese, but the

corresponding on'yomi is not used in Japanese. By contrast, the jukujikun fusawa-shii (相応しい?,

appropriate) and on'yomi sōō (相応?, appropriate) are both used; the -shii ending is because these were

formerly a different class of adjectives. A common example of a verb with jukujikun is haya-ru (流行る?, to

spread, to be in vogue), corresponding to on'yomi ryūkō (流行?). A sample jukujikun deverbal (noun derived

from a verb form) is yusuri (強請?, extortion), from yusu-ru (強請る?, to extort), spelling from kyōsei (強請?,

extortion). See 義訓 and 熟字訓 for many more examples. 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 usual kun'yomi; examples include omo-shiro-i (面白い?, interesting) face-whitening and zuru-

gashiko-i (狡賢い?, sly).

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 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), rather than meaning and not sound (meaning-

spelling), as in jukujikun.

Many jukujikun (established meaning-spellings) began life as gikun (improvised meaning-spellings).

Occasionally a single word will have many such kanji spellings; an extreme example is hototogisu (lesser

cuckoo), which may be spelt in a great 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.

Single character gairaigo[edit]

In some rare cases, an individual kanji has a reading that is borrowed from a modern foreign language

(gairaigo), though most often these words 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). See list of

single character gairaigo for more. These are classed as kun'yomi of a single character, because the character

is being used for meaning only (without the Chinese pronunciation), rather than as ateji, which is the

classification used when a gairaigo term is written as a compound (2 or more characters). However, unlike the

vast majority of other kun'yomi, these readings are not native Japanese, but rather borrowed, so the "kun'yomi"

label can be misleading. The readings are also written in katakana, unlike the usual hiragana for

native kun'yomi. Note that most of these characters are for units, particularly SI units, in many cases using new

characters (kokuji) coined during the Meiji period, such as kiromētoru (粁、キロメートル?, kilometer, 米 "meter"

+ 千 "thousand").

Other readings[edit]

Some kanji also have lesser-known readings called nanori (名乗り), which are mostly used for names

(often given names), and are generally closely related to the kun'yomi. Place names sometimes also

use nanori or, occasionally, unique readings not found elsewhere.

When to use which reading[edit]

Although there are general rules for when to use on'yomi and when to use kun'yomi, the language is littered

with exceptions, and it is not always possible for even a native speaker to know how to read a character without

prior knowledge (this is especially true for names, both of people and places); further, a given character may

have multiple kun'yomi or on'yomi. When reading Japanese, one primarily recognizes words (multiple

characters and okurigana) and their readings, rather than individual characters, and only guess readings of

characters when trying to "sound out" an unrecognized word.

Homographs exist, however, which can sometimes be deduced from context, and sometimes cannot, requiring

a glossary. For example, 今日 may be read either as kyō "today (informal)" (special fused reading for native

word) or askonnichi "these days (formal)" (on'yomi); in formal writing this will generally be read as konnichi. In

some cases multiple readings are common, as in 豚汁 "pork soup", which is commonly pronounced both

as ton-jiru (mixed on-kun) andbuta-jiru (kun-kun), with ton somewhat more common nationally. Inconsistencies

abound – for example 牛肉 gyu-niku "beef" and 羊肉 yō-niku "mutton" have on-on readings, but 豚肉 buta-

niku "pork" and 鶏肉 tori-niku "poultry" havekun-on readings.

The main guideline is that a single kanji followed by okurigana (hiragana characters that are part of the word) –

as used in native verbs and adjectives – always indicates kun'yomi, while kanji compounds

(kango) usually use on'yomi,which is usually kan-on; however, other on'yomi are also common,

and kun'yomi are also commonly used in kango. For a kanji in isolation without okurigana, it is typically read

using their kun'yomi, though there are numerous exceptions. For example, 鉄 "iron" is usually read with

the on'yomi tetsu rather than the kun'yomi kurogane. Chinese on'yomi which are not the common kan-on one

are a frequent cause of difficulty or mistakes when encountering unfamiliar words or for inexperienced readers,

though skilled natives will recognize the word; a good example is ge-doku (解毒?, detoxification, anti-

poison) (go-on), where (解?) is usually instead read as kai.

