Logged out
Access All our Essays in an Instant
Swap your work for FREE access, or pay £4.99 for instant access
The History of Kanji
Member rating: No Rating | Words: | Submitted: Mon Jun 06 2005
Page Preview
On the left is an image preview of every page of this document, and below are the first 150 words with formatting removed:
The History of Kanji The Japanese language is made up of four main scriptures, kanji, hiragana, katakana and romaji. Kanji was imported over the centuries from China. The pictograms are typically much more complex than kana, hiragana and katakana, and, furthermore, have different readings and meanings depending on how they are combined with other kanji. They represent words or ideas rather than syllables, although kana could be used to spell out the pronunciation. It is not uncommon to see a kanji with it's reading spelt out in very small kana, written just above it. Kana used in this way, to indicate how to pronounce a kanji, are known as 'furigana'. The same kanji can be read in different ways. For example, the kanji, 'sei', can be read as 'sei' when in 'sensei', teacher, or as 'u' when in 'umareta', I was born, or 'nama' in 'nama biiru', draught...
To see the full version of this document, and 145,328 others
