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Furigana
is a Japanese reading aid consisting of smaller kana or syllabic characters printed either above or next to kanji (logographic characters) or other characters to indicate their pronunciation. It is one type of ruby text. Furigana is also known as and in Japanese. In modern Japanese, it is usually used to gloss rare kanji, to clarify rare, nonstandard or ambiguous kanji readings, or in children's or learners' materials. Before the post-World War II script reforms, it was more widespread. Furigana is most often written in hiragana, though in certain cases it may be written in katakana, Roman alphabet letters or in other, simpler kanji. In vertical text, '' tategaki'', the furigana is placed to the right of the line of text; in horizontal text, '' yokogaki'', it is placed above the line of text, as illustrated below. or These examples spell the word ''kanji'', which is made up of two kanji characters: (''kan'', written in hiragana as ) and (''ji'', written in hirag ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
振り仮名
is a Japanese reading aid consisting of smaller kana or syllabic characters printed either above or next to kanji (logographic characters) or other characters to indicate their pronunciation. It is one type of ruby text. Furigana is also known as and in Japanese. In modern Japanese, it is usually used to gloss rare kanji, to clarify rare, nonstandard or ambiguous kanji readings, or in children's or learners' materials. Before the post-World War II script reforms, it was more widespread. Furigana is most often written in hiragana, though in certain cases it may be written in katakana, Roman alphabet letters or in other, simpler kanji. In vertical text, ''tategaki'', the furigana is placed to the right of the line of text; in horizontal text, '' yokogaki'', it is placed above the line of text, as illustrated below. or These examples spell the word ''kanji'', which is made up of two kanji characters: (''kan'', written in hiragana as ) and (''ji'', written in hiragana ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kanji
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 subsequently-derived syllabic scripts of '' hiragana'' and '' katakana''. The characters have Japanese pronunciations; most have two, with one based on the Chinese sound. A few characters were invented in Japan by constructing character components derived from other Chinese characters. After World War II, Japan made its own efforts to simplify the characters, now known as shinjitai, by a process similar to China's simplification efforts, with the intention to increase literacy among the common folk. Since the 1920s, the Japanese government has published character lists periodically to help direct the education of its citizenry through the myriad Chinese characters that exist. There are nearly 3,000 kanji used in Japanese names and in comm ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jukujikun
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 subsequently-derived syllabic scripts of ''hiragana'' and ''katakana''. The characters have Japanese pronunciations; most have two, with one based on the Chinese sound. A few characters were invented in Japan by constructing character components derived from other Chinese characters. After World War II, Japan made its own efforts to simplify the characters, now known as shinjitai, by a process similar to China's simplification efforts, with the intention to increase literacy among the common folk. Since the 1920s, the Japanese government has published character lists periodically to help direct the education of its citizenry through the myriad Chinese characters that exist. There are nearly 3,000 kanji used in Japanese names and in common commu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ruby Character
Ruby characters or rubi characters () are small, annotative glosses that are usually placed above or to the right of logographic characters of languages in the East Asian cultural sphere, such as Chinese ''hanzi'', Japanese ''kanji'', and Korean ''hanja'', to show the logographs' pronunciation; these were formerly also used for Vietnamese '' hán tự'' and ''chữ nôm'', and may still occasionally be seen in that context when reading archaic texts. Typically called just ruby or rubi, such annotations are most commonly used as pronunciation guides for characters that are likely to be unfamiliar to the reader. Examples Here is an example of Japanese ruby characters (called ''furigana'') for Tokyo (""): Most are written with the ''hiragana'' syllabary, but ''katakana'' and ''romaji'' are also occasionally used. Alternatively, sometimes foreign words (usually English) are printed with furigana implying the meaning, and vice versa. Textbooks usually write on-readings with ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
ルビ
Ruby characters or rubi characters () are small, annotative glosses that are usually placed above or to the right of logographic characters of languages in the East Asian cultural sphere, such as Chinese ''hanzi'', Japanese ''kanji'', and Korean ''hanja'', to show the logographs' pronunciation; these were formerly also used for Vietnamese '' hán tự'' and ''chữ nôm'', and may still occasionally be seen in that context when reading archaic texts. Typically called just ruby or rubi, such annotations are most commonly used as pronunciation guides for characters that are likely to be unfamiliar to the reader. Examples Here is an example of Japanese ruby characters (called ''furigana'') for Tokyo (""): Most are written with the ''hiragana'' syllabary, but ''katakana'' and ''romaji'' are also occasionally used. Alternatively, sometimes foreign words (usually English) are printed with furigana implying the meaning, and vice versa. Textbooks usually write on-readings with ka ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Japanese Script Reform