Okurigana are used with kun'yomi to mark the inflected ending of a native verb or adjective, or by convention –

note that Japanese verbs and adjectives are closed class, and do not generally admit new words (borrowed

Chinese vocabulary, which are nouns, can form verbs by adding -suru (〜する?, to do) at the end, and

adjectives via 〜の -no or 〜な -na, but cannot become native Japanese vocabulary, which inflect). For

example: 赤い aka-i "red", 新しい atara-shii "new", 見る mi-ru "(to) see". Okurigana can be used to indicate

which kun'yomi to use, as in 食べる ta-beru versus 食う ku-u (casual), both meaning "(to) eat", but this is not

always sufficient, as in 開く, which may be read as a-ku orhira-ku, both meaning "(to) open". 生 is a particularly

complicated example, with multiple kun and on'yomi – see okurigana: 生  for details. Okurigana is also used for

some nouns and adverbs, as in 情け nasake "sympathy", 必ず kanarazu "invariably", but not for

金 kane "money", for instance. Okurigana is an important aspect of kanji usage in Japanese; see that article for

more information on kun'yomi orthography

Kanji occurring in compounds are generally read using on'yomi, called 熟語 jukugo in Japanese (though again,

exceptions abound). For example, 情報 jōhō "information", 学校 gakkō "school", and 新幹線 shinkansen "bullet

train" all follow this pattern. This isolated kanji versus compound distinction gives words for similar concepts

completely different pronunciations. 東 "east" and 北 "north" use the kun'yomi higashi and kita, being stand-

alone characters, while 北東 "northeast", as a compound, uses the on'yomi hokutō. This is further complicated

by the fact that many kanji have more than one on'yomi: 生 is read as sei in 先生 sensei "teacher" but as shō in

一生 isshō "one's whole life". Meaning can also be an important indicator of reading; 易 is read i when it means

"simple", but as eki when it means "divination", both being on'yomi for this character.

These rules of thumb have many exceptions. Kun'yomi compound words are not as numerous as those

with on'yomi, but neither are they rare. Examples include 手紙 tegami "letter", 日傘 higasa "parasol", and the

famous 神風 kamikaze "divine wind". Such compounds may also have okurigana, such as 空揚げ (also written

唐揚げ) karaage "Chinese-style fried chicken" and 折り紙 origami, although many of these can also be written

with the okurigana omitted (for example, 空揚 or 折紙).

Similarly, some on'yomi characters can also be used as words in isolation: 愛 ai "love", 禅 Zen, 点 ten "mark,

dot". Most of these cases involve kanji that have no kun'yomi, so there can be no confusion, although

exceptions do occur. A lone 金 may be read as kin "gold" or as kane "money, metal"; only context can

determine the writer's intended reading and meaning.

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). More subtly, 明日 has three different readings, all meaning

"tomorrow": ashita (casual), asu (polite), and myōnichi (formal). Furigana (reading glosses) is often used to

clarify any potential ambiguities.

Conversely, in some cases homophonous terms may be distinguished in writing by different characters, but not

so distinguished in speech, and hence potentially confusing. In some cases when it is important to distinguish

these in speech, the reading of a relevant character may be changed. For example, 私立 (privately established,

esp. school) and 市立 (city established) are both normally pronounced shi-ritsu; in speech these may be

distinguished by the alternative pronunciations watakushi-ritsu and ichi-ritsu. More informally, in legal jargon 前

文 "preamble" and 全文 "full text" are both pronounced zen-bun, so 前文 may be pronounced mae-bun for

clarity, as in "Have you memorized the preamble [not 'whole text'] of the constitution?". As in these examples,

this is primarily using a kun'yomi for one character in a normally on'yomi term.

As stated above, 重箱 jūbako and 湯桶 yutō readings are also not uncommon. Indeed, all four combinations of

reading are possible: on-on, kun-kun, kun-on and on-kun.

Some famous place names, including those of Tokyo (東京 Tōkyō) and Japan itself (日本 Nihon or

sometimes Nippon) are read with on'yomi; however, the majority of Japanese place names are read

with kun'yomi: 大阪 Ōsaka, 青森 Aomori, 箱根 Hakone. Names often use characters and readings that are not

in common use outside of names. When characters are used as abbreviations of place names, their reading

may not match that in the original. The Osaka (大阪) and Kobe (神戸) baseball team, the Hanshin (阪神)

Tigers, take their name from the on'yomi of the second kanji of Ōsaka and the first of Kōbe. The name of the

Keisei (京成) railway line, linking Tokyo (東京) and Narita (成田) is formed similarly, although the reading of 京

from 東京 is kei, despite kyō already being an on'yomi in the word Tōkyō.

Japanese family names are also usually read with kun'yomi: 山田 Yamada, 田中 Tanaka, 鈴木 Suzuki.

Japanese given names often have very irregular readings – although they are not typically

considered jūbako or yutō, they often contain mixtures of kun'yomi, on'yomi and nanori, such as 大

助 Daisuke [on-kun], 夏美 Natsumi [kun-on]. Being chosen at the discretion of the parents, the readings of

given names do not follow any set rules and it is impossible to know with certainty how to read a person's name

without independent verification. Parents can be quite creative, and rumours abound of children called 地

球 Āsu and 天使 Enjeru, quite literally "Earth" and "Angel"; neither are common names, and have normal

readings chikyū and tenshi respectively. Common patterns do exist, however, allowing experienced readers to

make a good guess for most names.

