The Kanji That Look Like Their Meanings

When you’re studying your kanji, have you ever thought that some kanji look suspiciously like the thing they’re supposed to be representing? In terms of the big kanji picture, this actually happens quite rarely. Most kanji don’t look anything like their meanings. I mean, sure. 顔 looks like this one guy’s face I’ve seen this one time, but I think that was just a coincidence. So why do some kanji look like the things their supposed to represent? Why isn’t everything like this? It has to do with turtles.

Turtle Burning

Guess how kanji was made. Guess! Did you choose C) By burning turtles? If so, you win the jackpot (and you also have a sick, sick mind). Well, okay, the turtles were scraped from their shells first, so technically they were just throwing turtle shells into the fire, but either way the experience can’t be good for turtles.

Illustration by Aya Fransisco

A long, long time ago (we’re talking around 4,000+ years ago), Chinese monks, shamans, or something inbetween were burning turtle shells and other animal bones. It’s thought that they’d look at the cracks that would form in these items in order to interpret messages from the Gods. This means that the earliest kanji were just cracks in turtle shells that kind of looked like something.
After a bit of this, people started seeing patterns in the bone and shell cracks. This became what is thought to be the first kanji. Using these patterns, people started writing back to the gods, asking them more specific questions like “when should I plant my crops?” or “what should I wear today?” Thus, kanji was born.
Now, this story is just a hypothesis on the origins of kanji, but it’s the one that I happen like the best. All this happened a really, really long time ago, and it was before the advent of writing, obviously. It certainly beats out the idea of legendary figure Cangjie, who had four eyes and four pupils and caused the deities and ghosts to cry millet from the sky. Anyways, I’ll let you choose the one you like best.

Kanji That Looks Like Something

Because (at least in the hypothesis we’re using) kanji came from cracked turtle shells, you can assume that these cracks must have looked quite a bit like something  from real life. In fact, if you look at some of the earliest kanji records you can sort of see that. Of course, finding and interpreting the cracked turtle shells is most likely impossible now, but there are records of people writing back to the gods. This is probably as close as we’ll ever get.
Take this chart by ancientscripts.com for example.

Some things aren’t very obvious, but others you can kind of say “okay, yeah, I see it.” If you want to go into imagining turtle shell cracks, you can probably take an extra few shifts back in time and see that as well. This is where kanji came from, and you still see a lot of these basic shapes in kanji today!

Modern Kanji Lookalikes

Because kanji has evolved so much over time, there are very few “pictogram” kanji in use anymore and only the simplest of kanji still look like the items they represent. In 100AD it was thought that only 4% of all Chinese characters could be considered pictograms. That seems like a lot to me, but I guess a lot has happened in the last 1900 years.
I’m sure this is not all of them, but here’s the kanji I could think of that look like pictograms. Just by looking at these you take a stab at what they mean, even with no prior kanji knowledge.

一, 二, 三 (One, Two, Three)

Obviously the first three numbers look like one thing, two things, and three things. After the first three they don’t continue, but it was a nice ride while it lasted.

串 Skewer, Shish Kebab

Um, this kanji looks delicious, ammiright?

入 Enter

Reminds me of some kind of entrance covered with cloth, draped aside.

門 Gate

You shall not pass!

亡 Deceased

To me, it looks like either a pot for holding ashes or a crevice you might see in crypt.

口 Mouth

Does the shape of Domo’s mouth seem familiar? Coincidence? I think not.

夕 Evening

Looks like the moon streaking across the sky.

山 Mountain

Still looks like a few mountains, though not as much as in the ancient Chinese characters example.

川 River

See that river flowing by?

日 Sun

Kind of square, but that’s how we roll in kanjiland. The line in the middle is like the equator.

旦 Daybreak

Now the sun is going over the ground to break that day.

月 Moon

Kind of like the sun, but longer. I imagine this represents when the moon isn’t full as well, so you kinda have to mix the two ideas into one pictogram.

木 Tree, and 森 Forest

Sort of looks like a tree. The forest is just three trees (aka more than one tree).

凹 Concave

This kanji always makes me laugh.

凸 Convex

Same with this one.

田 Rice Paddy

See the four rice fields with irrigation going between them? So, apparently modern rice farming was around before kanji… or was it? Might be something to look into.

目 Eye

There’s a big eye with a pupil in the center. Lookin’ good!

I bet there are other pictogram-style kanji out there too. Can you think of any to add to the comments?

The Making Of Modern Kanji

Photo by Changhai Travis

Now if you think about ancient kanji and its overall need to look like something (pictogram), you can start to see how kanji creation might progress over time.
First you have to think about combining the pictograms. When an ancient Chinese scholar saw 木 cracked into a shell multiple times, he probably interpreted it as a “forest.” Or when someone saw 日 and 一 together, and came up with 旦 (daybreak). Because it was all interpretations of messages from the gods, these people could just come up with whatever they wanted, as long as the combined meanings made sense.
Also you should think about the agendas going on. I’m sure someone would see a crazy looking crack and be like “hey, this totally means you need to get rid of all your gold, otherwise you’ll have bad luck. Sorry, it says it right here.” Whatever it is, there’s a lot of room for making up new kanji on the fly and passing it off as a divine message. I’m pretty sure that’s what my mechanic does when he looks at my car, too.
Once the important “look-a-like” kanji were established, though, I imagine things got more and more complicated. The more kanji you see, the more you realize that complicated kanji is just several uncomplicated kanji put together, like puzzle pieces. Oftentimes the meanings of these kanji are represented by the meanings of the smaller kanji as well. For example, 男 (man) consists of a rice paddy (田) and the kanji for power (力). All man is good for is the power in your rice field, it seems. Other times it doesn’t make as much sense. It all comes down to the interpretation of the person coming up with the new kanji.
Then, finally, I imagine a time when kanji creation is totally out of control. Things stop making sense, because every new kanji is less like the pictograms they came from. By using the meanings of the newly established kanji people are able to come up with even newer kanji that make even less sense than before.
Thus, modern kanji was born. Sure, it went through several other changes, simplifications, and standardizations between then and now (making it even less like pictograms), but at least you can rest easy now knowing a probably reason why kanji makes almost no sense at all in the modern era. But, that’s all to be expected. You can’t draw more and more complicated pictograms to represent the thousands of things you need to represent. That would make writing nearly impossible. They had to simplify and get away from the whole pictogram idea eventually, and I’m glad they did.

article source:www.tofugu.com/2012/05/29/the-kanji-that-look-like-their-meanings/

Kanji Hates The Ladies

Sorry ladies. I have bad news. Kanji isn’t a fan of your gender. Now, you can’t go blaming the Japanese for this. They got these kanji, along with their meanings, from China. That being said, no matter where you’re talking about, I wouldn’t say that equal opportunities between genders was a very big thing 3000-4000 years ago. Not to mention that the people coming up with all the kanji were dudes.
So, kanji hates women. Sure. But, perhaps the kanji-creators of old were victims of their very misogynistic time. I can’t say that sexism and misogyny in kanji is “right,” but I can see how it ended up happening. Want to see for yourself?

