are those words in the Japanese language composed of Chinese

morpheme A morpheme is the smallest meaningful constituent of a linguistic expression. The field of linguistic study dedicated to morphemes is called morphology. In English, morphemes are often but not necessarily words. Morphemes that stand alone are ...

s but invented in Japan rather than borrowed from China. Such terms are generally written using

kanji are the logographic Chinese characters taken from the Chinese family of scripts, Chinese script and used in the writing of Japanese language, Japanese. They were made a major part of the Japanese writing system during the time of Old Japanese ...

and read according to the ''

on'yomi are the logographic Chinese characters taken from the Chinese script and used in the writing of Japanese. They were made a major part of the Japanese writing system during the time of Old Japanese and are still used, along with the subsequ ...

'' pronunciations of the characters. While many words belong to the shared

Sino-Japanese vocabulary Sino-Japanese vocabulary, also known as refers to Japanese vocabulary that had originated in Chinese or were created from elements borrowed from Chinese. Some grammatical structures and sentence patterns can also be identified as Sino-Japanese. S ...

, some ''kango'' do not exist in Chinese while others have a substantially different meaning from Chinese; however some words have been borrowed back to Chinese.

Meiji era

During the

Meiji Restoration The , referred to at the time as the , and also known as the Meiji Renovation, Revolution, Regeneration, Reform, or Renewal, was a political event that restored practical imperial rule to Japan in 1868 under Emperor Meiji. Although there were ...

, Japanese words were invented ''en masse'' to represent western concepts such as or . Towards the end of the 19th century, many of these terms were re-imported into Chinese. Some consider that as the form of the words entirely resembles that of native Chinese words in most cases, Chinese speakers often fail to recognize that they were actually coined in Japan. However, some scholars argue that many of those terms, which were considered as ''Wasei-kango'' by some people, were in fact created by Chinese and Western scholars. During the 19th century, officials from Japan had been purchasing Sino-English dictionaries such as "

A Dictionary of the Chinese Language ''A Dictionary of the Chinese Language, in Three Parts'' or ''Morrison's Chinese dictionary'' (1815-1823), compiled by the Anglo-Scottish missionary Robert Morrison was the first Chinese-English, English-Chinese dictionary. Part I is Chinese-Engli ...

(1822)", "An English and Chinese Vocabulary in Court Dialect (1844)" and "Vocabulary and Handbook of the Chinese Language (1872)" from China in order to absorb Western civilization.陳力衛《語詞的漂移：近代以來中日之間的知識互動與共有》,〈學苑〉, 2007-05-29

History

Pre-Meiji period

Since antiquity, the Japanese have supplemented their native vocabulary, known as ''

yamato kotoba are native Japanese words, meaning those words in Japanese that have been inherited from Old Japanese, rather than being borrowed at some stage. Together with kango () and gairaigo (), they form one of the three main sources of Japanese word ...

'', by borrowing many words from Chinese. After integrating the Chinese words into their vocabulary, they began creating their own ''kango''. One source of ''wasei-kango'' is the reinterpretation of ''yamato kotoba'' via ''on'yomi'' readings of the characters as opposed to the original ''

kun'yomi are the logographic Chinese characters taken from the Chinese script and used in the writing of Japanese. They were made a major part of the Japanese writing system during the time of Old Japanese and are still used, along with the subsequen ...

''. For example, the archaic word for Japan, (), has become the modern ( or ). Another example is the word for

daikon Daikon or mooli, ''Raphanus sativus'' var. ''longipinnatus,'' is a mild-flavored winter radish usually characterized by fast-growing leaves and a long, white, root. Originally native to continental East Asia, daikon is harvested and consumed ...

, , which changed from to . Sometimes, an inversion of the character order is necessary, as in the construction of from , for anger. Terms have also been coined for concepts in Japanese culture such as

geisha {{Culture of Japan, Traditions, Geisha {{nihongo, Geisha, 芸者 ({{IPAc-en, ˈ, ɡ, eɪ, ʃ, ə; {{IPA-ja, ɡeːɕa, lang), also known as {{nihongo, , 芸子, geiko (in Kyoto and Kanazawa) or {{nihongo, , 芸妓, geigi, are a class of female J ...

