From Chinese Hanzi to Modern Japanese Kanji and Kana

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[intro music]

こんにちは、皆さん。(Konnichiwa, mina-san. [Hello, everyone.])

Today I will be discussing the evolution of the Japanese written language, beginning with China's hanzi.

I believe that an overlooked aspect of learning a language is learning the history behind the language. What I mean by this is that culture ends up being embedded within a language, and so by learning the history of the language, you end up learning and understanding a deeper part of culture.

For example, if you’re learning a romance language, you would end up examining how the Latin language disseminated throughout different parts of modern-day Europe and became languages like Portuguese, French, and Spanish. And by understanding and learning this, you can see the effect that the Roman Empire had on these romance languages and the cultures that still persist to this day.

In the case of the Japanese language, it is evident that the kanji used in the Japanese system are of Chinese origin. It’s made even more obvious considering that the word kanji is made up of the two characters 漢 and 字. 漢 refers to China, whereas 字 means “character.” Therefore, the combination of them both is “Chinese characters.” So when did these Chinese characters come to Japan? And how did the language develop as a result?

We begin looking for these answers in China, where the earliest known example of character writing is dated back to the Shang dynasty, approximately 1600 – 1046 B.C. According to Beyond Calligraphy, a website detailing the history of characters and calligraphy for both Chinese and Japanese, these characters were found on so-called oracle bones created by Zhen Ren or diviner-historians. Characters were written on bones with dents, and then the bones were heated up. They would crack from the heat, and the way that the bones cracked alongside or within the oracle bone script would result in a divine message. These messages would then be copied by rubbing pigments or ink to preserve both the cracks and the characters for historical records. It is thought that this form of pyromancy was linked to the ancient Chinese reverence for the dead, as well as their reverence spirits and nature. It is also important to note at this time that these early Chinese characters in the oracle bone script were still logographs - they recorded sounds; they were not yet ideographs (representing certain words or ideas).

So if these characters originated in China between 1600 and 1046 B.C., how and when did they come to Japan? Well, by looking at ancient Chinese records, scholars can determine when China and Japan came into contact with each other. It would appear that according to the Han Shu (The history of Han) that the ancient Chinese knew of the Japanese island chain in approximately 82 A.D. However, it was ambiguous as to whether or not they had contact with the people living on the islands. Scholars have validated a later record known as the Wei Zhi (Records of Wei [China]) that established that China and one of Japan’s kingdoms (Yamatai, suspected to be located in either Kyūshū or Kinki) had been in contact with one another; the records discuss the practices of the Japanese people as well as their “sorceress” ruler Himiko. At this point in time, Japan was not unified, and so it was composed of a multitude of different kingdoms. The Wei Zhi was written approximately in 297 A.D., thus defining an exact point when the two cultures had met each other. This does not mean that they met in 297, but rather by 297 the regions’ people had met each other. Furthermore, during the Han period, Chinese characters began utilizing both logographs and ideographs in their characters; additional characters known as determinatives were added to a character to demonstrate its meaning. For example, in Chinese, the hanzi for horse and ant have the same pronunciation (and therefore the same character because of the logographic [sound] based nature of the language). However, by adding the character for insect as a determinative, the meaning becomes clear.

Later, according to the Hou Han Shu (The history of the Later Han) which was written in about 445 A.D., the Chinese emperor Guwangwu presented a seal and a ribbon to one of the Japanese rulers; an authentic-looking seal and ribbon has been found in Fukuoka prefecture in Kyūshū, establishing even more of a connection and link between the two nations. Therefore, it can be inferred that during this time period of 297 and 445 A.D. that at this point, Japan was introduced to Chinese characters. So when did Japan start using these characters?

The earliest known piece of character writing in Japan comes from the Inariyama (Tumulus) Sword found from a kofun (古墳), or key-shaped tomb, in the Saitama Prefecture. On the front and back of the blade are 115 Chinese characters, but the scholars Murayama Shichirō and Roy Andrew Miller discovered that while the inscription is written in Chinese, it uses Chinese characters as a way to represent Japanese sounds. This style of writing is called man'yōgana (万葉仮名).

The Inariyama Tumulus Sword

The sword itself either dates back to 471 or 531 A.D., establishing that “Japanese” written language had been established in either the late 5th century or in the early 6th century. This language still wasn’t truly Japanese, however; texts were written entirely in Chinese characters, rather than the amalgamation of kana and kanji that are in Japanese today. Instead, these texts were written entirely in what would be considered Old Japanese (Classical Chinese), or kanbun (漢文) - “Chinese literature.” This form of writing was similar to Chinese determinatives; Buddhist monks would annotate certain characters for either (Japanese) sound or meaning purposes.