Kanji Made By Men, For Men

Photo by Arenamontanus

Nowadays a lot of these kanji are just words. It’s kind of like how the English word “Woman” has the word “Man” in it. Most people don’t actually care about it that much. That being said, I went through a lot of kanji today in order to bring you this ultimate list of misogynistic kanji. They will surely be a bit controversial, so please don’t get angry (aka “woman slave heart”), noisy (aka “woman woman woman”) or hateful (aka “woman concurrently”) at me. I didn’t create these kanji, and the people who did are long dead, probably because of their recklessness (aka “dead woman”).

女: Woman

This kanji isn’t particularly interesting on its own, but it’s important to look at first, because it always plays a role in the misogynistic kanji to come, appearing over and over again. Although I’m not putting every 女 kanji in this list (there’s a lot of them), I would like to tell you about a pattern I noticed: Kanji that have 女 in them tend to be about something negative, about getting married, about being a female of some kind (daughter, niece, etc) or about looking pretty. Already a bad start, I’d say. Let’s see what those sexist Chinese monks came up with.

奴: Manservant, Slave

This kanji consists of a woman (女) and the “again” radical (又). I suppose when you’re a woman again, you’re a slave (man or lady). It’s like a demotion to a slave level, aka the level of women. Strangely, this kanji’s meaning also extends to the words “dude” or “guy.” Now we know why it has a slight derogatory meaning.

妄: Reckless, Delusion

This kanji is made of “dying” (亡) and woman (女). So, when women who die are being reckless and delusional. They need to be safe and calm so that they can take care of the children. Much better to keep them safe in the house, right? Right? *segue!!*

安: Cheap, Contented, Relax, Safe

This is a woman inside of a roof. A woman safe inside the house. When a woman is safe within a house, she costs a lot less and you (the man) can go out and do your manly things while feeling relaxed and contented that there’ll always be a meal ready for you when you get home.

好: Pleasing, Like

While she’s at home being safe, it’s good if the woman (女) has a child (子). Us men like (好) this. It helps us to feel 安 that you won’t go out and do anything 妄.

奸: Mischief, Rudeness

I’m not sure I can bring myself to believe that the parts of this kanji mean what I think they might mean… but I guess I can’t put it past a couple of horny old monks whose job it is to come up with new kanji. This is a “dry woman” … I’ll let you come up with your own interpretation on why a “dry woman” would cause mischief and/or be rude.

妓: Geisha, Prostitute

This kanji is woman (女) plus support (支). A “support woman” is, apparently, a prostitute. So, thank you prostitutes. Thank you for all your support, support women.

妬: Envy, Jealous

The kanji for woman (女) and stone (石) combined into one. Perhaps this means a “strong woman?” Ha! No, of course not. “Stone woman” instead means “envy” or “jealousy.” Stay away from them stone women.

姓: Surname

Woman (女) and life (生) combine together to mean “surname.” Since women don’t get to carry on their surname (that’s the family name), it becomes apparent that this kanji is suggesting that a woman’s life is to the surname of her husband. She’s kind of a lifelong 奴 (servant) to the surname, if you will, whether it’s her father’s or her husband’s.

孥: Slave, Servant, Wife And Children

You remember slave right? Now it’s a slave (奴) to the child (子). This still means “slave” or “servant,” but a third meaning has been added in to this kanjis as well: “Wife and Children.” So, a woman is a slave to her child. When you think about the relationship between Asian moms and their children, this kanji actually starts to make sense…

帑: Money Repository

Your lady slave (奴) now has a cloth (巾). This is your money repository. At best, this could mean a safe place to store your money (Japanese wives traditionally take care of all the money stuff at home). At worst this could mean your lady is super expensive, and she’s like a black hole where your yen never sees the light of day again once it gets past the event horizon of her money bag. I’ll let you decide this one.

姑: Mother-In-Law

In Asian dramas, the mother-in-law is almost always an evil hag (don’t worry, sometimes they come around after the protagonist good-for-nothing son-in-law does something right). In this kanji, it’s not quite that bad, though. This is a woman (女) plus “old” (古). Just an “old woman”… though you’d think they could have come up with something a little nicer. I don’t think mother-in-laws like being called “old women.” I’m pretty sure the creator of this kanji had a mother-in-law he didn’t really like…

怒: Angry

A slave lady (奴) plus a heart (心). Obviously the men weren’t totally clueless. They could tell the ladies get pretty angry when you treat them like slaves.

姻: Marry, Matrimony

Speaking of slavery, when you combine the kanji for woman (女) and “be associated with” (因) you get a word that means marriage. My theory is that someone wanted to use 囚 (captured) instead 因, but then the wife saw so he got in trouble and then had to switch it to 因. Anyways, marriage is “being associated with a woman.”

姦: Noisy, Wicked, Rape

Not one woman. Not two women. No. There are three women. What happens when you have three women together? They get really noisy. C’mon ladies.
Secondly, this kanji means “wicked” too. I guess when a few women get together, it’s time to get suspicious of their actions?
Lastly, this kanji also means rape too… which is absolutely terrible and probably makes this the worst kanji of all time. Seriously, though. There were some sick kanji-creators out there.

