![]() LOT.Īnother super important aspect of kanji is the radicals. I’m kinda a weirdo about picking up patterns like this, and I basically internalized them by reading. The 弓 on the left means “bow” (as in the weapon), and you can imagine stretching the bowstring to fire.įiguring out these phonological aspects and their patterns is what really helped accelerate my Japanese reading abilities. The 巾 on the left means “cloth” or “scroll,” which is what records would have been written on or bound in when this kanji was invented. This 長 will become the phonological aspect for the following kanji. Let’s take a look at a couple examples taken from Japanese, since I don’t speak a word of Chinese. ![]() Phono means “sound” or “pronunciation” and semantic means “meaning.” So in other words, the character reveals a hint not only the pronunciation but also its meaning. Many Chinese characters are phono-semantic compounds. The rebus principle is a linguistic term for the use of existing symbols, such as pictograms, purely for their sounds regardless of their meaning, to represent new words.Īn English example of the rebus principle would be writing “I can see you” as “Eye can sea ewe.” Regardless of the meaning of “eye,” “sea,” and “ewe,” their pronunciation is the same as “I,” “see,” and “you.” The majority of Chinese characters were created using the Rebus Principle. However, even when the Chinese writing system was still in its infancy, pictograms and ideograms accounted for only a small percent of the characters. Characters that depict the item or idea they represent like these kanji are called pictograms and ideograms respectively. How Kanji Are FormedĪnyone who has taken it upon themselves to learn some kanji has probably seen something like the above image showing kanji’s roots as a drawing. Nowadays, as language, society, and culture has become more complex, many words are multi-syllabic and require multiple characters. At the time, most words in Old Chinese were monosyllabic, and one character denoted one word. But before we get to talking about Japan, let’s very briefly cover their history in China.Ĭhinese characters are the oldest continuously used writing system in the world, first used in China in the late second millennium BC. 漢字 kanji, or Chinese characters, are a form of writing that the Japanese imported from China in the 5th Century AD. Originally posted by autodidacting Origins of Kanji (Let me just preface this by saying that I have done absolutely zero formal study of Chinese, so I’m not going to talk much about kanji usage in China and countries other than Japan.) Oh man, this is such a good question! Thank you for asking it!! Today, let’s talk about the basics of kanji.
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