What is kanji? Kanji is the name for the Chinese characters which represent words inthe Japanese language. The kanji “alphabet”, along with katakana and hiragana, comprise Japanese’s writing system. Futrthermore, Japanese occassionaly even uses Latin (English) characters, and sometimes will use Arabic (again, English) numerals for when they write numbers. As in any language, the exact number of words is tough to determine, but it is estimated there are more than 50,000 kanji symbols. 

The kanji symbols were introduced into Japan likely in the 1sr century, during the Han dynasty. Over the next few hundred years, the Chinese language grew in useage. Back then, there was no formal system of writing in Japan, so it’s thought that the kanji characters were used to write Chinese documents throughout Japan.

Eventually, the symbols were changed to reflect the Japanese language. Via a system called hanbun, tiny marks changed the characters, to reflect the proper grammtical endings of the Japanese language, and their particles. From this set of now modified Chinese characters emerged the modern form of kanji charcaters. Over the centuries, the original set of Chinese characters (called hanji) and the Japanese kanji grew farther and farther apart. Different meanings have since been given to most kanji, and after WW II, the entire set of kanji characters was simplified drastically. The “Toyo Form List” was created for these new, simplified kanji forms. (Interestingly, both forms are still in use.)

 

There are two main categories of kanji. The kokkun are the symbols which still resemble the original Chinese character, but whose meanings are now different. Meanwhile, kokuji are unique Japanese characters not found in the CHinese system at all. The term actually means, “Chinese words created in Japan!”

 

So how are the symbols read? There are two ways to read each kanji symbol. The Japanese way to read it is called the character’s “kunyomi”, often just the “kun” reading. When read this way, it will be a Japanese word. The second way to read a kanji symbol is the onyomi (or just the “on” reading), and it roughly resembles a Chinese word.