倭: Yamato People (Submissive People)

I wrote about the naming of the Yamato People (Japanese people) a while back. Basically, China used this kanji to name the Japanese a long time ago. It pretty much means “submissive ladylike dwarf people,” though you’ll have to read the whole history to find out why.

恕: Excuse

What’s in a woman’s (女) mouth’s (口) heart (心)? It’s to make excuses. The true words that come from a woman’s heart are just excuses. “So that’s why dinner isn’t ready, Natsumi??? What a terrible ‘woman’s mouth heart!’” Really kanji? C’mon.

案: Expectation, Suggestion, Worry

You have a woman in her house (安) standing on top of a tree (木) looking down on everyone telling them their suggestions and worries. Sounds familiar? This is basically the kanji for “helicopter mother,” if you ask me. They just didn’t have helicopters back then, so she’s standing on a tree instead.

娶: Arrange A Marriage

You’re taking (取) a woman (女). Could be worse, I suppose. Still, you don’t see anyone “taking a man” instead. It’s always the ladies that get the short end of the stick when it comes to kanji.

婬: Lewdness

The woman (女) is clawing (爪) the king (王). Perhaps this is talking about all those misbehaving queens that you hear about in stories. No good comes from nasty queens in folklore stories, Japanese or Chinese. I suppose this is why this kanji means “lewdness.”

嫌: Hate

When you have a woman (女) concurrently (兼) with anything (apparently), you get hate. It’s a mystery as to what you can have at the same time as a woman that will make this hate, but I’m sure someone had something in mind way back in the day.

嫉: Envy, Jealous

Wow, another kanji that means “envy” or “jealous.” Instead of being a stone lady (妬), this time it’s just a “rapid lady” (女=woman, 疾=rapidly). I’m guessing this is suggesting that women get envious or jealous very quickly… sounds like every jdrama / kdrama / cdrama I’ve ever seen.

楼: Watchtower

This kanji has a woman (女) carrying rice (米) on her back. There’s a tree (木) there too, which I’m guessing is the watchtower. I’m thinking you can guess who is in the watchtower by now, right?

媼: Grandma

This woman (女) has captured (囚) someone with a plate (皿). Perhaps this is a relatively nice kanji, actually. Maybe grandma’s cooking is so good that she’s captured you. Good ol’ grandma’s cooking! All she’s good for is cooking now, though. Too old to carry rice around the fields under the watchful watchtower eye of the man.

嫐: Flirt

Two ladies (女), one dude between them (男). Why not add three or four more ladies while you’re at it, wishful-thinking-monk?

嬲: Ridicule, Tease

So, when there are two guys (男) around one lady (女) it’s no longer flirting. Now it’s ridiculing and teasing… at least they got the “apparently most guys were jerks during the kanji-creation period” thing down right in this kanji.

餒: Hunger, Spoil

When a woman (女) has clawed (爪) at the food (食), everyone hungers and/or the food spoils. Sure, blame the food problems on the ladies.

孀: Widow

The women (女) who rain (雨) on each other (相) are the widows. I suppose they’re just crying so much that their really nice husbands have died in battle… or, perhaps they’re crying buckets of joy because apparently every man alive during this time was a complete jerk. I’ll let you decide.

男: Man

Now it’s high time to look at “man” (because, men are #1 in the kanji world, duh!). This kanji consists of a rice paddy (田) and power (力). Who’s the power on the rice field? That’s the dudes, of course. Look at our big muscles. *flex flex*

勇: Courage

Courage consists of the kanji for man (男) and the マ radical, which is an obsolete radical that means “person.” Basically, the kanji for “courage” is “person that is a man.” Because, uh, we’re not afraid of anything… that’s right. We’re MAN PEOPLE.

金玉: Testicles

Golden (金) balls (玉). That’s what testicles are made out of. GOLD. I guess a dude’s reproductive organs are so valuable that they’re being compared to a very expensive metal. I wouldn’t be surprised if there was a “Cash For Balls” program going on during the Meiji Era. As everyone’s favorite super villain loved to say: “I like… teeeesticles gooooolllld.”
There’s not as many interesting kanji that have to do with dudes (especially when you compare it with 女), but even with just these two you can see the difference in how they’re treated. Generally, men-related kanji are awesome (or neutral), and women get the shaft. It’s obvious who was coming up with these kanji, though you’d think they’d actually try a little bit more… then again, maybe not.

What Dogs We Were!

Photo by Andrew-Hyde

I imagine that almost every language has plenty of examples of sexism (prolly against the ladies… sorry ladies!) in them, just because things weren’t particularly fair thousands of years ago when languages and writing were developing. Japanese / Chinese just so happens to have an extremely easy way to look up the etymology of the kanji, making it easy to pick all these out and lay them out for you, probably making it seem worse than it actually is (at least when comparing with other languages out there).

But, like most languages, these words have been around a long time. Now they’re just words, and their original misogynistic meaning is very diluted and unimportant, meaning you’re not a horrible person if you use the word 安い (cheap) in your day-to-day life.

Besides how terrible some of the meanings of these kanji are, I’m also hoping you can take away something else. See how easy it is to figure out the meanings of kanji by breaking them up into radicals? I just looked up one radical (女), and was able to find out so much about how ancient China / Japan thought about women. You could do similar research on other radicals/kanji, for example 田 (rice paddy), 中 (middle) or 力 (power). There’s a lot that can be learned about via kanji radicals – they’re not only a tool for remembering and learning kanji (which is what we’re doing with our work on WaniKani). They give you a peek into the culture and history of China / Japanese as well.

So, I hope you learned something other than “getting three women together means ‘noisy’ in Japanese.” Are any of these your particular favorite? Does something make you “a slave woman’s heart”? No “woman mouth hearts” not to speak up and get “triple woman” if there’s something you want to say in the comments. Oh, but please be nice and don’t “two guys around one girl” anyone. That’s just “a woman clawing at a king” if you ask me. I “woman with a child” nice comments.

article source:www.tofugu.com/2012/06/05/misogynistic-kanji/

Four Kanji One Idiom

For the longest time I’ve run across all kinds of Japanese idioms that follow the same sort of pattern, not even realizing that they were an actual “thing.” They’d be like this:

• Four kanji.
• Meanings of the individual kanji don’t really have much to do with the idiom on a whole.
• Probably comes from some story – in fact, if you don’t know the story it’s hard or impossible to derive their meaning.

