The complete guide to japanese kanji 2016

THE COMPLETE GUIDE TO Japanese Kanji 01 FM_GR Jpn KJ.indd 9/30/15 6:04 PM THE COMPLETE GUIDE TO Japanese Kanji REMEMBERING AND UNDERSTANDING THE 2,136 STANDARD CHARACTERS 漢 字完 全ガイド CHRISTOPHER SEELEY AND KENNETH G HENSHALL WITH JIAGENG FAN T UT T L E Publishing Tokyo Rutland, Vermont Singapore 01 FM_GR Jpn KJ.indd 9/30/15 6:04 PM Published by Tuttle Publishing, an imprint of Periplus Editions (HK) Ltd www.tuttlepublishing.com Copyright © 1998, 2016 Periplus Editions (HK) Ltd All rights reserved No part of this publication may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior written permission from the publisher Library of Congress Control Number: 2015954332 ISBN 978-4-8053-1170-7; ISBN 978-1-4629-1773-0 (ebook) First edition 20 19 18 17 16 Printed in Singapore 1601MP Distributed by North America, Latin America & Europe Tuttle Publishing 364 Innovation Drive North Clarendon, VT 05759-9436 U.S.A Tel: (802) 773-8930; Fax: (802) 773-6993 info@tuttlepublishing.com www.tuttlepublishing.com Asia Pacific Berkeley Books Pte Ltd 61 Tai Seng Avenue #02-12 Singapore 534167 Tel: (65) 6280-1330; Fax: (65) 6280-6290 inquiries@periplus.com.sg; www.periplus.com Japan Tuttle Publishing Yaekari Building, 3rd Floor 5-4-12 Osaki, Shinagawa-ku Tokyo 141 0032 Tel: (81) 5437-0171; Fax: (81) 5437-0755 sales@tuttle.co.jp; www.tuttle.co.jp TUTTLE PUBLISHING® is a registered trademark of Tuttle Publishing, a division of Periplus Editions (HK) Ltd 01 FM_CG Jpn KJ.indd 11/6/15 3:17 PM Contents Preface to the Second Edition Acknowledgments Introduction • Beginnings of the Chinese Script • • • • • • • • Formational Principles of the Chinese Script 12 Word-Families and the Chinese Script 14 Fluctuation in the Script: Variant Forms 16 Early and Pre-Modern Character Dictionaries 17 Printed Texts and the Calligraphic Tradition 19 Layout of Entries in This Book 20 Sources Used and Terminology in This Book 23 Limitations of This Book 26 The Japanese Writing System: A Brief Sketch 27 Hiragana and Katakana and Their Source Characters 30 The 214 Determinatives (or ‘Radicals’) System 34 General Principles of Stroke Order 41 Editorial and Typographical Matters; Romanization 44 01 FM_GR Jpn KJ.indd 10/28/15 1:45 PM The 80 First-Grade Characters 48 The 160 Second-Grade Characters 66 The 200 Third-Grade Characters 105 The 200 Fourth-Grade Characters 154 The 185 Fifth-Grade Characters 209 The 181 Sixth-Grade Characters 260 The Remaining 1130 Characters 307 Readings Index 646 Stroke-Count 683 Appendix .700 • Similarly-Shaped Elements Easily Confused 700 Bibliography 702 Contents 01 FM_GR Jpn KJ.indd 10/28/15 1:45 PM Preface to the Second Edition This book is an extensive revision of the original edition of A Guide to Remembering Japanese Characters compiled by Kenneth Henshall and published in 1988 The original 1988 edition represents a pioneering work in English on the etymologies of the official General Use characters (Jōyō kanji) in use at that time Since then, much has changed: a very substantial amount of scholarly research has been published on character etymologies and related areas, mainly in Japanese and Chinese, but also some in English Another change has been that in 2010 there appeared a revised, expanded version of the Jōyō kanji list, the official list of characters for general use; this increased the basic number of characters for use in school education and government publications from 1945 (in the list promulgated in 1981) to 2136 In response to these changes, this second edition has been prepared While care has been taken in the preparation of this work, any errors and omissions remain the responsibility of the authors 01 FM_GR Jpn KJ.indd 9/30/15 6:04 PM Acknowledgments Thanks are due to Ogino Masayoshi, Lecturer in Japanese at the University of Canterbury, New Zealand, for his assistance with installation of software for the electronic version of the Kangxi zidian dictionary, one of the pre-modern Chinese character dictionaries referred to in compiling this book Thanks also to Kazuko Seeley for her on-call status as unofficial consultant for a number of tricky points relating to Japanese language Last but not least, recognition is due to Tuttle’s senior editor Cathy Layne and the Tuttle team for their painstaking work on this book at the production stage 01 FM_GR Jpn KJ.indd 9/30/15 6:04 PM Introduction The focus of this book is on giving etymologies together with mnemonics for each of the 2,136 characters that make up the 改定常用漢字Kaitei Jōyō kanji ‘Revised General Use Characters’ officially adopted in Japan in 2010, replacing the earlier Jōyō kanji List of 1981 (1,945 characters) In setting out the etymologies, we need to go back to the origins of the kanji in China In consequence, to explain adequately some of the characters, considerable space is taken up referring to such things as values, customs, and technology in ancient China, all of which tend to reflect a very different world from the one we inhabit today Beginnings of the Chinese Script Some scholars regard Chinese writing as dating back to long before the Shang Dynasty (ca 16th–11th century BC), pointing to marks on pottery, for instance, but these are no more than isolated examples consisting of one or two signs of typically abstract shape which cannot be described with confidence as writing as opposed to something like owners’ marks 1.1 Oracle Bone Script (Ch 甲⾻⽂ jiaguwen, J 甲⾻⽂字 kōkotsu moji) The earliest stage of Chinese writing (and of the characters to be adopted much later by the Japanese) widely recognized among scholars is what is known as oracle bone script, sometimes referred to as OBI (for ‘oracle bone inscriptions’) This dates back to the later part of the Shang Dynasty The oracle bone script is so called because typically it is written on bones that were the shoulder blades of cattle, or sometimes on the underside of turtle shells These were flattish surfaces which were reasonably easy to use for writing A knifelike instrument was used to scratch characters or graphs (these two words are used with the same meaning in this book) on the bone or shell surface, hence the angular appearance at this stage In some cases, a text was written first onto the bone with a 01 FM_GR Jpn KJ.indd 10/28/15 1:54 PM .. .THE COMPLETE GUIDE TO Japanese Kanji 01 FM_GR Jpn KJ.indd 9/30/15 6:04 PM THE COMPLETE GUIDE TO Japanese Kanji REMEMBERING AND UNDERSTANDING THE 2,136 STANDARD CHARACTERS 漢 字完 全ガイド CHRISTOPHER... earlier Jōyō kanji List of 1981 (1,945 characters) In setting out the etymologies, we need to go back to the origins of the kanji in China In consequence, to explain adequately some of the characters,... understood to mean just ‘winnowing basket’, leaving 其 to stand for probability/futurity The same process took place with 莫: to overcome the ambiguity of this graph when it had come to mean either