The Japanese script reform is the attempt to correlate standard spoken Japanese with the written word, which began during the Meiji period. This issue is known in Japan as the . The reforms led to the development of the modern Japanese written language, and explain the arguments for official policies used to determine the usage and teaching of kanji rarely used in Japan. History Pre-World War II reforms A misconception is held that Japanese script reform originated from the Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers during the Occupation of Japan, but in fact, a plan had already been put into place prior to the occupation. Reform efforts date back to at least 1900, and proposals to reform kanji usage had been developed in the 1920s. In the 1900 kana usage reforms, hentaigana (old variant forms of kana) were eliminated, though historical kana orthography (dating to the Heian period, a millennium before) was retained. A separate character for ''n'' was also prescribed; previously ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Katakana
is a Japanese syllabary, one component of the Japanese writing system along with hiragana, kanji and in some cases the Latin script (known as rōmaji). The word ''katakana'' means "fragmentary kana", as the katakana characters are derived from components or fragments of more complex kanji. Katakana and hiragana are both kana systems. With one or two minor exceptions, each syllable (strictly mora) in the Japanese language is represented by one character or ''kana'' in each system. Each kana represents either a vowel such as "''a''" (katakana ア); a consonant followed by a vowel such as "''ka''" (katakana カ); or "''n''" (katakana ン), a nasal sonorant which, depending on the context, sounds either like English ''m'', ''n'' or ''ng'' () or like the nasal vowels of Portuguese or Galician. In contrast to the hiragana syllabary, which is used for Japanese words not covered by kanji and for grammatical inflections, the katakana syllabary usage is comparable to italics in E ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kana
The term may refer to a number of syllabaries used to write Japanese phonological units, morae. Such syllabaries include (1) the original kana, or , which were Chinese characters (kanji) used phonetically to transcribe Japanese, the most prominent magana system being ; the two descendants of man'yōgana, (2) , and (3) . There are also , which are historical variants of the now-standard hiragana. In current usage, 'kana' can simply mean ''hiragana'' and ''katakana''. Katakana, with a few additions, are also used to write Ainu. A number of systems exist to write the Ryūkyūan languages, in particular Okinawan, in hiragana. Taiwanese kana were used in Taiwanese Hokkien as glosses (ruby text or '' furigana'') for Chinese characters in Taiwan when it was under Japanese rule. Each kana character ( syllabogram) corresponds to one sound or whole syllable in the Japanese language, unlike kanji regular script, which corresponds to a meaning ( logogram). Apart from the five vo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Horizontal And Vertical Writing In East Asian Scripts
Many East Asian scripts can be written horizontally or vertically. Chinese, Japanese, Vietnamese Hán- Nôm and Korean scripts can be oriented along either axis, as they consist mainly of disconnected logographic or syllabic units, each occupying a square block of space, thus allowing for flexibility for which direction texts can be written, be it horizontally from left-to-right, horizontally from right-to-left, vertically from top-to-bottom, and even vertically from bottom-to-top. Traditionally, Chinese, Japanese, Vietnamese and Korean are written vertically in columns going from top to bottom and ordered from right to left, with each new column starting to the left of the preceding one. The stroke order and stroke direction of Chinese characters (''hanzi'' in Chinese, ''kanji'' in Japanese, chữ Hán in Vietnamese and ''hanja'' in Korean), Japanese kana, Vietnamese chữ Nôm and Korean Hangul all facilitate writing in this manner. In addition, writing in vertical co ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Japanese Language
is spoken natively by about 128 million people, primarily by Japanese people and primarily in Japan, the only country where it is the national language. Japanese belongs to the Japonic or Japanese- Ryukyuan language family. There have been many attempts to group the Japonic languages with other families such as the Ainu, Austroasiatic, Koreanic, and the now-discredited Altaic, but none of these proposals has gained widespread acceptance. Little is known of the language's prehistory, or when it first appeared in Japan. Chinese documents from the 3rd century AD recorded a few Japanese words, but substantial Old Japanese texts did not appear until the 8th century. From the Heian period (794–1185), there was a massive influx of Sino-Japanese vocabulary into the language, affecting the phonology of Early Middle Japanese. Late Middle Japanese (1185–1600) saw extensive grammatical changes and the first appearance of European loanwords. The basis of the standard dial ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gairaigo
is Japanese for "loan word", and indicates a transcription into Japanese. In particular, the word usually refers to a Japanese word of foreign origin that was not borrowed in ancient times from Old or Middle Chinese (especially Literary Chinese), but in modern times, primarily from English, Portuguese, Dutch, and modern Chinese dialects, such as Standard Chinese and Cantonese. These are primarily written in the katakana phonetic script, with a few older terms written in Chinese characters (kanji); the latter are known as ateji. Japanese has many loan words from Chinese, accounting for a sizeable fraction of the language. These words were borrowed during ancient times and are written in ''kanji''. Modern Chinese loanwords are generally considered ''gairaigo'' and written in ''katakana'', or sometimes written in ''kanji'' (either with the more familiar word as a base text gloss and the intended ''katakana'' as furigana or vice versa); pronunciation of modern Chinese loanwor ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