While there are other types of idioms in Japanese, idioms like that follow the above pattern are known as yojijukugo (四字熟語), aka “four-character compounds” or “four-character idioms.” What’s interesting to me here are the constraints. You only have four characters to convey what it is you want to say. In fact, these four characters are usually meant to represent an entire story (presumably filled with morals and lessons and other educational things like that). I’ve always thought that constraints like these breed creativity (kind of like the constraints of boxy kei-cars), and I wouldn’t say yojijukugo disappoints.
The thing is, we do this in English too (though the constraints are much looser). Ever heard the idiom “A wolf in sheep’s clothing”? It comes from multiple stories and fables. It doesn’t literally mean a wolf is wearing sheep’s clothing. That would be a smart wolf. No, it’s an idiom representing a story you’re already supposed to know, which then gives you the context and allows you to understand the meaning of the idiom on a whole.

Yojijukugo’s Chinese Origins

Like many things (especially kanji things), the yojijukugo have Chinese roots and origins. The Japanese yojijukugo can be traced back to the Chinese Chengyu, which are essentially the same thing but Chinese. In fact, many of the Yojijukugo idioms just copypasta straight from the Chinese version. There are some slight modifications in the readings to make them more Japanese.
Also like the Chengyu, the yojijukugo characters (the kanji, not characters in a story) often represent individual ideas and morals that are in the story that they come from. This is why it’s often so hard to derive meaning straight from the idiom without knowing the story first; they are kind of like mnemonics that help you to remember the story (and therefor help you to remember a lesson as well). Ancient mnemonics, anyone?
Now the Japanese yojijukugo idioms aren’t all copycats. While many (probably most) of them do come from a Chinese original, there are many Japanese-only yojijukugo as well. These would be things that come from Buddhist scripture, Japanese proverbs, and old Japanese stories. Just like the chengyu, though, you still need the stories to understand the yojijukugo’s meaning.

Some Common Japanese Idioms

The thing is, there are a ton of these. I’ve found counts ranging from 5,000 to over 20,000. That’s obviously way too many to learn. Here is a database of 3,400 of them (still too many), though if you scroll through you’ll see that the most useful ones are marked with a ##. Still, this only narrows the list down to around 400 “useful” yojijukugo, and that’s too much all in one sitting.
Instead, I found a list of presumably some of the most common and liked ones. This way if you have an itch to learn them you can start with the ones that will get you the most mileage first, then only after that learn the other 19,980 (I’m sure there’s an idiom for how you’d feel if you had to learn all of these… maybe 四面楚歌?).

一期一会いちごいちえ – “Once In A Lifetime Opportunity”

一石二鳥いっせきにちょう – “Killing two birds with one stone”

初志貫徹しょしかんてつ – “Achieving one’s original intention”

以心伝心いしんでんしん – “Without any need for words”

一所懸命いっしょけんめい - “With utmost effort”

温故知新おんこちしん - “Learning from the past”

花鳥風月かちょうふうげつ – “The beauties of nature”

臥薪嘗胆がしんしょうたん - “Going through thick and thin to attain one’s objective”

質実剛健しつじつごうけん – “Unaffected and sincere”

十人十色じゅうにんといろ - “To each his own”

晴耕雨読せいこううどく - “Living in quiet retirement dividing time between work and intellectual pursuits”

清浄潔白せいじょうけっぱく - “Pure in heart and with a clean conscious”

切磋琢磨せっさたくま - “Cultivate one’s mind by studying hard”

天真爛漫てんしんらんまん - “Simple and innocent”

日進月歩にっしんげっぽ - “Steady progress”

不言実行ふげんじっこう - “Actions before words”

粉骨砕身ふんこつさいしん - “Work oneself to the bone”

悠々自適ゆうゆうじてき - “Living a life of leisure with dignity”

臨機応変りんきおうへん - “Playing it by ear”

For some of these you can see where the word came from. For example, 十人十色 literally means “ten people ten colors.” You can see where “to each his own” comes from when you look at that. Others are a lot less obvious and require you to know the story behind it, just because the meanings of the kanji are just jibberish without context.
For your convenience I’ve also whipped together an Anki deck for this list of idioms. You’ll need the “Japanese” plugin on Anki to use this deck, though I imagine most of you using Anki for Japanese already have this.

Download Yojijukugo Deck

Of course, there are a ton more idioms like the ones listed above. You’re only seeing the tip of the iceberg (or should I say 冰山一角?). There are thousands and thousands more idioms out there, but I wouldn’t say they’re worth learning. You have to set your priorities if you want to move quickly… some things are more important than others. While learning some of the most common yojijukugo is going to be very helpful to you, attempting to learn all of them is something that should be done post-fluency. It’s just not something that’s worth your time otherwise, though I could see how learning them might be fun.

article source:www.tofugu.com/2012/06/19/yojijukugo-japanese-idioms/

And This Year’s “Kanji Of The Year” Award Goes To…

Did you know that every year the Japanese Kanji Proficiency Society chooses a “Kanji of the Year”? They choose a character that best represents the events of that past year through a national ballot where of course, the kanji with the most votes wins. Then, it’s announced on Kanji Day (December 12) at Kiyomizu Temple (a very beautiful place I recommend that you go if you’re visiting Japan for the first time).

Winning Kanji Of Years Past

Although perhaps it would be interesting to try and come up with the next kanji of the year before it happens, I think it’s more interesting to take a look at years past. It’s a look at Japan’s history through kanji, sure, but it’s also a way to see what was on everyone’s mind that year. If you had to pick one word to describe the whole years past, what would you end up choosing? By looking at that, you’ll be able to see what was important and what wasn’t.
Some years were definitely pretty obvious. Some years were kind of surprising. Here are all the years in order, starting at 1995 (when this ceremony first began) all the way to 2011. We can only speculate what 2012′s kanji will be (let’s do that, too!).

