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About Kanji
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Kanji are the Chinese characters that are used in the modern Japanese logographic writing system along with hiragana and katakana and the Arabic numerals. The Japanese term kanji literally means "Han characters".
History of Kanji
Chinese characters came to Japan from China with Kanji articles on which they are written. Their early instances include a gold seal discovered in 1748, which was identified as the one given by the emperor of the Eastern Han Dynasty in 57 AD. It is not clear when Japanese people started to command Classical Chinese by themselves. At first documents were probably written by Chinese immigrants. For example, the diplomatic correspondence from King Bu of Wa to Emperor Shun of the Song Dynasty 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.
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From the 6th century onwards, Chinese documents written in Japan tended to show interference from Japanese. This suggests the wide acceptance of Chinese characters in Japan.
When first introduced, texts were written in the Chinese language and would have been read as such. Over time, however, a system known as kanbun (漢文) emerged, essentially using Chinese text with diacritical marks to allow Japanese speakers to read the characters in accordance with the rules of Japanese grammar.
The Japanese language itself had no written form at the time. A writing system called man'yōgana (used in the ancient poetry anthology Man'yōshū) evolved that used a limited set of Chinese characters for their sound, rather than for their meaning.
The characters for Kanji, lit. "Han characters".
The characters for Kanji, lit. "Han characters".
Man'yōgana written in cursive style became hiragana, 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. Katakana emerged via a parallel path: 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 (okurigana), particles, native Japanese words, and words where the kanji is too difficult to read or remember. Katakana is used for representing onomatopoeia and non-Japanese loanwords.
Types of Kanji: by Category
Shōkei-moji (象形文字)
These characters are sketches of the object they represent. For example, 目 is an eye, 木 is a tree, etc. The current forms of the characters are very different from the original, and it is now hard to see the origin in many of these characters. It is somewhat easier to see in seal script. This kind of character is often called a "pictograph" in English (Shōkei -- 象形 is also the Japanese word for Egyptian hieroglyphs). These make up a small fraction of modern characters.
Shiji-moji (指事文字)
Shiji-moji are called "logograms", "simple ideographs", "simple indicatives", and sometimes just "symbols" in English. They are usually graphically simple and represent an abstract concept such as a direction: e.g. 上 representing "up" or "above" and 下 representing "down" or "below". These make up a tiny fraction of modern characters.
[Kaii-moji (会意文字)
Often called "compound indicatives", "associative compounds", "compound ideographs", or just "ideographs". These are usually a combination of pictographs that combine to present an overall meaning. An example is the kokuji 峠 (mountain pass) made from 山 (mountain), 上 (up) and 下 (down). Another is 休 (rest) from 人 (person) and 木 (tree). These make up a tiny fraction of modern characters.
Keisei-moji (形声文字)
These are called "phono-semantic", "semantic-phonetic", "semasio-phonetic" or "phonetic-ideographic" characters in English. They are by far the largest category, making up about 90% of characters. Typically they are made up of two components, one of which indicates the meaning or semantic context, and the other the pronunciation. (The pronunciation really relates to the original Chinese, and may now only be distantly detectable in the modern Japanese on'yomi of the kanji. 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.)
As examples of this, consider the kanji with the 言 shape: 語, 記, 訳, 説, etc. All are related to word/language/meaning. Similarly kanji with the 雨 (rain) shape (雲, 電, 雷, 雪, 霜, etc.) are almost invariably related to weather. Kanji with the 寺 (temple) shape on the right (詩, 持, 時, 侍, etc.) usually have an on'yomi of "shi" or "ji". Sometimes one can guess the meaning and/or reading simply from the components. However, exceptions do exist -- for example, neither 需 nor 霊 have anything to do with weather (at least in their modern usage), and 待 has an on'yomi of "tai". That is, a component may play a semantic role in one compound, but a phonetic role in another.
Tenchū-moji (転注文字)
This group have variously been called "derivative characters", or "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'.
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Kasha-moji (仮借文字)
These are called "phonetic loan characters." 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.
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