A GUIDE TO REMEMBERING JAPANESE CHARACTERS by Kenneth G. Henshall ey TUTTLE PUBLISHING ‘Tokyo * Rutland, Vermont * SingaporePublished by Turtle Publishing, an imprint of Periplus Editions (HK) Ltd., with editorial offices at 36¢ Innovation Drive, North Clarendon, Vermont 05759 U.S.A, and 61 Tai Seng Avenue #02-12, Singapore 534167. ‘© 1998 by Charles E. Tuttle Publishing Company, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or utilized in any form for by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior written permission from the publisher. LOC Card No, 88050325 ISBN 978-0.8048-2038-7 First edition, 1988 Diseibuted by: Japan Tuttle Publishing ‘Yaekari Building, 3x Floor S412 Osaki Shinagawa-ku Tokyo 141-0032 “Tek (B1) 3 5437-0171 Fax: (81) 3 5437-0755 rurte-sales@polcom North America, Latin. America & Europe Tuttle Publishing 364 Innovation Drive North Clarendon, VT 05759-9436 U.S.A. ‘Tek 1 (802) 773-8930 Fax: 1 (802) 773-6993, info@ euttlepublishing.com vwwwtuttlepublishing.com Asia Pacific Berkeley Books Pte. Ltd. 61 Tai Seng Avenue, #02-12 Singapore 334167 “Tek: (65) 6280-1330 Fax: (65) 6280-6290 inguirios@periplus.com.sg worw:periplus.com 4100908 22212019 Printed in Singapore TUTTLE PUBLISHINGG ia registered trademark of Tuttle Publishing, division of Perils Editions (HK) LedCONTENTS Acknowledgements Preface Introduction The History of Kanji Types of Kanji The Structure of Kanji General Principles of Stroke Order Explanatory Notes Finst-Grape CHARACTERS SzcoND-GraDE CHARACTERS Tuiep-Grave CHaracters Fourti-Grape CHARACTERS Firri-Grape CHaracrers Sncr-Grape CHARACTERS GeNERAL-Use CHaRacters Appendices and Indices Elements Appendix Kana Appendix Non-General-Use Character Index Stroke Count Index Readings Index 127 189 254 316 623 624 627 631 636 646ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Lam greatly indebted to Tomoko Aoyama, of the Japanese Studies Unit of the University of Western Australia, for the calligraphy in this book. 1am also greatly indebted to Professor Jim Everett, of the Department of Management, University of Western Australia, for his in- valuable technical guidance in the computer-assisted preparation of camera-ready copy. In addition, my thanks are due to the Charles E. Tuttle Company for their guidance and sup- port, and to my wife Carole for her many hours of proofreading. Inthe research for this book I have been especially guided by the work of three of Japan's ‘most highly regarded scholars inthe field of kanji etymology, namely Tsunekata Kato, Kat- sui Yamada, and Hideyuki Shindo. Those readers wishing to pursue further study of kanji are recommended to consult in particular their joint work Jigen Jiten (Etymological Dictionary of Kanji, Kadokawa, Tokyo, 2nd edition 1985), together with Katsumi Yama- e's Kanji no Gagen (The Etymology of Kanji, Kadokawa, Tokyo, 1976). ‘With regard to stroke count, and in some cases arrangement of characters within a given grade, Ihave been guided by the reference work Kanji Kakijun Sten (Dictionary of Kanji ‘Stroke Order, edited by Hiroshi Fujiwara, Daiichi Hoki Publishing, Tokyo, revised edition 1982).Bricish spelling has been retained throughout.PREFACE ‘The main aim of this book is to help students of the Japanese language overcome the obsta- cle presented by characters -- or kanji, to use the Japanese term. Without a sound knowl- ‘edge of kanji itis impossible to acquire a proper command of the language, and yet so ‘many students seem to spend years gaining merely a vague knowledge of no more than a few hundred of the two thousand kanji in general use. For every one student who feels, confident in reading and writing kanji, there are dozens who seem daunted and full of de~ spair. For students accustomed to Wester writing systems kanji can indeed be a daunting propo- sition. Mastering the twenty-six simple symbols in the English alphabet, even allowing for difficulties with their pronunciation, seems like child's play compared with tackling two thousand kanji of up to twenty or so strokes. It should be realised that there is no magic way to set about this task. Even Japanese nationals themselves often have problems learn- ing and remembering kanji, despite the great advantage of constant exposure. There are, however, ways to make the task @ lot easier. believe that for Western students the key to successful study of kanji lies notin rote leam- ing, as favored by the Japanese themselves, but in breaking down the barrier of unfamiliar: ty. Once one can appreciate how a characteris made up, how it acquired its shape and how ‘and why it came into existence, then one is a long way towards achieving this end. Some- thing that is understood and therefore familiar is far less daunting than something un- known, and far more easily remembered. A character that once seemed merely a lifeless and anonymous jumble of lines and dots becomes a ‘character’ in a different sense; that is, with a distinctive personality of its own. Once a characteris essentially understood, the proper use of mnemonics (memory aids) is a Useful adjunct, though for the serious scholar it can be misleading to rely on mnemonics alone. That is, there is no harm in a student remembering the character used for 'east (see # 184) by conveniently