KANJI
Literally 'Han Characters', Kanji are ideographic chinese characters adopted by the Japanese, and first introduced in the 5th century. Each character has it's own meaning , and by combining characters one creates new meanings. For example 雨(ame) meaning 'rain' and 水(mizu) meaning 'water', can be combined to form 雨水(amamizu) 'rainwater'.
Before kanji was introduced to the Japanese there was no writing system in Japan. Knowledge of 2000 to 3000 kanji is required in order to understand a Japanese newspaper, however there are over 10,000 kanji in all. Kanji characters are made up of radicals, some of which are shown below. [image credit: tofugu.com] |