(),

ninja A or was a covert agent or mercenary in feudal Japan. The functions of a ninja included reconnaissance, espionage, infiltration, deception, ambush, bodyguarding and their fighting skills in martial arts, including ninjutsu.Kawakami, pp. 2 ...

(), or

kaishaku A ''kaishakunin'' ( ja, 介錯人) is a person appointed to behead an individual who has performed seppuku, Japanese ritual suicide, at the moment of agony. The role played by the ''kaishakunin'' is called ''kaishaku''. Aside from being spared p ...

().

Meiji Restoration

As Western influence began to take hold in Japan during the 19th-century

, Japanese scholars discovered that they needed new words to translate the concepts imported from Europe. As

Natsume Sōseki , born , was a Japanese novelist. He is best known around the world for his novels ''Kokoro'', ''Botchan'', ''I Am a Cat'', '' Kusamakura'' and his unfinished work '' Light and Darkness''. He was also a scholar of British literature and writer ...

once wrote in his diary, or in English, "Law governs the human world as the natural world." Eventually, once these European concepts became fully naturalized in the Japanese worldview, it became possible to write the above sentence as it would be in modern Japanese: Japanese officials and scholars also imported new terms coined by Chinese and Western scholars from Sino-English dictionaries from China. Many of these terms are still commonly being used by both countries nowadays.陳力衛《語詞的漂移：近代以來中日之間的知識互動與共有》,〈學苑〉, 2007-05-29 Sometimes, existing words were repurposed to translate these new concepts. For example, was a

Classical Chinese Classical Chinese, also known as Literary Chinese (古文 ''gǔwén'' "ancient text", or 文言 ''wényán'' "text speak", meaning "literary language/speech"; modern vernacular: 文言文 ''wényánwén'' "text speak text", meaning "literar ...

Buddhist Buddhism ( , ), also known as Buddha Dharma and Dharmavinaya (), is an Indian religion or philosophical tradition based on teachings attributed to the Buddha. It originated in northern India as a -movement in the 5th century BCE, and ...

term which became the modern word for "world" and which came from " 欽定千叟宴詩". Other words were completely new creations such as and . The majority of ''wasei-kango'' were created during this period. In a twist of irony, following the Meiji Restoration and Japanese victory in the

First Sino-Japanese War The First Sino-Japanese War (25 July 1894 – 17 April 1895) was a conflict between China and Japan primarily over influence in Korea. After more than six months of unbroken successes by Japanese land and naval forces and the loss of the ...

, many of these terms found their way into the modern Chinese, Korean and Vietnamese languages where they remain today. For example, in the People's Republic of China's official name , (''kyōwakoku'', republic) is a wasei-kango (in which "共和" had a different meaning in Chinese before such translation was made), as well as (''kyōsantō'', communists' party).

Notes

References

* Robert Morrison "

" (1822): ''使徒, 審判, 法律, 醫學, 自然的, 新聞, 精神, 単位, 行為, 言語'' *

Samuel Wells Williams Samuel Wells Williams (22 September 1812 – 16 February 1884) was a linguist, official, missionary and Sinologist from the United States in the early 19th century. Early life Williams was born in Utica, New York, son of William Williams (178 ...

"An English and Chinese Vocabulary in Court Dialect" (1844): ''內閣, 選舉, 新聞紙, 文法, 領事'' *

Walter Henry Medhurst Walter Henry Medhurst (29 April 179624 January 1857), was an English Congregationalist missionary to China, born in London and educated at St Paul's School. He was one of the early translators of the Bible into Chinese-language editions. Earl ...

"English and Chinese Dictionary" (1847-1848): ''知識, 幹事, 物質, 偶然, 教養, 天主, 小說, 本質'' * Wilhelm Lobscheid "English and Chinese Dictionary, with Punti and Mandarin Pronunciation" (1866-1869): ''蛋白質, 銀行, 幻想, 想像, 保險, 文學, 元帥, 原理, 右翼, 法則, 戀愛、讀者'' *

Justus Doolittle Justus Doolittle (; Pinyin: ''Lú Gōngmíng''; Foochow Romanized: ''Lù Gŭng-mìng''; June 23, 1824, Rutland, New York - June 15, 1880, Clinton, New York) was an American Board missionary to China. Life Justus Doolittle was born in Rutland, New ...