Chinese place names and Chinese personal names appearing in Japanese texts, if spelled in kanji, are almost

invariably read with on'yomi. Especially for older and well-known names, the resulting Japanese pronunciation

may differ widely from that used by Chinese speakers. For example, Mao Zedong's name, written 毛沢東, is

pronounced as Mō Takutō in Japanese. Today, Chinese names that aren't well known in Japan are often

spelled in Katakana instead, in a form much more closely approximating the native Chinese pronunciation.

Alternatively, they may be written in kanji with katakana furigana.

In some cases the same kanji can appear in a given word with different readings. Normally this occurs when a

character is duplicated and the reading of the second character has voicing (rendaku), as in 人人 hito-

bito "people" (more often written with the iteration mark as 人々), but in rare cases the readings can be

unrelated, as in 跳び跳ねる tobi-haneru "hop around" (more often written 飛び跳ねる).

Pronunciation assistance[edit]

Because of the ambiguities involved, kanji sometimes have their pronunciation for the given context spelled out

in ruby characters known as furigana, (small kana written above or to the right of the character)

or kumimoji (small kanawritten in-line after the character). This is especially true in texts for children or foreign

learners. It is also used in newspapers and manga (comics) for rare or unusual readings and for characters not

included in the officially recognized set of essential kanji. Works of fiction sometimes use furigana to create

new "words" by giving normal kanji non-standard readings, or to attach a foreign word rendered in katakana as

the reading for a kanji or kanji compound of the same or similar meaning.

Spelling words[edit]

Conversely, specifying a given kanji, or spelling out a kanji word—whether the pronunciation is known or not—

can be complicated, due to the fact that there is not a commonly used standard way to refer to individual kanji

(one does not refer to "kanji #237"), and that a given reading does not map to a single kanji—indeed there are

many homophonous words, not simply individual characters, particularly for kango (with on'yomi). Easiest is to

write the word out—either on paper or tracing it in the air—or look it up (given the pronunciation) in a dictionary,

particularly an electronic dictionary; when this is not possible, such as when speaking over the phone or writing

implements are not available (and tracing in air is too complicated), various techniques can be used. These

include giving kun'yomi for characters—these are often unique—using a well-known word with the same

character (and preferably the same pronunciation and meaning), and describing the character via its

components. For example, one may explain how to spell the word kōshinryō (香辛料?, spice) via the words kao-

ri (香り?, fragrance), kara-i (辛い?, spicy), and in-ryō (飲料?, beverage)—the first two use the kun'yomi, the third

is a well-known compound—saying "kaori, karai, ryō as in inryō."

Total number of kanji[edit]

The number of possible characters is disputed; in principle any Chinese character can be used as kanji, which

often occurs with proper names or names of food. The Daikanwa Jiten contains about 50,000 characters, and

this was thought to be comprehensive, but more recent mainland Chinese dictionaries, such as the Yiti

Zidian dictionary published in 2004 contain 100,000 or more characters,[citation needed] many consisting of obscure

variants. The vast majority of these are not in common use in either Japan or China; as discussed below,

approximately 2,000 to 3,000 characters are in common use in Japan, a few thousand more find occasional

use, and a total of about 13,000 characters can be encoded in various Japanese Industrial Standards for kanji.

Orthographic reform and lists of kanji[edit]

Main article: Japanese script reform

A young woman practicing kanji. Ukiyo-ewoodblock print by Yōshū Chikanobu, 1897

In 1946, following World War II, the Japanese government instituted a series of orthographic reforms. This was

done with the goal of facilitating learning for children and simplifying kanji use in literature and periodicals. The

number of characters in circulation was reduced, and formal lists of characters to be learned during each grade

of school were established. Some characters were given simplified glyphs, called 新字体 (shinjitai). 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?).

Kyōiku kanji[edit]

Main article: Kyōiku kanji

The Kyōiku kanji (教育漢字, "education kanji") are 1,006 characters that Japanese children learn in elementary

school. The number was 881 until 1981. The grade-level breakdown of the education kanji is known as

the gakunen-betsu kanji haitōhyō (学年別漢字配当表), or the gakushū kanji.

Jōyō kanji[edit]

Main article: Jōyō kanji

The Jōyō kanji (常用漢字, "regular-use kanji") are 2,136 characters consisting of all the Kyōiku kanji, plus 1,130

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 was extended 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.

Jinmeiyō kanji[edit]

Main article: Jinmeiyō kanji

Since September 27, 2004, the Jinmeiyō kanji (人名用漢字, "kanji for use in personal names") consist of 2,928

characters, containing the Jōyō kanji plus an additional 983 kanji found in people's names. There were only 92

kanji in the original list published in 1952, but new additions have been made frequently. Sometimes the

term Jinmeiyō kanji refers to all 2,928, and sometimes it only refers to the 983 that are only used for names.