While the Inariyama Tumulus sword is the earliest known evidence of Chinese characters in Japan, Chinese characters were extremely prevalent and plentiful in the form of mokkan (木簡) - wooden tablets, that were used in the mid 7th to 9th century.

Mokkan

Similar to the Inariyama Sword, these tablets had writing on both the front and back. It is speculated that the use of mokkan was adopted from China, though the mokkan in China differed in their use; they were strung together to form longer texts. In Japan, however, mokkan were for brief and/or informal communication, such as “punching in” for work or a record of what goods were being transferred from province to province. For example, mokkan records show that Prince Nagaya received seaweed from the Shima district in Shima province, rice from Kudara in Settsu, dried meat from Ōhara in Izumo, and cloth from the Ōki islands. These pieces of writing end up revealing a lot about the economic and legal developments of the time, spurring further historical research.

Around this point, Chinese characters in Japan began to have meanings in and of themselves, rather than just representing sounds. One of the commonly transported goods, the sweetfish (ayu), is a good demonstration of the way that Chinese characters were used to represent ideas or concepts in this fashion.

The Sweetfish

The lifespan of a sweetfish is one year, and so rather than writing characters that would match the sounds a-yu, a combination of the characters for year 年 and fish 魚 are used together to form 年魚 or “year fish” if translated literally. These characters used together then gained the pronunciation of ayu. So with certain characters gaining meaning beyond pronunciation purposes, Old Japanese began transitioning into “Middle Japanese.”

What is the difference between Old Japanese and Middle Japanese? Well, while Old Japanese was entirely composed of Chinese characters, Middle Japanese is a combination of Chinese characters and kana.

Middle Japanese

But that raises the question - how did kana emerge and come to be part of the language? While some Chinese characters were gaining semantic (word) meanings, some of these Chinese characters were still used for syllabic (sound) purposes. So there was some confusion, as sometimes the character sounds and their meanings were not identical. Within Japanese, there are also a lot of homonyms, and so while using Chinese characters with specific meaning did alleviate the problem, there were still some issues with reading the character as well as understanding the meaning within some cases. Sometimes the meaning of a character even depended on the reading. A modern example would be the characters 青 (ao - blue) and 山 (yama - mountain) which can be read as あおやま (aoyama) - a "lush mountain" or せいざん (seizan) - a metaphor for "where one dies."

And so, therefore, the written form of man’yōgana evolved, and kana was developed in two different forms: katakana was used as an abbreviation of Chinese characters that were used as sounds (ex. タ from 多), while hiragana was used for simplification for cursive-esque writing of vernacular Japanese (ex. あ from 安). This process likely began as early as 750 A.D at which point Japan was under samurai rule. Thus, katakana emerged as a way to stop using Chinese characters for sounds (letting them retain their ideogram purpose) while still maintaining a written form of syllables. However, kana was not developed by these warriors; it was developed by Buddhist monks who did not want to deal with the cumbersome process of writing Chinese characters and annotating what was and what wasn’t an idea or syllable; this was the process behind writing in the kanbun style. Therefore, katakana was used for glosses, notes, and commentaries to Buddhist scriptures, Chinese classics, and government documentation. Hiragana was instead used for everyday communication and vocabulary in contrast. Because of the different uses for these kana scripts, katakana was almost exclusively used by men, whereas women almost exclusively used hiragana (because of katakana’s affiliation with court documents and power). That is why an archaic word for hiragana is 女手 (onnade) or “woman hand(writing).”

Middle Japanese lasted up until the 1600s, at which point the country was reunified under the Tokugawa; the peace during the Edo (Tokugawa) period led to the development of “New Japanese.” New Japanese is actually very Early Modern Japanese, introducing the notable trait of only having 5 vowel syllables. Old Japanese style (written completely in syllabic form using Chinese characters) had 8 vowel syllables. However, from about 1900 onwards, Japanese intellectuals discussed and debated script reform, focusing on the amount of characters for general use and the shape of these characters. This demand for reform paralleled China's introduction of Simplified Chinese alongside Traditional Chinese. However, the change in Japanese writing occurred after World War II, in which one of the early focuses postwar was to reduce the number of characters in daily use. A list of 1,850 kanji was drawn up, becoming known as the Tōyō kanji (Interim Use Characters, abbreviated as TK List). If a kanji not from the list was used in say, a primary school textbook, the word would instead be written in kana. However, the TK list was not above criticism, and so in 1981 the Jōyō kanji (General Use Chinese Characters) List (JK list) was introduced. It contained the 1,850 Tōyō kanji as well as an additional 95 based on usefulness and prominence in everyday life. That's 1,945 kanji altogether. The Jōyō kanji list is what Japanese schoolchildren and Japanese language learners like myself learn today, forming the kanji basis for Modern Japanese.

