103-1174: (Redirected from Soji ) Sōji Gender Male Origin Word/name Japanese Meaning Different meanings depending on the kanji used Sōji , Soji , Souji or Sohji (written: 総司, 惣司 or 荘司) is a masculine Japanese given name. Notable people with the name include: People [ edit ] Soji Kashiwagi (born 1962), American journalist and playwright Soji Shimada ( 島田 荘司 , born 1948) , Japanese writer Okita Sōji ( 沖田 総司 , 1842 or 1844 – 1868) , Japanese swordsman and Shinsengumi captain Sōji Yoshikawa ( 吉川 惣司 , born 1947) , Japanese anime director and screenwriter Fictional characters [ edit ] Souji Tendou ( 天道 総司 ) , fictional character from Kamen Rider Kabuto Souji "Soushi" Yukimi, fictional character from Soar High! Isami Souji Seta, fictional character from Megami Tensei Soji Asha , from Star Trek: Picard [REDACTED] Name list This page or section lists people that share
206-413: A kun -reading) ; kun -only are common for Japanese-coined kanji ( kokuji ). Some common kanji have ten or more possible readings; the most complex common example is 生 , which is read as sei , shō , nama , ki , o-u , i-kiru , i-kasu , i-keru , u-mu , u-mareru , ha-eru , and ha-yasu , totaling eight basic readings (the first two are on , while
309-536: A ⟨g⟩ element to encode any non-standard character or glyph, including gaiji. The g stands for gaiji . There is no definitive count of kanji characters, just as there is none of Chinese characters generally. The Dai Kan-Wa Jiten , which is considered to be comprehensive in Japan, contains about 50,000 characters. The Zhonghua Zihai , published in 1994 in China, contains about 85,000 characters, but
412-737: A label for its sound), kanji are also called mana ( 真名 , literally "true name", in reference to the character being used as a label for its meaning). In modern Japanese, kanji are used to write certain words or parts of words (usually content words such as nouns , adjective stems , and verb stems ), while hiragana are used to write inflected verb and adjective endings, phonetic complements to disambiguate readings ( okurigana ), particles , and miscellaneous words which have no kanji or whose kanji are considered obscure or too difficult to read or remember. Katakana are mostly used for representing onomatopoeia , non-Japanese loanwords (except those borrowed from ancient Chinese ),
515-454: A long gairaigo word may be the reading (this is classed as kun'yomi —see single character gairaigo , below)—the character 糎 has the seven kana reading センチメートル senchimētoru "centimeter", though it is generally written as "cm" (with two half-width characters, so occupying one space); another common example is '%' (the percent sign), which has the five kana reading パーセント pāsento . There are many kanji compounds that use
618-614: A mixture of on'yomi and kun'yomi , known as jūbako ( 重箱 , multi-layered food box) or yutō ( 湯桶 , hot liquid pail) words (depending on the order), which are themselves examples of this kind of compound (they are autological words ): the first character of jūbako is read using on'yomi , the second kun'yomi ( on-kun , Japanese : 重箱読み ). It is the other way around with yu-tō ( kun-on , Japanese : 湯桶読み ). Formally, these are referred to as jūbako-yomi ( 重箱読み , jūbako reading) and yutō-yomi ( 湯桶読み , yutō reading) . In both these words,
721-430: A new kanji spelling is produced. Most often the word is a noun, which may be a simple noun (not a compound or derived from a verb), or may be a verb form or a fusional pronunciation. For example, the word 相撲 ( sumō , “ sumo ”) is originally from the verb 争う ( sumau , “to vie, to compete”), while 今日 ( kyō , “today”) is fusional (from older ke , “this” + fu , “day”). In rare cases, jukujikun
824-520: A number of Chinese characters for their sound, rather than for their meaning. Man'yōgana written in cursive style evolved into hiragana (literally "fluttering kana " in reference to the motion of the brush during cursive writing), or onna-de , that is, "ladies' hand", a writing system that was accessible to women (who were denied higher education ). Major works of Heian-era literature by women were written in hiragana . Katakana (literally "partial kana ", in reference to
927-729: A particular social context (even if that context is "school"), and, after print acquisition, every instance of reading or writing will be for a specific purpose and occasion with particular readers and writers in mind. Reading and writing, therefore, are never separable from social and cultural elements. A corollary point made by David Barton and Rosalind Ivanić , among others, is that the cognitive and societal effects of acquiring literacy are not easily predictable, since, as Brian Street has argued, "the ways in which people address reading and writing are themselves rooted in conceptions of knowledge, identity, and being." Consequently, as Jack Goody has documented, historically, literacy has included
1030-407: A precursor to early cuneiform writing once people began recording information on clay tablets. Proto-Cuneiform texts exhibit not only numerical signs but also ideograms depicting objects being counted. Though the traditional view had been that cuneiform literacy was restricted to a class of scribes, assyriologists including Claus Wilcke and Dominique Charpin have argued that functional literacy
1133-531: A problem for information interchange, as the code point used to represent an external character will not be consistent from one computer or operating system to another. Gaiji were nominally prohibited in JIS X 0208-1997 where the available number of code-points was reduced to only 940. JIS X 0213-2000 used the entire range of code-points previously allocated to gaiji , making them completely unusable. Most desktop and mobile systems have moved to Unicode negating
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#17329139065531236-621: A resurgence as a result, and by the 15th century, paper was widespread. The Reformation stressed the importance of literacy and being able to read the Bible. The Protestant countries were the first to attain full literacy. In a more secular context, inspired by the Enlightenment , Sweden implemented programs in 1723 aimed at making the population fully literate. Other countries implemented similar measures at this time. These included Denmark in 1739, Poland in 1783, and France in 1794/5. Literacy
