18 CHAPTER 1. THE SYNTAX
translating as ”Chinese characters”, which are ideographs that over the
course of history made their way from China to Japan. One of the biggest
problems with kanji is that there aren’t just many, but each one can have a
multitude of pronunciations dependent on which words the kanji is being
used for. To look at why this is, a brief history of how modern Japanese
got the kanji that are used today.
Early Japanese evolved as a purely spoken language. Without a
wriĴen form, indeed seemingly without having discovered writing at all,
the first instances of writing in Japan were in fact not Japanese at all, but
Chinese: after having come into contact with the Chinese and their intri-
cate writing system, writing in early Japan (circa the late sixth century)
was restricted to immigrant scribes, which wrote records in classical Chi-
nese. While initially a rarity, the Taika reform in the mid-seventh century
changed all that.
Reforming Japan to a more Chinese inspired state, based on cen-
tralisation of government, and Confucian philosophy, the need for a state
clergy transformed the largely illiterate Japanese society to one with liter-
acy as an essential part of court and intellectual life. The prestigious rank of
scribe became a hereditary rank, and so as generations of scribes came and
went, the Chinese that was used slowly drifted away from proper Chinese,
and more towards a hybrid style of Chinese and the form of Japanese as it
was used at the time. However, the readings used for Chinese characters
were more or less fixed, and the readings that survive from that period are
known today as
, go’on, readings.
Then, in the seventh and eighth century, during the Chinese Tang
dynasty, there was another cultural exchange between Japan and China,
leading to a second influx of readings for Chinese characters. As China
changed rulers, so too did the dominant dialect for the Chinese language,
and the readings that were brought back to Japan from this second ex-
change were in some cases radically different from the initial readings the
Japanese had become familiar with. Readings for kanji from this period
are known as
, kan’on, readings.
Finally, in the fourteenth century, during the most famous of Chi-
nese dynasties – the Ming Dynasty – there was another influx of Chinese.
This influx came from two fronts: firstly, the merchants doing business
with the Chinese brought back home readings that are referred to as
,
to’on, and secondly from Zen monks who went to study Zen Buddhism in
China and brought back readings that are referred to as
, so’on. Rather
than a single exchange, this was an ongoing effort, and so readings