1995 – 震 (Quake)

Photo by mah_japan

Talk about a year to start this thing. In 1995, the Great Hanshin Earthquake rocked Japan, taking the lives of over 6,000 people and clocking in at a 7.2 magnitude. At the time it was the second worst earthquake in Japan during the 20th century, causing $100 billion in damage.
On top of this, 震 was chosen because of the uneasiness felt during this year due to the Subway Sarin Incident where members of Aum Shinrikyo released Sarin gas into the subway trains during rush hour. Certainly a shaky year, to be sure.

1996 – 食 (Food, Eat)

Despite how nice this kanji must seem (Japanese food is so good, right?), the kanji for “food” or “eat” was chosen in 1996 due to the outbreaks of food poisoning from E. coli 0157. 6,000 infections occured and three people died. Many children were hospitalized from E. coli infected school lunches. The cause of the oubreak was said to be from white radish sprouts shipped from one particular farm.

1997 – 倒 (Collapse, Defeat)

倒 has two meanings, and we’ll see both of them come to play with this year’s kanji.
First, this is was the end of the Japanese economy. Corporations went bankrupt. Banks went under. Everything collapsed.
Second, the Japanese soccer team beats others in its region to get into the 1998 FIFA world cup. This is the other 倒 meaning (defeat), so at least not both of the big stories were bad this year!

1998 – 毒 (Poison)

Photo by shawnzrossi

Sixty-seven people get sick from eating poisoned curry. Out of those people, four die. It turns out that Masumi Hayashi put poison into a pot of curry at the 1998 Summer Festival in Sonobe, Wakayama. She used 1000 grams of arsenic, apparently enough to kill up to 100 people (luckily that didn’t happen). She’s currently petitioning for a retrial and the court’s decision is pending.

1999 – 末 (End)

Photo by bayasaa

It’s the end of the century! Happy 2000 everyone! Y2K for everyone!

2000 – 金 (Gold)

I love… gooooolllld. And 2000 was the year for it! No, this wasn’t the year that Japan got into Cash For Gold schemes – out of all the years up to this point, this is definitely by far the most clever.
Ryoko Tamura (Judo) and Naoko Takahashi (marathon) won gold medals in the Sydney Olympics.
Kim Dae Jung and Kim Jong-Il have a North-South Korean presidential summit. Not only was this a big step forward at the time, but both of their names start with Kim. What’s the kanji for Kim? It’s 金, gold!
Last, the centenarian twin sisters Kin and Gin pass away. Their names sound like “Gold and Silver.” I guess Gin-san gets the short end of that stick.
Overall a pretty nice year, I’d say. Don’t worry, we’ll revert back to the negative in 2001.

2001 – 戦 (War)

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The 9/11 attacks occur and America goes to war in Afghanistan, then later Iraq. A lot of people get involved and the war effects a lot of the world. I had tickets to the Mariners game being held at the Tokyo Dome in 2001. Because of all this they canceled and I never got to see them play in Japan. First world problems, you know?

2002 – 帰 (Return)

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North Korea had been kidnapping Japanese citizens. This year, five of them returned home. The whole situation was quite a big deal for Japan. It still comes up again and again even today.

2003 – 虎 (Tiger)

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The Hanshin Tigers win the Central League pennant after an 18 year drought. This is like when the Red Sox finally won the world series, except the Hanshin Tigers didn’t actually win the Japan Series, they just were the best in their league. Apparently it was a big enough deal for this year’s kanji to be just for them, though, so who am I to judge? Maybe they’ll do better now that the curse of Colonel Sanders has been lifted.

2004 – 災 (Disaster)

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When you choose the kanji for “disaster” to sum up your year, things can’t be doing too well.
There’s the Mihama nuclear power plant accident where hot water and steam leaked from a broken pipe, killing four workers and injuring 7 others. Before Fukushima this was considered Japan’s worst nuclear power accident.
There was also the Chuetsu Earthquake, a 6.8 magnitude earthquake that killed 39 people and caused 3,000 injuries. For the first time in history the Shinkansen train derailed, though luckily there were no injuries here.
Lastly, Mitsubishi Motors tried to cover up some known defects in their cars. When they were found out, they had to recall 163,707 cars with problems that included failing brakes, fuel leaks and malfunctioning clutches.
Not a great year for things going right.

2005 – 愛 (Love)

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Ah, love! Much better! The 2005 World’s fair was being held in Aichi Prefecture (愛知県 … includes the kanji “love” in it).
As if that weren’t enough, Princess Nori marries Yoshiki Kuroda (Nori and Kuroda, sitting in a tree…♫).
Then, to take the cake, Ai Fukuhara (once again, has love in the name) plays table tennis in China… I suppose she was one of the highest ranking table-tennis player in the world at the time, but table tennis? Really? I guess it just helps to round out a year filled with love.

2006 – 命 (Life)

This year is both good and bad. You can create life… but it can also be taken away. We’ll see examples of both before 2006 is over.
On September 6, 2006, Prince Hisahito is born. He’s the third child of Prince and Princess Akishino, and their only son. This was kind of a big deal because he was the first male child born in the Imperial House since his father.
But, as I mentioned, it’s not all about new life. This was the year where the Japanese started thinking more about suicide. A member of the Imperial Guard killed himself. Children killing themselves due to bullying begins to reach the media. Lastly, hit and run accidents from people driving while intoxicated is on the rise. Life comes and goes, and this year represented both the coming and the going.

2007 – 偽 (Deception)

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The movie Inception came out 2010. The year of deception was three years earlier.
Scandals arise over political funds and faulty pension records. The Shijingshan Amusement Park in China gets some scrutiny for using both American and Japanese cartoon characters, including Shrek, Hello Kitty, Doraemon, and Bugs Bunny. It pretty much looks like Disneyland when you look at it. Last, and probably the most deceptive, food products are given new labels with new expiration dates so that they’re no longer expired and can be resold. Yuck.

2008 – 変 (Change)

Obama (Change we can believe in)! New Japanese prime minister! Economical and ecological change (this is when things started getting “green”). So much is changing in 2008.

2009 – 新 (New)

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There’s a new government in Japan. After half a century of the LDP in control, the Democratic Party of Japan grabs the reigns.
I’d say this is enough, but apparently the Swine Flu (perhaps a new type of flu that everyone’s worried about?) and Ichiro’s MLB record of nine consecutive seasons with 200 hits get thrown into the “new” category as well.