In learning about the history of Japanese kanji, I feel that I have a better idea of the evolution of the language and of the nation as a whole. Japanese people from long ago used Chinese characters in a Japanese way, and so they sought it to make it their own - even developing kana as an abbreviated and cursive version of these specific characters. Furthermore, by learning about the Chinese language, I have a better understanding of why kanji such as 車 (kuruma) have a different pronunciation (sha) in certain circumstances, stemming from the period of time when Japan transitioned from Chinese to true Japanese. I think learning about this topic also gave me a better idea of the ancient historical relationship between China and Japan, at least to some extent.

In any case, hopefully one day I'll know those 1,945 Jōyō kanji by heart.

頑張りましょう！Ganbarimashou! (I'll do my best!)

[interim silence]

If you would like to learn more about the Japanese language and its development, I recommend the resources down below. Thank you so much for listening, and I hope you have a fantastic day.

[outro music]


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References

History and Present of the Japanese Language by Ryan Shultz from Ohio State University The Structure and History of Japanese by Lone Takeuchi (1999) The Inariyama Tumulus Sword Inscription by Murayama Shichirō and Roy Andrew Miller (1979) Mokkan. Wooden Documents from the Nara Period by Joan R. Piggott (1990) Beyond Calligraphy - Oracle Bone Script Art, Ancestors, and the Origin of Writing in China by David N. Keightley (1996) Chinese is NOT picture writing! - History of Writing Systems #5 (Determinatives) by NativLang

The 20th Century Japanese Writing System: Reform and Change by Christopher Seeley (1995)

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Music Used

Journey in the New World by Twin Musicom is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license.
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Brittle Rille - Reunited by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license.
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Japanese Folk Song Suite by ENG Jole is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License.
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Pokémon GO Walking (Map) Theme on shakuhachi (Japanese flute) - like it was a Buddhist honkyoku by kjell159 is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License.

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部首 [Radicals]

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An assignment that I’ve been doing for a few weeks now for my Japanese 401 class has been translating a manga from Japanese into English. It’s been challenging, but not necessarily too trying. However, occasionally I do run into kanji that I don’t know. Fortunately, the manga has provided me with furigana so that I can read it. But sometimes, the furigana given is not actually the typical reading, and so in order to understand the kanji, I have to look it up.

That then begins my process of having to look it up by radical, and I usually use jisho.org’s search by radical function and sort of finagle my way through the process to find the right character. Sometimes I’m unsuccessful and have to try my hand at drawing the character to find it. But that can be troublesome, since I do believe that the program factors in the proper stroke order, and while generally the stroke order for kanji is top-down, left-right, I’m not an expert and sometimes do make my lines in the wrong order. So the process can be vexing.

I was browsing through the blog Tofugu earlier, and I came across an article on the radicals of kanji. It was an overview of radicals - what they are, why they are important, where they are located in a kanji, and how to locate the main radical of the kanji. While Jisho.org does let me search using multiple radicals, kanji are typically listed under one radical in particular - the main one. And so learning how to locate the radical would be useful for my translation as well as learning in general. After all, sometimes the radicals do have particular meanings - 亻means or stands for “person”, and so combined with 動 which means "movement" or "move", the combination of the two 働 means “work.” And so learning radicals is incredibly helpful as a learning student - I can learn how to possibly read the kanji and failing that - I have an easier time looking up the kanji in question.

I still struggle with looking up radicals; I usually forget that radicals can be considered part of the whole character, such as 夾’s radical being 大. Not to mention...with there being 214 radicals, there’s a lot of possibilities as to which one is the right one.

But in any case, hopefully the 12-step process will get me even closer to knowing and learning kanji.

頑張りましょう！

漢字の書 [Kanji Styles]

Even after studying Japanese for almost six years, I don't usually remember that the way kanji are written is different depending on the medium. Obviously, there's a difference between using a calligraphy brush versus a pencil. But what about the difference between print versus written or the like?

For example, let's look at the kanji 今.

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When printed or seen on a screen, the character's third stroke (the line underneath the "legs") can be seen as having a slant or even facing straight up, similar to katakana ウ.

However, when handwritten, the character looks like this:

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The third stroke is now parallel the top part of the fourth stroke. It's an interesting contrast, but what's the reason behind it?

Well, the simple reason, as addressed on Nihongoresources, a website dedicated to Japanese learning, that kanji do in fact have different styles; the difference in styles can be compared to print vs. cursive English writing, or the variety of fonts for alphanumerical characters.