interpreting its clements as the sun rising behind a tree, provided the student also remembers that that is not the real meaning. Misunderstanding the origin of a ‘character or element can in some cases lead to serious misconceptions regarding its conno- tations, its role in compounds, and its role as a window on the society of the day. In this book I have explained the origin and subsequent evolution of each of the characterspreface in general use, and where relevant have given the ancient forms. ‘There are a few cases where the exact origin is obscure, and here, after clearly stating that the character is ob- scure, I have given the most authoritative theories and occasionally some thoughts of my own. I have also made frequent reference to Chinese character usage, since the kanji are ~- with a handfal of exceptions ~ Chinese in origin (see Introduction). ‘The elements forming ‘each character are analysed and explained in detail, with cross-referencing to indicate where ‘a recurring element is first introduced. Where relevant I have also added socio-historical ‘comment to clarify the meaning and role of a character. Each character's usage is illustrated by three compound terms, alongside its modern readings and meanings. At the end of each explanation I have given a suggested mnemonic using the key elements in that character. Where possible I have tried in the mnemonic to use the elements in exactly the same way that they are used in the character itself, but since so many characters have changed theit original meaning due to borrowing and/or miscopying this is usually not feasible. ‘The sug- gested mnemonics are ones which I personally have found useful, but each reader may pre~ fer to make up their own, ‘The characters are listed systematically in the order determined by the Japanese Ministry of, Education (sce Introduction). ‘That is, the first 996 kanji, the so-called Educational Kanji which are prescribed for the six grades of elementary school, are set out in their respective ‘grades (76 for Grade One, 145 for Grade Two, etc. et.) followed by the remaining 949, ‘Since these gradings approximately correspond to frequency of usage, the reader who ‘wishes to lear only a few hundred kanji will be able to concentrate on the early grades con- fident in the knowledge that these will contain the most useful characters. In the course of explaining the kanji in general use it has often been necessary to refer 10 characters outside the general use category, as well as to characters found in Chinese but 10 all intents and purposes no longer used in Japanese, For the reader's convenience I have listed these in an index under stroke count, The general use kanji are listed in both a stroke. ‘count index and a readings index. 1 have also added an appendix of the key elements found in kanji, and for the reader's interest an appendix showing the characters from which the two kana syllabaries have evolved. In the Introduction I have briefly outlined the history, structure, and types of kanji, together with a guide to general principles of stroke order. Following the Introduction there are Explanatory Notes which clarify the conventions and terms used in the text. The reader should consult both the Introduction and the Explanatory ‘Notes before proceeding to the main text. Itis my hope and belief thatthe book will be of vatue not only to students tackling the entire ‘corpus of the Japanese language, but also to those with more moderate aims, such as sec-Preface ‘ondary students with a target of just two or three hundred kanji and private individuals ‘wishing for an introduction to the Japanese writing system. In all cases, I will be happy if the book goes some way towards removing the mystique surrounding kanji K.G. Henshall, Perth, Australia, February 1988 xiINTRODUCTION ‘The History of Kanji ‘The characters from which kanji are ultimately derived originated between 2000 - 1500 B.C. in the Yellow River region of China, About 3000 characters have been discovered from this early petiod, mostly inscribed on bones and tortoise shells and often connected with divination. At the outset they were mostly simple pictographs, but with the passage of ‘time became increasingly complex and abstract. Pictographs were combined to form ideo- ‘graphs, symbolic characters were also devised, and, as standardisation of form started to prevail, certain characters also acquired a more or less fixed phonetic role (see Types of Kanji below). A considerable degree of standardisation is evident in highly stylised charac- ters from the third century B.C., while the square style forming the real prototype of to- day's characters (known in Japanese as kaisho #% ) was established by about 200 A.D. By this stage the number of characters had grown to approximately 50,000, Characters were first brought to Japan around the third or fourth century A.D. by migrating Chinese and Koreans, and became established during the following four centuries. (The ‘word kanji ;%% means literally ‘symbols from Han China, the Han Period extending from 206 B.C. to 220 A.D.) At that stage the Japanese language existed only in spoken form, and Chinese characters were borrowed to enable it to be expressed in writing. For exam- Ple, the Chinese character for