Hyōgaiji[edit]

Main article: Hyōgaiji

Hyōgaiji (表外字?, "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.

Japanese Industrial Standards for kanji[edit]

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 the Latin alphabet, Cyrillic script, Greek alphabet, Hindu-Arabic numerals,

etc. for use in information processing. They have had numerous revisions. The current standards are:

JIS X 0208  (JIS X 0208:1997), the most recent version of the main standard. It has 6,355 kanji.

JIS X 0212  (JIS X 0212:1990), a supplementary standard containing a further 5,801 kanji. This standard is

rarely used, mainly because the common Shift JIS encoding system could not use it. This standard is

effectively obsolete;

JIS X 0213  (JIS X 0213:2000), a further revision which extended the JIS X 0208 set with 3,695 additional

kanji, of which 2,743 (all but 952) were in JIS X 0212. The standard is in part designed to be compatible

with Shift JIS encoding;

JIS X 0221:1995, the Japanese version of the ISO 10646/Unicode standard.

Gaiji[edit]

Gaiji (外字), literally meaning "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 conventionalglyph in reference works, and can include non-kanji symbols as well.

Gaiji can be either user-defined characters or system-specific characters. Both are a problem for information

interchange, as the codepoint 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, and JIS X 0213-2000 used the range of code-points

previously allocated to gaiji, making them completely unusable. Nevertheless, they persist today with NTT

DoCoMo's "i-mode" service, 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)[11][12] technology allows the creation of customized gaiji.

The Text Encoding Initiative uses a <g> element to encode any non-standard character or glyph, including

gaiji.[13] (The g stands for "gaiji".[14])

Types of Kanji: by category[edit]

Main article: Chinese character classification

Han Dynasty scholar Xu Shen in his ancient dictionary Shuowen Jiezi classified Chinese characters into six

categories (Chinese: 六書 liùshū, Japanese: rikusho). The traditional classification is still taught but is

problematic and no longer the focus of modern lexicographic practice, as some categories are not clearly

defined, nor are they mutually exclusive: the first four refer to structural composition, while the last two refer to

usage.

Shōkei moji (象形文字)[edit]

Shōkei (Chinese: xiàngxíng) characters are pictographic sketches of the object they represent. For example, 目

is an eye, while 木 is a tree. (Shōkei 象形 is also the Japanese word for Egyptian hieroglyphs). The current

forms of the characters are very different from the originals, though their representations are more clear

in oracle bone script and seal script. These pictographic characters make up only a small fraction of modern

characters.

Shiji moji (指事文字)[edit]

Shiji (Chinese: zhǐshì) characters are ideographs, often called "simple ideographs" or "simple indicatives" to

distinguish them and tell the difference from compound ideographs (below). They are usually simple graphically

and represent an abstract concept such as 上 "up" or "above" and 下 "down" or "below". These make up a tiny

fraction of modern characters.

Kaii moji (会意文字)[edit]

Kaii (Chinese: huìyì) characters are compound ideographs, often called "compound indicatives", "associative

compounds", or just "ideographs". These are usually a combination of pictographs that combine semantically to

present an overall meaning. An example of this type is 休 (rest) from 人 (person) and 木 (tree). Another is

the kokuji 峠 (mountain pass) made from 山 (mountain), 上 (up) and 下 (down). These make up a tiny fraction of

modern characters.

Keisei moji (形声文字)[edit]

Keisei (Chinese: xíngshēng) characters are phono-semantic or radical-phonetic compounds, sometimes called

"semantic-phonetic", "semasio-phonetic", or "phonetic-ideographic" characters, are by far the largest category,

making up about 90% of the characters in the standard lists; however, some of the most frequently used kanji

belong to one of the three groups mentioned above, so keisei moji will usually make up less than 90% of the

characters in a text. Typically they are made up of two components, one of which (most commonly, but by no

means always, the left or top element) suggests the general category of the meaning or semantic context, and

the other (most commonly the right or bottom element) approximates the pronunciation. The pronunciation

relates to the original Chinese, and may now only be distantly detectable in the modern Japanese on'yomi of

the kanji; it generally has no relation at all tokun'yomi. The same is true of the semantic context, which may

have changed over the centuries or in the transition from Chinese to Japanese. As a result, it is a common

error in folk etymology to fail to recognize a phono-semantic compound, typically instead inventing a

compound-indicative explanation.