The most common of these styles is 楷書 (kaisho), which is used for novels, newspapers, webpages, etc. This style is actually split into two distinct versions (Minchou and Gothic), though they have different aesthetic properties.

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The top version is Minchou, whereas the bottom version is Gothic. In terms of appearance, I would compare Minchou to Times New Roman font, whereas Gothic has a more Arial look to it, because of its thicker lines that do not change in width. Not to mention, Minchou has more of a flourish that is akin to the serifs of serif fonts. In addition, Gothic is closer to physically writing in Japanese.

In my experience, non-Japanese learners don't even know that Japanese does have a cursive-esque scripts. They are known as 行書 (gyoushou) and 草書 (soushou). These styles minimize the amount of strokes (primarily how many times the writing instrument is lifted from the writing surface) and have a messy sort of look to them. It reminds me of doctors' handwriting, to be honest. These are the closest to true and authentic calligraphy, in any case.

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The top version is gyoushou and the bottom is soushou. Reading the kanji becomes much harder to read, especially in soushou since the strokes are thinner and messier. At times, they don't even resemble the original character (look at 山 in the bottom row). 

Lastly, while few Japanese-learners may actually utilize or see them in person, there are also the "traditional" styles that are known as the "block" style and "seal" style. The block style (which is sometimes called the square style) is known as 隷書 (reisho), and the seal style is 篆書 (tensho). Reisho stems from Japanese woodblock and carving, but it still remains in use today for its traditional sign usage. Similarly, tensho are used for the traditional purpose of name stamps; you don't sign your name in Japanese, you can just put your name stamp on it. These name stamps are also seen on calligraphy and ink paintings, usually in one of the orders or on the side of the art piece.

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I really do like the aesthetic of reisho as seen above, whereas the tensho below comes across as too exaggerated (and honestly it seems too block-like, which is ironic given that reisho is the block style). 

In any case, the reason that I wanted to discuss the different styles of Japanese is because quite a bit of the time I do try imitating kaisho, or that I see the differences between a word written in kanji or typed out. And the reason behind it is that they are different. It's still the same character, but it's just written differently. And sometimes it's hard to see these perfectly printed characters and be dissatisfied with my own handwriting in Japanese. 

So my message is a simple one today: don't worry if what you see is different than what you write. Your kanji are still valid. And with practice, they may even look like they were printed.

頑張りましょう！

日本語の漢字とかなの歴史 [The History of Japanese's Kanji and Kana]

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I think that an overlooked aspect of learning a language is learning the history behind the language. For example, if you’re learning a romance language, examine how the Latin language disseminated throughout different parts of Europe and became languages like Portuguese, French, and Spanish.

And so I find myself grateful for having learned the history of the Japanese language when I was studying abroad in Japan at Kansai Gaidai University. The class I was in was an elective - Ancient to Medieval Japanese history. I always liked history and I knew a fair bit about the Sengoku era, otherwise known as the Warring States Period. That's when samurai were present.

In any case, I remember that according to the lectures, ancient Japan was first populated by people originating from China and Korea. Not a big surprise, given their proximity. In any case, Chinese characters, known as hanzi in Chinese, became the writing system of Japan. In Japanese, they’re known as “kanji” or literally “Chinese characters.” And so ancient Japanese texts like the Nihon Shoki were written in Chinese.

But eventually at one point in time, Japan wanted to create an easier writing system - kanji was difficult because of the pronunciation aspect. And so what they did was take parts of kanji - which we would call radicals - and create kana out of them. That’s where hiragana and katakana come from. And so that’s basically how the three Japanese scripts emerged.

頑張ってる（がんばってる）[Working Hard]

Well, I managed to get my whiteboard cleaned up so I could practice writing with that instead. It's a lot more convenient, since using whiteboard markers is closer to using calligraphy brushes. It's just smoother and your strokes will be closer to the way they're handwritten. And I do know this firsthand, since in my high school we would write haikus and actually use a Japanese calligraphy set similar to the one depicted below:

It was always an interesting experience since you want your brush thick with ink, but not too thick, because the strokes will be too bad and it'll blur into a big blob, and you can't tell what you're reading or even writing. 

