The Kanji script is today related more so with the country of Japan rather than China although the script was initially developed in China. The modern Japanese logographic writing system was derived by the help of Chinese characters which they adopted into their system. The term kanji translates as Han characters which are Chinese in origin.
So what is the real story behind Chinese kanji symbols and how come they are attributed to Japan today? Well, it all started out when Chinese articles started coming into Japan as imports with Han character inscriptions on them.
The history bears evidence to this fact from many examples such as the Han dynasty ruler had gifted a gold seal with Hans' inscription to the Japanese. What we still wonder is that how and when the Hans characters were started to be used in Japan and developed.
What probably may have happened was that the Chinese immigrants in Japan must have been the first people to be using the Kanji script. It would have been completely impossible for the Japanese themselves to understand it and learn the script on their own.
As time passed the China and Japan developed friendly relations in trade and otherwise which required written documents going from one country to the other. In such conditions it was a necessity that the Chinese language should be understood by Japanese and a council of people called Fuhito was trained to handle the paper work from China. This could be the most plausible reason how Chinese Kanji script landed up in Japan and later evolved.
Chinese Kanji script carried the idea of proper writing script in Japan which did not have one at that time. They began to use Chinese script for writing initially and slowly shaped their own writing system with things taken from the Chinese script and then reshaping them to fit the Japanese grammar.
What the Japanese did was that they began to write Japanese words with Chinese characters. This was an advancement made in Japanese writing style and was named as Kana syllables. The Japanese further developed the script and introduced phonetics to the Chinese symbols they were using whereas in China the symbols did not have any kind of phonetic.
Kanji script though accepted more or less as Japanese is used more frequently in China than in Japan. People also believe that the Kanji script of both the countries look almost the same. In reality the Japanese and Chinese Kanji script has lot of difference as Chinese Kanji symbols are shaped differently.
There is one more difference in Chinese and Japanese Kanji script when we apply it to the reading part. As discussed the Chinese treat the Kanji characters as symbols without any phonetic connotation but in Japanese script every syllable has phonetic value.
So what is the real story behind Chinese kanji symbols and how come they are attributed to Japan today? Well, it all started out when Chinese articles started coming into Japan as imports with Han character inscriptions on them.
The history bears evidence to this fact from many examples such as the Han dynasty ruler had gifted a gold seal with Hans' inscription to the Japanese. What we still wonder is that how and when the Hans characters were started to be used in Japan and developed.
What probably may have happened was that the Chinese immigrants in Japan must have been the first people to be using the Kanji script. It would have been completely impossible for the Japanese themselves to understand it and learn the script on their own.
As time passed the China and Japan developed friendly relations in trade and otherwise which required written documents going from one country to the other. In such conditions it was a necessity that the Chinese language should be understood by Japanese and a council of people called Fuhito was trained to handle the paper work from China. This could be the most plausible reason how Chinese Kanji script landed up in Japan and later evolved.
Chinese Kanji script carried the idea of proper writing script in Japan which did not have one at that time. They began to use Chinese script for writing initially and slowly shaped their own writing system with things taken from the Chinese script and then reshaping them to fit the Japanese grammar.
What the Japanese did was that they began to write Japanese words with Chinese characters. This was an advancement made in Japanese writing style and was named as Kana syllables. The Japanese further developed the script and introduced phonetics to the Chinese symbols they were using whereas in China the symbols did not have any kind of phonetic.
Kanji script though accepted more or less as Japanese is used more frequently in China than in Japan. People also believe that the Kanji script of both the countries look almost the same. In reality the Japanese and Chinese Kanji script has lot of difference as Chinese Kanji symbols are shaped differently.
There is one more difference in Chinese and Japanese Kanji script when we apply it to the reading part. As discussed the Chinese treat the Kanji characters as symbols without any phonetic connotation but in Japanese script every syllable has phonetic value.
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Chinese symbol meanings vary according to region and historical period. If you are interested in Chinese New Year symbolism click on the links to read more.
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