mother, #., pronounced BO (for the sake of illustration: its actual pronunciation at the time was different) was used to express the spoken Japanese ‘word for mother, pronounced haha. Its own Chinese pronunciation also entered the Japa- nese language, and was generally favored in compounds. Thus many compounds using take its Chinese reading of BO, such as BOSEI +E (motherhood) and BOKOKUG EAL (mother country), The Chinese reading is known as the on reading and the Japanese read- ing the kun reading. KOKU (@] of BOKOKU above is, as a further example, the on read- ing of the character for country, which has a kun reading of kuni, (Note that the convention "usually followed is to romanise on readings in upper case and kun readings in lower case.) As seen from the above examples, the adoption of the Chinese script presented no particular problems with simple lexical items and indeed contributed to the enrichment of the Japanese language, leading to the formation of many new terms (especially compounds) and in some ‘cases new concepts and modes of expression. Its role has often been likened to that of Lat- xiiiintroduction in in the case of English, However, as a result of fundamental differences between the ‘monosyllabic Chinese language and the polysyllabic, highly inflected Japanese language, the Chinese writing system proved decidedly unsuitable inthe case of inflected items such as verbs. In practice a principal character was used for its meaning to represent the stem of 4 Japanese verb of similar meaning, while other characters were used for their sound to rep- resent the variable ending ofthe ver. The potential for confusion was obviously considera- be, even more so in view of the fact that a whole range of characters could be used to ex- press a given sound, and it became necessary 10 use various methods to distinguish be- tween the semantic characters and the phonetic characters. At one stage, for example, the later were written smaller and/or to one side (script being vertical). Eventually, by about the ninth century, standardised characters used as phonetics were simplified into syllabaries ‘known as kana ((fif : literally ‘assumed names). There are two such syllabaries:hiraga- na, which generally derives from highly stylised cursive forms of full characters, and kata- kana, which generally uses just one part of a character (see Kana Appendix). Katakana symbols are now used primarily for expressing words borrowed from English or other Western languages, and hiragana used for inflections. For example, the Japanese verb ‘meaning to go, iku, uses the Chinese character with that meaning, 47 (see # 118), to ex- press its unchangeable stem i-.-ka is then expressed by means of hiragana, giving #4 - ‘Not go, ikanai, is written with the kana symbols for ka, na, and i, giving #0%G.-. ‘Thus i- is the principal kun reading of FF, while its on readings ~- usually KO or GYO ~ are gen- erally used in compounds, e.g. ry0k8 #7 meaning travel. Over the ensuing centuries the characters brought into Japan evolved in their own particular way, acquiring nuances and connotations not necessarily found in Chinese, and in most ceases undergoing phonetic modification. Many characters were borrowed for their sound to cexpress entirely different meanings, and in not a few cases miscopying also led to the ac- Guisition of new meanings. Periods of renewed contact with China, such as around the ninth and thirteenth centuries, also tended to bring newly evolved Chinese readings and ‘meanings, and thus the potential range of meanings and readings for any one character be- came quite considerable. The typical kanji now has two or three on readings and two or three kun readings, while some of the commoner kanji, such as life 4 42 and below F 7, can have as many as ten fundamentally different readings. Not all readings are in com- ‘mon use, however. In a handful of cases new characters were created in Japan using Chi- nese elements, such as dry field 8 369 and frame #1 1943, and some of these have since been borrowed for use in Chinese (such as work (#9 $58). These ‘made in Japan’ charac- ters usually -- but not necessarily ~ have kun readings only. Shortly after the end of World War Two the Japanese Ministry of Education attempted to xivintroduction rationalise the characters used in Japan by designating 1850 of them as the Téy6 Kanji 4¥ ‘APliterally ‘Temporary Use Kanji’), which were felt to represent the commonest and most important of the kanji, Of these 1850, 881 were designated as KySiku Kanji $$ 47 (Educational Kanji), these being seen as particularly important and forming the basic re- quirement for the six years of elementary education. Accordingly the Kyéiku Kanji were divided into six grades to correspond to the elementary grades, with the grading also ap- proximately corresponding to frequency of usage and/or degree of importance (though cer- tain anomalies do appear to exist, such as in the omission of the characters for differ iS 1006 and sharp/ bitter 3 1432). Readings were also prescribed, including the point in the syllabus at which a particular reading should be taught. ‘Theoretically no characters outside the Téy6 Kanji were supposed to be used except in ‘proper nouns (for which there were an additional 