In any case, the kanji I'm writing in the video is 笑, which is typically pronounced "wara." In any case, its meaning is laughter, The mnemonic that Kanji Look & Learn provides for remembering this one actually makes sense, in my opinion: a person （人）[hito] laughs （ケケ）[keke]. However, I will say that it still may not be the best, since the typical onomatopoeia for laughter in Japanese is actually "fufu" as opposed to "keke" or the English "haha." However, something of note is that 笑, when used online, is basically the Japanese version of such acronyms like "lol," (laughing out loud) "rofl" (rolling on floor laughing) and "lmao" (laughing my ass off). That isn't to say that they don't have their own acronyms - I know that a string of w's (ex. wwwwwwww) is also a shorthand for 笑 because "warau" and "warai" (verbs for laughing) begin with English w. I think there may be more emphasis in "wwww" as opposed to "笑," as well, but I'm not quite sure.  It may even just involve different levels of formality. 

But anyhow, I'm going to continue making progress in my kanji studies. And I guess technically I've learned or at least thought about cultural aspects as well. 

頑張りましょう！

復習（ふくしゅう）パート２「Review Part 2]

As I said, I practiced writing the kanji that I learned (and forgot about) when I was abroad in Japan. 

And so I practiced writing on the notebook that is sandwiched between the two books. You might have noticed that I have a whiteboard in the top right corner with some writing on it. The marker on it dried out and so now it's (unfortunately) stuck like that until I can get some cleaning solution to wipe it clean so that I don't have to waste ink or pencil lead for practice. Though I guess I could always visit the DWOC area and practice on the whiteboard tables. 

In any case, the book that is spread open on the desk is the Kanji Look & Learn book that I mentioned in my last post. It's a fairly good textbook in that it shows the kanji and displays a visual mnemonic on how to write these kanji. 

For example, it suggests for the kanji  験 (which on its own is not a word but has a meaning akin to "examine") you memorize writing it as "Before climbing up a mountain, a person (人) examines the horse (馬)." The reason for this is because kanji are composed of smaller parts which are called radicals. And so in this instance, the radicals for 験 are 馬 and 人. But these mnemonics can be very nonsensical in nature...

"The man in the center is the hero (excellent person) born from the grassroots movement." It makes a bit of sense examining the kanji, since the top bit does represent grass, but...it's just very silly. So I find that some of these visuals and aids are hit-or-miss. In any case, the textbook, as you can see is pretty well designed in that it shows the character, shows meaning, shows different word combinations that use it, and shows the stroke order and radicals at the bottom. However, I will say that the stroke order does not show in which direction you are supposed to write. While the general rule in Japanese is left-to-right and up-to-down, there are some rule breakers and so that is a weakness I have to remedy with my Kanji and Kana book, which uses arrows to point in the right direction. It also provides more complicated words, though currently I'm not expanding my vocabulary. Though I suppose I should, since Tofugu, a Japanese blog, suggests that intertwining different aspects of Japanese helps you to learn and understand it better. So maybe I'll pursue that. 

In any case, I'm just going to continue giving it my all. 

頑張りましょう！

復習（ふくしゅう）[Review]

今日、私は習った感じを復習しました。
きょう、わたしはならったかんじをふくしゅうしました。
Today, I reviewed kanji I had already learned.

日本に留学するの時、漢字３クラスを取りました。クラスで、「Kanji Look & Learn」という教科書を使いました。
にほんにりゅがくするのとき、かんじ３クラスをとりました。クラスで、「Kanji Look & Learn」というきょうかしょをつかいました。
When I was studying abroad in Japan, I took a Kanji Level 3 class. In that class, we used a textbook called "Kanji Look & Learn."

チャプタ１２からチャプタ２０まで勉強しました。
チャプタ１２からちゃぷた２０までべんきょうしました。
We studied chapters 12 through 20.

それから、「クイズレット」のフラッシュカードを使って復習しました。
それから、「クイズレット」のフラッシュカードをつかってふくしゅうしました。
So, I used Quizlet flash cards and reviewed. 

私のメモリーが下手です。
わたしのメモリーがへたです。
My memory is bad.

I specifically focused on the pronunciation of the kanji and the meaning of the word or phrase. I would look at the word using the kanji (ex. 冷ます -> さます [samasu]) and I would first try to remember the pronunciation. After that, I would then try to remember the meaning/guess, and I would check that using my favorite website, jisho.org. And as I stated, my memory for kanji is pretty bad; I haven't used kanji heavily since I was in Japan a year ago (Jan. 20, 2016 was when I first landed in Japan, actually!).

For my next session, I'll probably practice writing using a video showing that process.

I know that writing is my weaker side when it comes to kanji, but I'd rather make sure I know I'm using the right kanji before I misuse it and make a sentence bizarre. It can grammatically make sense, but it can still remain entirely nonsensical, such as saying "I store my food in the grandma." That sort of silliness.

In any case, practice makes perfect!

頑張りましょう！
がんばりましょう！
I'll do my best!