KANJI
Kanji (; Japanese: 漢字, pronounced [kaɲ.dʑi] , 'Han characters') are logographic Chinese characters, historically adapted from Chinese writing scripts, used in writing of Japanese. They comprised a major part of the Japanese writing system during the time of Old Japanese and are still used today, along with the subsequently derived syllabic (phonographic) scripts of hiragana and katakana. Most Kanji characters have two pronunciations: kun'yomi, based on the sounds of vernacular Japanese, where the Kanji is often phonetically transcribed with furigana; and on'yomi, based on the imitation of the original Middle Chinese sound when it was borrowed from written Chinese. Some Kanji characters were indigenously invented in Japan by constructing character components derived from other Chinese characters.
After the Meiji Restoration, Japan made its own efforts to simplify the Kanji characters, now known as shinjitai (新字体; 'new character form'), by a process similar to China's simplification efforts, with the intention to increase literacy among the general public. Since the 1920s, the Japanese government has published character lists periodically to help direct the education of its citizenry through the myriad Chinese characters that exist. There are nearly 3,000 kanji used in Japanese names and in common communication.
The term kanji is a direct borrowing and phonetic reading (on'yomi) of the Chinese word hanzi (traditional Chinese: 漢字; simplified Chinese: 汉字; pinyin: hànzì), which is one of the formal terms used when referring to Chinese characters. The significant use of Chinese characters in Japan first began to take hold around the 5th century CE and has since had a profound influence in shaping Japanese culture, language, literature, history, and records. Inkstone artifacts at archaeological sites dating back to the earlier Yayoi period were also found to contain Chinese characters.
Although some characters, as used in Japanese and Chinese, have similar meanings and pronunciations, others have meanings or pronunciations that are unique to one language or the other. For example, 誠 means 'honest' in both languages but is pronounced makoto or sei in Japanese, and chéng in Standard Mandarin Chinese. Individual kanji characters and multi-kanji words invented in Japan from Chinese morphemes have been borrowed into Chinese, Korean, and Vietnamese in recent times. These are known as Wasei-kango, or Japanese-made Chinese words. For example, the word for telephone, 電話 denwa in Japanese, was derived from the Chinese words for "electric" and "conversation." It was then calqued as diànhuà in Mandarin Chinese, điện thoại in Vietnamese and 전화 jeonhwa in Korean.
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