2010 – 暑 (Hot)

Photo by WhitAngl

It’s a very warm year this year. Many Japanese said their home cooling bills shot up (all that AC!).
Also, the Chilean Miners that were trapped underground for a long time. I imagine it was pretty warm down in their pit home as well.

2011 – 絆 (Bonds)

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After the Tohoku Earthquake and tsunami, Japanese people rediscovers the bonds it has with friends and families. Although the disaster was terrible, it also brought people closer together.
Also, in the 2011 FIFA Women’s World Cup, the female Japanese team, Nadeshiko Japan, wins it all. This is said to be due to the teamwork and bonds between team members.

2012 – ??

But what about this year? We’re only part way through, but there are definitely a few patterns that can be found from the previous years.

• Sports come up a lot (soccer and baseball the most).
• Disasters come up a lot.
• Japan’s dislike for Korea and China seem to sneak their way in, sometimes (and even when they aren’t in the #1 spot, they often make it in the top ten kanji for the year).
• Really anything that’s negative seems to win out over things that are good and happy, it seems.

With that in mind, surely we’re working our way towards some kind of disaster where baseball and soccer players clash on the same field killing each other with scissor kicks and curve-balls. Then, right when you think it’s over North Korea will come in, abduct the remaining players, and then probably take them to a disputed island somewhere between Japan and China. That’s my prediction for 2012, and there’s still plenty of time to go. I can’t even imagine what kanji could represent that.
I suppose we’ll just have to see which kanji gets chosen. It won’t be for another 6 months or so, though, so you’ll have to hold on to your horses in the meantime. For now, enjoy the kanji of years past – it really gives you insight into what people were thinking about. I wish it went back farther, though I’m sure there will be plenty more to get excited about in the future.

article source:www.tofugu.com/2012/06/26/kanji-of-the-year-award/

Spotting The Hidden Meanings Hiding Within Animal Kanji

The more you study kanji the more (and less) they start making sense. A method to all the madness begins to develop and you begin to notice things…dangerous things, perhaps (or perhaps not). One of those things I came across recently was a sort of “sound attachment” to animal-related kanji. This isn’t something that always or even usually happens, but there are a handful of kanji within the bird-animal-bug families that include a hint right inside the kanji as to what sound the animal makes in real life.
I saw some of these on the show 日本人の知らない日本語 (“Japanese that Japanese people don’t know”) and I did some research and found a couple more. Let’s go through them one by one to see how the magic happens.

* Can’t read the hiragana in this article? Spend a few hours with our free hiragana ebook then come back as an omnipotent hiragana being. *

鳩 (はと/Pigeon)

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If you’ve been studying Japanese for a little bit, you may have already noticed that the kanji for bird (鳥) is right inside the kanji for pigeon (鳩). In fact, it’s one of two radicals. If you look at this kanji you can probably figure out that it has something to do with a bird whether or not you knew the kanji in the first place (so long as you know the bird radical/kanji). The interesting part is to the left, though. The second radical of this kanji is “nine” (九). Now why would that be there? Is it because pigeons fly around in groups of nine? No… Is it because it takes nine pigeons to make a pie? Maybe, though that’s a pretty big pigeon pie…
Actually, the reason that “nine” is there is because of the sound that the kanji 九 itself makes. One of the readings of 九 is く (ku). It also happens that pigeons (in Japanese/Chinese) make a “kuu kuu” noise. That 九 is there because it’s saying this is the bird (鳥) that goes kuu kuu (九). So, now you know what sound a pigeon makes in Japanese as well as how to read it (assuming you know the radicals). All of that information is encoded right into the character!

鵞 (が／Goose)

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The Goose (also known as 鵞鳥, がちょう, gachou) also has a “bird” radical in it, just like in pigeon and the other bird-kanji on this list. The other radical on top, 我, means “I” or “oneself.” If you haven’t guessed it by now, the “oneself” meaning probably doesn’t have much to do with the meaning of the word itself. The “I bird” just doesn’t make much sense, that is, unless Apple was making minimalistic birds thousands of years ago when Chinese monks were still making kanji.
One of the readings of 我 is が (ga). Now, this could be indicating the on’yomi reading of the kanji itself (which is also が), but it also happens to be the sound a goose makes in Japanese (があがあ / gaa gaa). Once again, a kanji contains more information than you think – you just have to know how to decipher it. Next stop, Illuminati.

蚊 (か／Mosquito)

Photo by gammaman

Let’s take a quick break from birds and take a look at bugs. Most bugs don’t make a ton of noise, but mosquitoes have a very distinctive buzzing tune. It’s more of a vibration, really, and to symbolize that sound the Japanese say ブ〜ン (buuun).
But did you already notice the kanji makeup? On the left there’s the radical for “insect” (虫). On the right is the radical for “writing” (文). Obviously, this is not the “writing bug”… unless it’s writing messages on paper using your blood, ew… instead, that 文 contains the sound that the mosquito makes. 文 = ぶん (bun) = a mosquito’s buzzing sound. This is the “buunnnnn bug.” It would be like if we called a mosquito a “buzz bug.”

鴎 (かもめ／Seagull)

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The seagull says くゎーくゎー (kwa kwa). I think their shriek is a bit higher pitched, though, if you want to try it out (don’t blame me if you accidentally do their secret mating call).
On the right you have the bird radical (鳥). On the left you have the “district” radical (区), which is read く (ku). I’ll have to admit, this one is pushing it a bit. く(ku) isn’t quite くゎ (kwa), but it’s similar, especially in Japanese. Most likely, this 区 radical is here to signify the on’yomi reading of 鴎 (which is also おう, just like 区‘s on’yomi reading). It’s also possible that a seagull is some kind of “district bird” only hanging out in certain (harbor, perhaps?) districts. All that being said, it also happens to be a similar sound to what a seagull makes.
All that being said, sometimes it’s good to look at the iffy ones. It reminds you that sometimes coincidences are coincidences. Doesn’t mean you can’t use them to help you to remember things and create mnemonics, though! ;)
Let’s try another one that’s more solid.

