If you have heard of Japanese script called Kanji you have to understand that it has its origins in China. The characters from Chinese symbol are throughout obvious in the Japanese script as we see it now in their logographic style of writing. In fact once you translate the Kanji script you will find characters from Chinese Hans symbols.
How come the Kanji script today belongs to Japan if it had its origin in China? The entire thing was the result of the trade followed by the two countries where Japan would import Chinese items with Hans script labeled on them.
The history bears confirmation to this fact from many examples such as the Han dynasty ruler had presented a gold seal with Hans' inscription to the Japanese. What we still wonder is that how and when the Hans characters were started to be used in Japan and developed.
The most probable story is that the first people to make use of the Chinese Kanji script symbols in Japan were actually Chinese immigrants. Otherwise the Japanese had no real means of understanding or comprehending and even learning the Chinese script.
As time passed the China and Japan developed friendly relations in trade and otherwise which required written documents going from one country to the other. In such circumstances it was a requirement that the Chinese language should be understood by Japanese and a board of people called Fuhito was taught to handle the paper work from China. This could be the most plausible reason how Chinese Kanji script landed up in Japan and later evolved.
Chinese Kanji script carried the idea of formal writing script in Japan which did not have one at that time. They began to use Chinese script for writing initially and slowly shaped their own writing system with things taken from the Chinese script and then reshaping them to fit the Japanese grammar.
The Japanese adopted the Chinese symbol characters in their script and wrote the Japanese language with Chinese symbol naming it as Kana syllable. It was a distinct accomplishment as far as Japanese script was concerned. To further the easy acceptance of their script the Japanese introduced phonetics in their script where as in China Chinese symbols had no phonetics whatsoever.
Where the Kanji script is concerned it is used more extensively in China than in Japan. But one fact that should be kept in mind is the style of both the scripts are quite different. On the surface they may look similar but they are structurally quite dissimilar.
The reading method of the Kanji script in both China and Japan are also different. In China this script is treated entirely as symbols and as such has no phonetic value where as in Japan it is read according to their phonetics as we have already discussed.
How come the Kanji script today belongs to Japan if it had its origin in China? The entire thing was the result of the trade followed by the two countries where Japan would import Chinese items with Hans script labeled on them.
The history bears confirmation to this fact from many examples such as the Han dynasty ruler had presented a gold seal with Hans' inscription to the Japanese. What we still wonder is that how and when the Hans characters were started to be used in Japan and developed.
The most probable story is that the first people to make use of the Chinese Kanji script symbols in Japan were actually Chinese immigrants. Otherwise the Japanese had no real means of understanding or comprehending and even learning the Chinese script.
As time passed the China and Japan developed friendly relations in trade and otherwise which required written documents going from one country to the other. In such circumstances it was a requirement that the Chinese language should be understood by Japanese and a board of people called Fuhito was taught to handle the paper work from China. This could be the most plausible reason how Chinese Kanji script landed up in Japan and later evolved.
Chinese Kanji script carried the idea of formal writing script in Japan which did not have one at that time. They began to use Chinese script for writing initially and slowly shaped their own writing system with things taken from the Chinese script and then reshaping them to fit the Japanese grammar.
The Japanese adopted the Chinese symbol characters in their script and wrote the Japanese language with Chinese symbol naming it as Kana syllable. It was a distinct accomplishment as far as Japanese script was concerned. To further the easy acceptance of their script the Japanese introduced phonetics in their script where as in China Chinese symbols had no phonetics whatsoever.
Where the Kanji script is concerned it is used more extensively in China than in Japan. But one fact that should be kept in mind is the style of both the scripts are quite different. On the surface they may look similar but they are structurally quite dissimilar.
The reading method of the Kanji script in both China and Japan are also different. In China this script is treated entirely as symbols and as such has no phonetic value where as in Japan it is read according to their phonetics as we have already discussed.
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