Tenchū moji (転注文字)[edit]

Tenchū (Chinese: zhuǎnzhù) characters have variously been called "derivative characters",

"derivative cognates", or translated as "mutually explanatory" or "mutually synonymous" characters; this is the

most problematic of the six categories, as it is vaguely defined. It may refer to kanji where the meaning or

application has become extended. For example, 楽 is used for 'music' and 'comfort, ease', with different

pronunciations in Chinese reflected in the two different on'yomi, gaku 'music' and raku 'pleasure'.

Kasha moji (仮借文字)[edit]

Kasha (Chinese: jiǎjiè) are rebuses, sometimes called "phonetic loans". The etymology of the characters

follows one of the patterns above, but the present-day meaning is completely unrelated to this. A character was

appropriated to represent a similar sounding word. For example, 来 in ancient Chinese was originally a

pictograph for "wheat". Its syllable was homophonous with the verb meaning "to come", and the character is

used for that verb as a result, without any embellishing "meaning" element attached. The character for wheat

麦, originally meant "to come", being a keisei moji having 'foot' at the bottom for its meaning part and "wheat" at

the top for sound. The two characters swapped meaning, so today the more common word has the simpler

character. This borrowing of sounds has a very long history.

Related symbols[edit]

See also: Japanese typographic symbols

The iteration mark (々) is used to indicate that the preceding kanji is to be repeated, functioning similarly to

a ditto mark in English. It is pronounced as though the kanji were written twice in a row, for example 色々

(iroiro "various") and 時々 (tokidoki "sometimes"). This mark also appears in personal and place names, as in

the surname Sasaki (佐々木). This symbol is a simplified version of the kanji 仝 (variant of 同 dō "same").

Another abbreviated symbol is ヶ, in appearance a small katakana "ke", but actually a simplified version of the

kanji 箇, a general counter. It is pronounced "ka" when used to indicate quantity (such as 六ヶ

月, rokkagetsu "six months") or "ga" in place names like Kasumigaseki (霞ヶ関). .

Collation[edit]

Kanji, whose thousands of symbols defy ordering by conventions such as those used for the Latin script, are

often collated using the traditional Chinese radical-and-stroke sorting method. In this system, common

components of characters are identified; these are called radicals. Characters are grouped by their primary

radical, then ordered by number of pen strokes within radicals. For example, the kanji character 桜, meaning

"cherry", is sorted as a ten-stroke character under the four-stroke primary radical 木 meaning "tree". When

there is no obvious radical or more than one radical, convention governs which is used for collation.

Other kanji sorting methods, such as the SKIP system, have been devised by various authors.

Modern general-purpose Japanese dictionaries (as opposed to specifically character dictionaries) generally

collate all entries, including words written using kanji, according to their kana representations (reflecting the

way they are pronounced). The gojūon ordering of kana is normally used for this purpose.

Kanji education[edit]

This image lists most joyo-kanji, according to Halpern's KLD indexing system, with kyo-iku kanji color-coded by grade level.

Japanese school children are expected to learn 1,006 basic kanji characters, the kyōiku kanji, before finishing

the sixth grade. The order in which these characters are learned is fixed. The kyōiku kanji list is a subset of a

larger list, originally of 1,945 kanji characters, in 2010 extended to 2,136, known as the jōyō kanji – characters

required for the level of fluency necessary to read newspapers and literature in Japanese. This larger list of

characters is to be mastered by the end of the ninth grade.[15] Schoolchildren learn the characters by repetition

and radical.

Students studying Japanese as a foreign language are often required by a curriculum to acquire kanji without

having first learned the vocabulary associated with them. Strategies for these learners vary from copying-based

methods to mnemonic-based methods such as those used in James Heisig's series Remembering the Kanji.

Other textbooks use methods based on the etymology of the characters, such as Mathias and Habein's The

Complete Guide to Everyday Kanji and Henshall's A Guide to Remembering Japanese Characters. Pictorial

mnemonics, as in the text Kanji Pict-o-graphix, are also seen.

The Japanese government provides the Kanji kentei (日本漢字能力検定試験 Nihon kanji nōryoku kentei shiken;

"Test of Japanese Kanji Aptitude") which tests the ability to read and write kanji. The highest level of the Kanji

kentei tests about 6,000 kanji.

1. What is Kanji?

Kanji means Chinese letter or character. The script was invented by the Chinese and adopted by the Japanese around the middle of the 6th century AD. Kanji are ideographs meaning that the whole character conveys a meaning rather than just a sound (as in the case of hiragana and katakana letters).  Kanji were originally drawn as pictures from nature but gradually transformed to more generalized representations. By the end of year nine Japanese students will have learned 1945 kanji as prescribed by the Japanese Ministry of Education (the Jouyou Kanji). There are many many more less commonly used kanji totaling over 5000. ReadWrite Kanji teaches the 1945 prescribed kanji in the order in which that are taught to Japanese students. More on kanji can be found at the bottom of the page.

Kanji can be written in various styles. There is the character for "good" written in a number of styles.