鴉 (からす／Crow, Raven)

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Crows! Ravens! The invaders of Japan! Like the other kanji in the list, this one consists of two radicals: bird (鳥) and fang (牙). The reading for 牙 is が (ga). What sound does a crow make, boys and girls? It also goes “gaa, gaa” just like the reading of the radical. Hopefully you’ve started to notice a pattern by now. This is the “Ga Bird.”

猫 (ねこ／Cat)

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Okay, so cats actually say ニャニャ (nyanya) in Japanese. But, Japanese people didn’t make kanji, the Chinese did. The left part of 猫 (cat) consists of the animal radical. The right part is 苗, which means “sapling” (has very little to do with cats). Now, in Chinese, the sound a cat makes is more similar to how we say it in the West (at least, that’s what I’ve heard). It’s kind of a Mao or Mau” sound. The reading for the right side radical/kanji inside of 猫 is ミョウ (myou), coming from the Chinese onomatopoeia of “meow.” It doesn’t quite work in Japanese, but you get the idea, I think. Basically, this is the “myou animal” (kind of like how a crow is a “gaa bird” and a pigeon is a “kuu bird”).

The Mystery Deepens

Now, you probably won’t be unlocking any ancient Buddhist secrets by deciphering kanji like this, but I think this sort of thing is fun. Definitely helps break up the monotony of kanji learning and makes you respect kanji a little bit more. I’m pretty certain I’m just scratching the surface here too. I’m certain there are other kanji with similar patterns. You just never notice them unless someone points them out to you or you go looking for them. There are hidden messages, meanings, and readings around every corner. Just keep your eye out and you’ll certainly notice one or two.
As for how useful this actually is? Well, probably not all that useful, though perhaps you will be able to read the kanji from this article more effectively now compared to five minutes ago. One thing that I keep thinking about, though. I wonder if there are any kanji for some long extinct animals where we don’t know what kind of sound it makes. Wouldn’t it be cool to figure out what kind of noise an animal made just via its kanji like this? Sounds incredible to me, and somewhat plausible. That’s what makes this so fun.
All that being said, these kanji sounds could be purely coincidence as well. The readings of the radicals on their own are the same as the animal sounds as well, though I think it makes some sense that you’d choose a radical with a reading that mimics the sound of the animal. So while all this seems plausible it’s hard to know for sure what was going on when these kanji were being created so many years ago. Perhaps next time we’ll figure out that 宙 has 由 in it because ancient aliens made a “yuu yuu” noise when they spoke. Giorgio would approve.
ararticle source:www.tofugu.com/2012/08/14/spotting-the-hidden-meanings-hiding-within-animal-kanji/

Kokuji: “Made In Japan,” Kanji Edition

Everyone knows that kanji made in Japan is of a higher quality, sure to never break down and last you many generations. It’s why I only buy kanji from Japan and not any of that knock-off Chinese kanji stuff.
I kid, I kid. But did you know that there are actually a good number Japanese-only kanji in existence? This makes sense, though. Every nation out there borrows language from some other nation. Then, they come up with some things that are their own. It’s kind of like the differences between British English and American English, except only having to do with kanji. Chip chip cheerio, cowboy!
In Japanese, though, it’s more interesting. Not only is it words that are different… it’s kanji as well. Let’s take a look at how this all went down.

Kokuji: The Creation Of New Kanji

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Kokuji (国字, national characters), are kanji that were created in Japan for the Japanese language. There aren’t a ton of these considering how many kanji exist overall, but there were some things that existed only in Japan and there needed to be a way to write them. Thus, new kanji, aka kokuji, were born.
To create a new kanji isn’t all that complicated, either. In fact, you or I could probably do it if we wanted (nobody would care, of course). Usually it simply involves combining kanji components or radicals to create a new kanji with a new meaning. For example:

働 = ｲ (person) + 動 (move) = “work”

込 = 辶 (road) + 入 (enter) = “crowded”

鰯 = 弱 (weak) + 魚 (fish) = “sardine”

*Note these are the “official” component meanings. They will vary in meaning when you are talking about radicals (for example, the radicals on our very own Wanikani will have different meanings than the above and below examples).

I think you can probably see how the above words got their meanings. “A person in motion” is one who is working. “Entering a road” is crowded. Presumably traffic was pretty bad back in the day. “A weak fish” is a sardine. Should have been a “delicious fish” if you ask me, though sardines aren’t the toughest fish in the sea. Most of the kokuji were put together in this manner. Because so many kanji had with their own meanings already been established by China, it’s actually pretty easy to Voltron up new kanji like this.
But how do the readings work? Because the Japanese already had Japanese words for these kanji they were making it’s only natural that kokuji would get kun’yomi readings (because kun’yomi readings = original Japanese language readings). In fact, the vast majority of kokuji only have a kun’yomi reading. After that, there are a handful of kokuji that have both on and kun readings (for example, 働 uses the reading of 動 which is どう) and a very few kokuji that only have an on’yomi (Chinese) reading for who knows what reason.
Let’s take a closer look at the kokuji so you can see what I’m talking about.

The Kokuji Kanji

Photo by Pedro

There are a surprising amount of kokuji out there so I’m not going to list them all out for you here. For all (or maybe just most of them) of them, check out this kokuji list or get the book Kokuji no Jiten. In this particular article, I’m only going to go over the “more common” ones for you since they’re more useful, though you’ll quickly see that “more common” for the most part means “not actually that common at all.”

“Common” Kokuji

These kokuji are used fairly often. They are “common use” kokuji. It’d be understanding if you couldn’t read the kanji here, because these kanji are of a somewhat higher level. If you can’t read the hiragana, though, consider learning hiragana (it’s a good way to start learning Japanese).

Kanji	On	Kun	Meaning
込	n/a	こむ、こめる	Crowded
搾	さく	しぼる	Squeeze
峠	n/a	とうげ	Mountain Pass, Climax
畑	n/a	はた、はたけ	Farm, Field
働	どう	はたらく	Work
匁	n/a	もんめ	Monme (3.75 grams)
枠	n/a	わく	Frame
塀	へい	n/a	Fence, Wall

Obviously there aren’t many of them in the “common” category. This is probably because all things that are actually common probably had a kanji from China already. Definitely 込 and 働 are very useful. The others are alright too, though I think those are the two most recognizable ones. In general, though, kokuji tend to be on the more “difficult” side of the kanji spectrum in that they don’t usually show up as much. Even the “common” list has kanji that kanji that isn’t so common. Just imagine what happens when we look at kokuji that are “less common.” Wait, you don’t have to imagine, let’s look right now.