92 approved characters in the case of per- sonal names) and special circumstances such as the writing of literature, However, in prac- tice these limitations were not infrequently ignored, and persons or companies involved in ‘work related to printing and publishing sometimes appear to have followed their own ‘uidelines. In this regard it might be of interest to the reader to note that a Japanese type- ‘writer produced by a well known manufacturer as late as 1979 has, while containing sever- al thousand characters, omitted no fewer than 35 of the Toy Kanji from its standard range (@ fact which has caused considerable inconvenience in the preparation of the manuscript for this book!). The same typewriter also uses a number of old and variant forms, which is similarly not in keeping with the guidelines for the Téy6 Kanji 1n 1981 a revision of the T6y6 Kanji took place, resulting inthe establishment ofthe 16y6 Kanjitfifg(which can be interpreted either as ‘General Use Kanji or Permanent Use Kanji comprise 1945 characters, of which 996 are designated as Kyéiku Kanji (the six grades containing 76, 145, 195, 195, 195, and 190 kanji respectively). However, the reader should sill be prepared to encounter occasional characters outside the prescribed range. Kanj ‘Since as carly as the second century A.D., when the first Chinese dictionary was produced, characters have traditionally been classified into six categories. However, in many cases the categorisation is open to difference of opinion, and similarly in many cases one charac ter can legitimately belong to more than one category. Moreover, the categories are of {questionable validity as classifications since they are based upon different criteria, the first xvintroduction four relating to character composition while the other two relate to character usage, In prac- tice these traditional categories are unimportant to all but the specialist scholar, and may even be misleading. They are listed below for the reader's convenience, and do shed con- siderable light on the nature of kanji, but atthe same time the reader should treat the the cat- ‘egories per se as no more than rough guides. 1, The Pictograph (B#£F Shokei Moji). Essentially a picture of a physical objec, and usually quite simple. For example, wee 4, 69 (from %K ), oreye B72 (from @) ). Some of these have become highly stylised and to all intents and purposes unrecognisable as pictographs, such as horse JH 191 Grom xff) or woman -{¢ 35 (rom 2). Some hhave also been turned on their axis, such as moon 4 16 (from “D ). 2. The Sign or Symbol (4X. Shiji Moji). Essentially a symbol expressing an ab- stract concept, and usually quite simple. For example, above 37 (from = ) or rota- tional motion @] 86 (from (@). There is some confusion as to whether certain charac- ters are symbols or pictographs, with considerable evidence of miscategorisation. For ex- ample, one — 1 is treated by many seholas asa symbol, but in fact it seems more appro- priate to treat it asa pictograph, since it originally depicted a single finger. 3. The Ideograph ( 8% Kaii Moji). Essentially a meaningful combination of two or more pictographs or symbols, and usually quite simple. For example, mountain pass def 1663, combining up © 37,down F 7,and mountain da 24, See servant (3% 1820 for an unusually complex example, made more so by a high degree of stylisation. In many ‘cases the ideograph category has a considerable overlap with the semasio-phonetic category (see 4 below). 4, The Phonetic-Ideograph or Semasio-Phonetic (#P£3- Keisei Moji). ‘The larg- est of the categories, theoretically containing about 85% of all the characters, but atthe same time a rather confused one. Essentially a combination ofa semantic element with a phonetic element, the former usually indicating the genera nature of the item to be repre- sented and the later usually giving more specific information by lending its sound 10 ex- press the pronunciation ofa descriptive word (which word typically has a character ofits ‘own too complex to be used easly in combination). For example, pour #2. 344 has ase- mantic element water 7 40, and a phonetic element $. 299 which expresses the sound of a word meaning continuous (specifically continue #€; 536, both 536 and 299 having the same pronunciation atthe time). Thus continuous (flow of) water a reference o pour- ing. Since it could also be said that atthe same time necessarily acts phonetically to ex- press the word pour itself, there i clesly an etymological link between pour and continui-introduction ty, and thus an analysis of semasio-phonetic characters sheds considerable light on the ety ‘mology of words and not just characters cf, similar etymological phonetic links in English between birch, beech, bark, book etc.) ‘The element used asa phonetic was usally chosen fom a range of similarly pronounced characters onthe basi of it also lending relevant semantic connotation of is own, Inthe case ofthe example above itis almost certain that was chosen a the phoned because its original meaning was long stemmed lamp, this suggesting connotations of column and hence column of wate, thereby reinforcing the ida of continuous flow of water. This itis also possible to consider such semusio-phonetcs as eographs, and