   ◊ Learn about the Japanese phonetic hiragana script here.◊ Learn about the Japanese phonetic katakana script here.   

2. What are Kanji Radicals?

All kanji contain a classifying radical that is a component of the kanji. Often the radical imparts meaning to the

kanji - for example the radical for hand 扌 appears in both of the kanji that combine to form the word "grasp"

(把持) and the individual kanji for "throw" (投). Recognizing a kanji's radical often helps in memorising or deciphering the meaning of the kanji.

Most kanji dictionaries classify kanji according to their radicals. Therefore recognising the radial of an unknown kanji helps with looking it up in a dictionary.

 Japanese kanji has 214 different radicals (the Bushu index).

Radicals can appear almost anywhere in a kanji - at the top, on the left, on the right, at the bottom and surrounding (enclosing). 

 This is the for "harbour" with the radical for water highlighted in red.

Here is the character for "country" with the radical for "outh, opening, sounding highlighted in red.

Here is the character for "big" - it is classified as a radical itself.

 See below for the complete list of the 214 busho radicals.  

3. What are ON Pronunciations?

In Japanese there is generally more than one pronunciation of a kanji. The ON pronunciation (onyomi) is taken from the Chinese pronunciation and the KUN pronunciation (kunyomi) which is derived from the indigenous Japanese pronunciation of the same word/meaning.

Most kanji compounds (words made up of two or more kanji) are built up from the the individual kanji onyomi. For example:

 

自動車 The onyomi: zi-dou-sha combine to mean car or automobile

自- zi meaning self動 - dou meaning move車 - sha meaning vehicle or cart

   

4. What are KUN Pronunciations?

In Japanese there is generally more than one pronunciation of a kanji. The ON pronunciation (onyomi) is taken from the Chinese pronunciation and the KUN pronunciation (kunyomi) which is derived from the indigenous Japanese pronunciation of the same word/meaning. When the kunyomi pronunciation is used the kanji usually stands alone and is not part of a compound. For example:

人 - hito meaning person

鳥 - tori meaning bird

夢 - yumi meaning dream

   

5. More about Kanji?

Kanji are characters that were developed as part of the writing system used among the Asian countries, especially China. It is generally said that those people using Kanji are the largest race on earth. It is not certain when and where Kanji first appeared. However, the oldest pattern like characters resembling some sort of symbols were carved on fragments of earthenware and have been excavated from the ruins of ancient China (4500 BC). The symbols on these ruins, classified into 22 patterns, have still not been deciphered, but it is widely believed that these symbols were a form of notification, that is, a prototype of a character.

In the time of the Chinese ancient state of IN, which rose in approximately 1600 BC, the king or ruler used the custom of fortune telling to make political predictions by burning tortoise shells or animal bones and observing the cracks that formed in the shells or bones. Then, in order to record the results of the fortune telling, a character called, KOUKOTUMOJI ("inscription on bones and tortoise carapaces"), was inscribed on the shells and bones. This is the prototype of the present Kanji character. Thus, was created, the manner in which the precious data in assuming the politics and social state of the Chinese ancient state of IN was recorded and kept.

Later, in 1300 BC, when the ancient Chinese state of IN reached its golden period, known as the Bronze Age, KINBUN ("a gold letter"), having a softer impression than the character, KOUKOTUMOJI, appeared. KOUKOTUMOJI was initially created as pictograph, that is, as an ideogram. Yet, in the later period, the expression for more abstract phenomenon was systemized.

It is interesting to note that our present-day phonetic alphabet has its origins in the ideography of ancient Mesopotamia (an ancient country in West Asia between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers; now part of Iraq)--known as another birthplace of civilization. The ancient Mesopotamians made adaptations to their ideographic notations in order to transcribe into a written form the spoken languages of neighboring nations and races. During the process of this transcription, it is believed that the ideogram was converted to phonetic symbols. In addition, it has been suggested that the KOUKOTUMOJI character, which was initially in the form of an ideogram, was actually derived from the Sumerian cuneiform drawings. This is an interesting theory, because it is believed that the concept of writing existed in the Middle East's fertile crescent (present day Southern Iraq) long before China started its own method of writing. History records that that the Sumerian civilization mysteriously vanished. However, it is possible that the Sumerians ended up in China because recent objects resembling Sumerian objects have been found in Northern China.

After centuries of individually ruled kingdoms, China was unified into a single territory with the start of the SHIN dynasty in 221 BC. The first emperor of China, referred to as SHIKOUTEI, appeared and united all of China for the first time. The emperor aimed to create a standard of weights and measurements (units such as length and capacity), as well as, unify a written character for the reign. The style of writing enacted during this reign is called SYOUTEN and was carried out long after as a formal character in China. This style of writing was primarily used to inscribe nationwide important archives on a stone, as well as, for political documents. It would thus, be reasonable to think that this writing style is a principal vestige for today's seal engraving.

