Kanji

by Nao

kanji

kan -> http://wp.me/pAlaB-L4

ji -> http://wp.me/pAlaB-KP

We can’t translate it to English. Kanji is kanji.

Kanji is a set of characters used in China, Korea, and Japan. Korean people rarely use it because they have invented own characters. Chinese people extensively use it because the Chinese language has only kanji. Since Japanese has two more sets of characters called hiragana and katakana, Japanese people mix them all. Although hiragana is considered easy for the Japanese, if a text is written only in hiragana, it takes us longer to understand than to read a text including kanji. Unless we see too many kanji characters, kanji helps us understand the meaning quickly.

There are two styles of Chinese characters (I mean, in Chinese.): traditional ones and simplified ones. Traditional Chinese characters are sometimes more complicated than Japanese kanji, some of which were simplified in the early 20th century. Simplified Chinese characters are simpler than Japanese simplified kanji.

One of my Chinese friends told me a joke. It is unfair that China is blamed for copyright piracy, considering the fact that the Japanese have used kanji without permission. She was talking about the copyright on kanji. Indeed, Chinese people invented kanji, which is valuable intellectual property. Having characters is equal to civilization. That’s why China is regarded as one of the major sources of civilization.

[Via http://japanesecalligrapher.wordpress.com]