“Less Common” Kokuji

There are a lot more kanji that fall within the “less common kokuji” category. These are kanji that you may not see every day, but they’re common enough where they (might) be worth learning, at least some day when you’re at a pretty advanced level. These are going to be things that exist in Japan but don’t exist in China (or aren’t common enough in China to get their own kanji). To solve this problem the Japanese created their own kanji.

Kanji	On	Kun	Meaning
鰯	n/a	いわし	Sardine
樫	n/a	かし	Evergreen Oak
粁	n/a	キロメートル	Kilometer
橡	n/a	とち	Horse Chestnut
粂	n/a	くめ	(Used In Names)
喰	n/a	くう、くらう	Drink, Eat
榊	n/a	さかき	Sacred Shinto Tree
笹	n/a	ささ	Bamboo Grass
鴫	n/a	しぎ	Snipe (Bird)
雫	n/a	しずく	Dripping, Trickle
椙	n/a	すぎ	Japanese Cedar
腺	せん	すじ	Gland
糎	n/a	センチメートル	Centimeter
凧	n/a	たこ	Kite
鱈	n/a	たら	Codfish
辻	n/a	つじ	Crossroad
栂	n/a	とが、つが	Hemlock
栃	n/a	とち	Horse Chestnut
噸	n/a	トン	Tonnage, Ton
凪	n/a	なぎ、なぐ	Calm, Lull
椛	n/a	なぎ、もみじ、かば	Birch, Maple
匂	n/a	におう、におい	Fragrant, Stink
硲	n/a	はざま	Gap, Gorge
畠	n/a	はた、はたけ	Farm, Field
噺	n/a	はなし	Talk
柾	n/a	まさ、まさき	Spindle Tree
俣	n/a	また	Crotch, Groin
麿	n/a	まろ	I, You
粍	n/a	ミリメートル	Millimeter
杢	n/a	もく	Woodworker
籾	n/a	もみ	Unhulled Rice
鑓	n/a	やり	Spear
鋲	n/a	びょう	Tack, Thumbtack

There’s some interesting items in here, I think. You get some fun insight into Japan as well. What’s common in Japan that wasn’t common in China? What words got their own kanji anyways even though a kanji for them already exists (喰 comes to mind)? What about non-Chinese and non-Japanese things? Japan made a kanji for kilometer, tonnage, and millimeter. The best part is the reading for these things are just キロメートル, トン, and ミリメートル. Kind of makes me laugh, but I have a poor sense of humor.
The best part about all this, though, is figuring out how these kokuji kanji were put together. For example, the word “gorge” consists of 石 (stone) and 谷 (valley). A “stone valley” is a gorge, makes sense. “Calm/Lull” consists of the 几 (table) radical and the kanji 止 (stop). I can imagine some kanji-artisan thinking about how in between earthquakes you have a nice “calm” or “lull” where the table stops shaking (and presumably you can continue your work writing down all sorts of made up kanji). Because kokuji are purely meaning based (no on’yomi to worry about most of the time, so no kanji components taht are there solely for the reading) it’s particularly easy to break apart a kanji and figure out where it gets its meaning from.
Go ahead and give it a try and share your favorites in the comments. It’s interesting the treasures that you’ll find.

Uncommon Kokuji

Uncommon kokuji are just that… uncommon. They don’t fall within the joyo kanji… or really anything close to the joyo kanji. This is the kind of kanji you learn when you’re a giant kanji nerd hoping to pass the highest levels of the Kanji Kentei test. There are even kanji in here that go beyond that. It’s honestly pretty nuts.
That being said, there are also a lot of them. Most kokuji kanji fall into the “uncommon” category. Out of just under 400 kokuji kanji, maybe 50 are worth learning… maybe. It’s interesting stuff, but not something I’d waste my time on if you have more useful kanji to learn.
If you are interested in the uncommon kokuji though, they’re on this kokuji list. You’ll want to find things in １級 (first class) or 範囲外 (“outside the [test] range”). Basically, even if you know 3,000 kanji, it won’t be enough to know all these particular kanji. The Uncommon Kokuji list falls somewhere between kanji numbers 3,000 and 6,000 (and possibly beyond). If you decide to jump down this 兎 hole… good luck. You’ll need it.

Evolving, Changing, Adding…

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It’s a language, after all, so it’s going to change. The cool thing about Japanese is that when you create a new kanji you’re really creating a new piece of art. It’s not just a new word with a new combination of letters like in English (fabulicious!), though the idea is the same.
Kokuji has been around for a while, too. The first mention of a kokuji kanji was in the Manyoushuu, which was written around 759AD. So, the first “Japanese-only” kanji was created sometime before that, which is a while ago. The most recent official kokuji created was during the Meiji Era. Because this was an era of modernization for Japan, there were many new science and technology things were getting introduced to the country. You can see this in the list above where kilometers, tonnage, and millimeters have their own kanji.
In fact, some of these kanji even got imported into China. The kanji 腺 is one such example. It’s kind of funny to me how originally kanji got imported into Japan from China but now some kokuji has made its way back. It’s nice to share, I guess.
But, now I wonder if we’ll see new kokuji in the future. I really want to, but katakana will probably prevent that from ever happening. Kilometer is written in katakana now. Things that are common enough to get their own kanji these days probably already have a kanji. Perhaps there will be some great new discovery in Japan in the future, but I doubt it. Even something like that would probably just get named using multiple kanji in the form of a jukugo (multi-kanji) word.
No, my only hope for new kokuji is an alien invasion / visitation. It will have to be something that introduces new things to the world like which we’ve never seen. Even then, most people will probably just create jukugo words… but there’s a chance… a hope! And perhaps, thousands of years from now, when the aliens are all gone, people will look at these new kokuji kanji and hypothesize that ancient aliens once visited our earth.

“See this kanji that looks like a person with a helmet? ALIENS!”

article source: www.tofugu.com/2012/08/21/kokuji-kanji-made-in-japan/