However, the formal character was not easy to hand down from generation to generation as Kanji had a complicated typeface. It was thus destined for the character to develop into a character that could be written faster and memorized easier. Gradually, SYOUTEN turned into a form that was more straight-lined and easier to write, called REISYO. Around the second century, the writing style evolved further into KAISYO. The writing

materials of the REISYO period were changed from stone to thin bars of bamboo or wood called CHIKKAN or MOKKAN. Then, when paper was finally invented, a style was developed that could supply the demand for much more and faster writing.

Thus, through this history, Kanji was developed as a form of artwork because the writing could bear the penmanship of many clerics. Soon, the period of wood engraving printings, such as those found in the Buddhist scripture came to being. A period of mud printing type also emerged and the writing style became even simpler and more linear. In the eleventh century, known as SOU era, a writing style called MINCCYOUTAI originated. Later this writing style was regulated in the MIN era. This fixed form is almost the same as the present style. To accommodate an easier writing style in China today, a mainstream for common documents was developed in the simple style script known as KANTAIJI. However, in the case of Kanji, the writing style from the ancient or modern times has not disappeared at all and it can be said that it is still alive in the world of art.    

6. The Bushu Classification of the Radicals?            Bushu Index

Radical Meaning  

Bushu Index

Radical Meaning

 1 一 one; a horizontal stroke 108 皿 plate2 丨 a vertical stroke 109 目 eye3 丶 a dot 110 矛 spear4 丿 a stroke curved to the left 111 矢 arrow

5 乙a bend stroke; the second of celestial stems  112 石 stone, rock

6 亏 a hook 113 示礻 spiritual, ancestor7 亖 two; two horizontal strokes 114 禸 animal stamping the earth8 亠 head, above 115 禾 grain ear9 人亻 man, a person 116 穴 hollow, hole, hidden

10 儿man, a person (at the bottom of a character)  117 立 stand, erect

11 入 entering, starting 118 竹 bamboo12 八 eight; to part, to divide 119 米 rice13 冂 wilderness 120 糸糹 thread, fabric14 冖 cover 121 缶 crock, vessel15 冫 two dots; ice, cold 122 网罒 net16 几 small table 123 羊 sheep, goat17 凵 wide opened mouth 124 羽 wings18 刀刂 knife, sword, cutting, separating 125 老 old19 力 strength, force 126 而 moustache; but, and20 勹 embracing 127 耒 handle of a plough21 匕 spoon, ladle 128 耳 ear22 匚 square box 129 聿肀 brush23 匸 round box 130 肉 meat, organs of the body24 十 ten; two crossed strokes 131 臣 servant, subject25 卜 divining 132 自 nose, self26 卩 seal, stamp 133 至 arrive27 厂 cliff 134 臼 mortar

28 厶 self, private 135 舌 tongue29 又 grasping, further, again 136 舛 lying side by side30 口 mouth, opening, sounding 137 舟 boat, ship31 囗 enclosure 138 艮 simple, honest, straight32 土 earth, soil 139 色 color, outlook33 士 official, scholar 140 艸艹 grass, herb, plant34 夂 walking slowly 141 虍 tiger35 夊 overtaking 142 虫 insect, creeping animal36 夕 evening 143 血 blood37 大 big, large 144 行 walk, row, line, journey38 女 woman 145 衣衤 clothing

39 子孑child, son; the first of terrestrial branches  146 西覀 cover

40 宀 roof, cover 147 見 seeing41 寸 inch 148 角 horn; a kind of volume measure42 小 small 149 言 speaking43 尢尣 broken or curved leg 150 谷 valley44 尸 corpse, body 151 豆 bean; a kind of vessel45 屮 sprout 152 豕 pig46 山 mountain, cliff 153 豸 small hairy animals47 巛巜川 river, stream 154 貝 cowry snail48 工 work 155 赤 red

49 己self, own; the sixth of celestial stems 156 走 walking

50 巾 towel, napkin 157 足 foot, leg, walking51 干 shield 158 身 body52 幺乡 small, young 159 車 cart53 广 house built at a slope 160 辛 bitter; the eighth of celectial stems54 廴 walking a long distance 161 辰 morning; the fifth of terrestrial branches