whether they are ex, ‘tegorised as ideographs or semasio-phonetics then becomes a matter of degree, ive. depend- ing on wheter the semantic roles fl to outweigh the phonetic or vice-versa. Inthe ese of pour :E itiscear that the sound is the more important and thus iti classified a8 as masio-phonetc, but elasfication snot alvays so easy. The mater is made more complex since even inthe cae of seemingly obvious ideographs one ofthe elements also lend its sound, and could therefore be sad to be a phonetic element expressing its own meaning through is own sound. For example blind 1852 combines die 973 and eye BB 72, and is teated inthis book as an ideograph meaning dead eyes. However, sme schol ‘ars make out a case that itis technically a semasio-phonetic, with acting phonetically to express die and thus giving the same result of dead eyes. This treatment of seemingly obvious ideographs as semasio-phonetics may seem unneces- sarily complex, and in this book has been avoided where at all possible. However, the problem in attempting to attribute a semantic role to a phonetic element is that the present- day scholar is frequently reduced to speculation, since most of the principal ancient sources used in etymological research (such asthe writings of the tenth century scholar Jokai #86) ‘generally tend to state the phonetic role of an element but do not necessarily refer to any se- ‘mantic role, The reason for tis is not clear, since some of the characters treated as sem sio-phonetics in Jokai’s writings are treated as ideographs in sil earlier writings. As a re- sultof this relative wealth of information regarding phonetic roles the present-day scholar ‘can be sure that, despite enormously convoluted changes in pronunciation over the centu- ries (for example en changing by degrees to soku and shi changing to ten), ata given in time a particular element had a particular reading and served a particular phonetic role. With regard to semantic role, however, from today's perspective it is not at all easy to ‘know with certainty what particular meaning an element had at a given point in time two thousand or more years ago (such as for instance at what precise point in time long stemmed lamp + in the example above ceased to mean long stemmed lamp and came to ‘mean master), Thus in most cases comments regarding semantic roles must be expressed xviiintroduction with varying degrees of tentativeness and qualification, Some of the simpler elements do appeur to have been used putly as phonetics in some cas- s,such as £113 in nape of neck 5, 1262 (expressing reafback, in place of (#111), bat n general one must reasonably assume that any element with more than afew stokes was chosen for its connotations as well ait sound, I this were not the case, one would surely sce @ more or less fixed patter in which a given sound was expressed by the same (simple) element. One can however only ever say more or less fixed, since there ise dence to suggest that in some cases complex characters were chosen asa phonetic despite their complexity, oF even because oft, in order o display erudition and/or wo lend a degree of visual substance or elegance toa character. (See also borrowings in Category 5 below.) ‘A further type of semasio-phonetic which is treated by some scholars as a distinct category is the onomatopoeic character. For example, in the case of mosquito #1056 the element ‘X 68 is used purely for its sound BUN, combining with insect 56 to give ‘insect that makes a BUN sound’. There are only a few of these onomatopoeic characters, however, 5. Characters of borrowed meaning and pronunciation (#6£LF Tenchi Moji). ‘A rather vague category which has never been properly defined, but essentially kanji whose ‘meanings and/or pronunciations have changed as a result of borrowing. Some scholars take the category to include extended and associated meanings, while others restrict it simply to ure borrowings. Since the majority of characters have undergone some change of mean- ing, now often displaying extended or associated meanings in addition to or in place of their original meanings (such as a sword meaning by association to cut -- see 181), and since a very large number have also experienced a change of pronunciation, any category based upon such changes is now in effect pointless, though it may have had some relevance in the second century. ‘The confusing vagueness ofthe category i perhaps typified by the fact that it is tratonal- Jy illustrated by the character for music and enjoyment 4 218, which is popularly said to have picographicaly depicted drum and then to have aequted its presen reaings by a sociation and/or borrowing. This is a very poor example since in fact the characteris not a pictograph a ll, but essentially an ideograph which originally meant oak tee, and it is not really clear how it came by its present meanings. Nevertheless, it still serves as an example of how a character ean acquire new meanings and pronunciations, though not forthe rea- sons popularly cited. A betterexample is 2 491, which originally meant divination but has now also acquired a major meaning of occupy asa result of its being used instead of a similarly pronounced but more complex character of that meaning (in very similar fashion xviii