55 廿two hands (at bottom of character) 162 辵辶 stamping on the earth, going

56 弋 shooting 163 邑⻏ village57 弓 crossbow 164 酉 wine, jar; the tenth of terrestrial branches58 彐彑 pig head 165 釆 distiguishing, separating59 彡 hair, feather 166 里 mile, hamlet60 彳 walking slowly 167 金 metal, gold61 心忄 heart, feeling 168 長 long, hair62 戈 axe, halberd 169 門 door63 戶户 house, door 170 阜阝 hill, dam64 手扌 hand, actions 171 隶 reaching, catching65 支 branch 172 隹 small bird66 攴攵 whip 173 雨 rain67 文 word, literature 174 靑 bluegreen68 斗 a kind of volume measure 175 非 wings; not69 斤 a kind of weight measure; axe 176 面 face70 方 square, direction, locality 177 革 skin, leather, changing71 无旡 do not, no 178 韋 tanned leather72 日 sun, clear 179 韭 chives, scallion73 曰 speaking 180 音 sound74 月 moon, month 181 頁 page, face75 木 tree, wood 182 風 wind

76 欠 missing, gap 183 飛 flying77 止 stopping 184 食飠 eating78 歹歺 evil 185 首 head79 殳 halberd 186 香 odor, perfume80 毋母 mother 187 馬 horse81 比 side by side, comparing 188 骨 bone82 毛 hair, feather 189 高 high, aloft83 氏 clan 190 髟 hair84 气 air, breath 191 鬥 battle85 水氵 water 192 鬯 offering spirits86 火灬 fire 193 鬲 a kind of vessel87 爪爫 claw, hand 194 鬼 ghost, spirit88 父 father 195 魚 fish89 爻 crossing two times 196 鳥 bird90 爿 bed 197 鹵 salt91 片 slice, piece 198 鹿 deer92 牙 teeth 199 麥 grain93 牛牜 cow, ox 200 麻 hemp94 犬犭 dog, dog-like animals 201 黃 yellow95 玄 black, dark 202 黍 millet96 玉王 jade, stone 203 黑 black97 瓜 pumpkin, melon 204 黹 needlework98 瓦 tile, earthenware 205 黽 frog, amphibium99 甘 sweet 206 鼎 tripod100 生 giving birth, living 207 鼓 drum101 用 using 208 鼠 mouse, rat102 田由 field 209 鼻 nose, self103 疋 roll, bolt 210 齊 equal, all104 疒 sick 211 齒 teeth105 癶 two hands above 212 龍 dragon106 白 white 213 龜 turtle107 皮 leather, skin 214 龠 flute

Japanese Kanji

Between 5,000 and 10,000 characters, or kanji, are used in written Japanese. In 1981 in an effort to

make it easier to read and write Japanese, the Japanese government introduced the 常用漢字表

(jōyō kanji hyō) or the "List of Chinese Characters for General Use", which includes 1,945 regular

characters, plus additional characters used for people's names (人名用漢字 - jinmeiyô-kanji). This is

based on the list of 1,850 regular use kanji (当用漢字 tôyô kanji) published in 1946. In 2010 an

additional 196 commonly-used kanji were added to the jōyō kanji taking the total to 2,136.

Newpapers and other media and publications use mainly jōyō kanji and provide furigana (reading in

kana) for non-jōyō kanji. Japanese children are expected to know all of the jōyō kanji by the end of

high school but to read specialist publications and ordinary literature, they need to know another two

or three thousand kanji.

The word kanji is the Japanese version of the Chinese word hànzì, which means "Han characters".

Han refers to the Han Dynasty (206BC - 220AD) and is the name used by the Chinese for

themselves.

When the Japanese adopted Chinese characters to write the Japanese language they also

borrowed many Chinese words. Today about half the vocabulary of Japanese comes from Chinese

and Japanese kanji are use to represent both Sino-Japanese words and native Japanese words with

the same meaning.

For example, the native Japanese word for water is mizu while the Sino-Japanese word is sui. Both

are written with the same character. The former is known as the kun yomi (Japanese reading) of the

character while the latter is known as the on yomi (Chinese reading) of the character.

Another example: the native Japanese word for horse is uma while the Sino-Japanese words

are ba and ma.

The characters in the word baka, which mean "horse deer", are used for their phonetic values alone.

The word comes from the Sanskrit moha - ignorance, via the Chinese măhū. Click hereto see how

the character for horse is used in Chinese.

The general rule is that when a kanji appears on its own, it is given the kun yomi, but when two or

more kanji appear together, they are given the on yomi. There are, of course, many exceptions to

this rule. For example it is sometimes difficult to work out how to pronounce people's names

because some of the kanji used for names have non-standard pronunciations.

Some kanji have multiple on yomi and kun yomi (the first three readings are on yomi, the last three

are kun yomi):

In Mandarin Chinese this character is pronounced 'xíng' or 'háng'.

Multiple on yomi are often a result of borrowing words over a period of many centuries, during which

Chinese pronunciation changed, and also borrowing words from different varieties of Chinese.

Some of the kanji have been simplified, although not always in the same way as characters have

been simplified in China:

There are also a number of characters, kokuji (national characters) which were invented in Japan.