1339-416: A single word will have many such kanji spellings. An extreme example is hototogisu ( lesser cuckoo ) , which may be spelt in many ways, including 杜鵑 , 時鳥 , 子規 , 不如帰 , 霍公鳥 , 蜀魂 , 沓手鳥 , 杜宇 , 田鵑 , 沓直鳥 , and 郭公 —many of these variant spellings are particular to haiku poems. Literacy Literacy is the ability to read and write. Some researchers suggest that
1442-450: A surname). This phenomenon is observed in animal names that are shortened and used as suffixes for zoological compound names, for example when 黄金虫 , normally read as koganemushi , is shortened to kogane in 黒黄金虫 kurokogane , although zoological names are commonly spelled with katakana rather than with kanji. Outside zoology, this type of shortening only occurs on a handful of words, for example 大元帥 daigen(sui) , or
1545-668: A total of 2,528 characters, showing the standard for kanji used by ministries and agencies and in general society. In 1946, after World War II and under the Allied Occupation of Japan , the Japanese government, guided by the Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers , instituted a series of orthographic reforms, to help children learn and to simplify kanji use in literature and periodicals. The number of characters in circulation
1648-427: Is jukujikun for tonakai , from Ainu, but the on'yomi reading of junroku is also used. In some cases, Japanese coinages have subsequently been borrowed back into Chinese , such as 鮟鱇 ( ankō , “ monkfish ”). The underlying word for jukujikun is a native Japanese word or foreign borrowing, which either does not have an existing kanji spelling (either kun'yomi or ateji ) or for which
1751-450: Is a reading based on the pronunciation of a native Japanese word, or yamato kotoba , that closely approximated the meaning of the Chinese character when it was introduced. As with on'yomi , there can be multiple kun'yomi for the same kanji, and some kanji have no kun'yomi at all. Ateji ( 当て字 ) are characters used only for their sounds. In this case, pronunciation
1854-534: Is also applied to inflectional words (verbs and adjectives), in which case there is frequently a corresponding Chinese word. The most common example of an inflectional jukujikun is the adjective 可愛い ( kawai-i , “cute”), originally kawafayu-i ; the word ( 可愛 ) is used in Chinese , but the corresponding on'yomi is not used in Japanese. By contrast, "appropriate" can be either 相応しい ( fusawa-shii , as jukujikun ) or 相応 ( sōō , as on'yomi ). Which reading to use can be discerned by
1957-453: Is also gaining momentum. The traditional concept of literacy widened as a consensus emerged among researchers in composition studies , education research , and anthropological linguistics that it makes little sense to speak of reading or writing outside of a specific context, with linguist James Paul Gee describing it as "simply incoherent." For example, even the extremely early stages of acquiring mastery over symbol shapes take place in
2060-482: Is concentrated among younger people," along with increased rates among rural populations and women. This evidence indicates that illiteracy is a complex phenomenon with multiple factors impacting rates of illiteracy and the type of illiteracy one may experience. Literacy has rapidly spread in several regions in the last twenty-five years, and the United Nations's global initiative with Sustainable Development Goal 4
2163-567: Is determined by contextual cues (such as whether the character represents part of a compound word versus an independent word), the exact intended meaning of the word, and its position within the sentence. For example, 今日 is mostly read kyō , meaning "today", but in formal writing it is instead read konnichi , meaning "nowadays", which is understood from context. Furigana is used to specify ambiguous readings, such as rare, literary, or otherwise non-standard readings. This ambiguity may arise due to more than one reading becoming activated in
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#17329139065532266-597: Is different from Wikidata All set index articles Kanji Kanji ( 漢字 , Japanese pronunciation: [kaɲdʑi] ) are the logographic Chinese characters adapted from the Chinese script 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
2369-593: Is more consistent with an early form of Canaanite that was used c. 1100 BCE . While the earliest Greek inscriptions are dated circa 8th century BCE, epigraphical comparisons to Proto-Canaanite suggest that the Greeks may have adopted the consonantal alphabet as early as 1100 BCE and later "added in five characters to represent vowels". Phoenician, which is considered to contain the first linear alphabet, rapidly spread to Mediterranean port cities in northern Canaan. Some archeologists believe that Phoenician influenced
2472-435: Is part of spatial, audio, and visual patterns (Rhodes & Robnolt, 2009)". Objections have been raised that this concept downplays the importance of reading instruction that focuses on "alphabetic representations". However, these are not mutually exclusive , as children can become proficient in word-reading while engaging with multiliteracies. Word reading is fundamental for multiple forms of communication. Beginning in
2575-953: Is still based on a standard reading, or used only for meaning (broadly a form of ateji , narrowly jukujikun ). Therefore, only the full compound—not the individual character—has a reading. There are also special cases where the reading is completely different, often based on a historical or traditional reading. The analogous phenomenon occurs to a much lesser degree in Chinese varieties , where there are literary and colloquial readings of Chinese characters —borrowed readings and native readings. In Chinese these borrowed readings and native readings are etymologically related, since they are between Chinese varieties (which are related), not from Chinese to Japanese (which are not related). They thus form doublets and are generally similar, analogous to different on'yomi , reflecting different stages of Chinese borrowings into Japanese. Longer readings exist for non- Jōyō characters and non-kanji symbols, where
2678-516: The Nihon Shoki and Kojiki , a semi-legendary scholar called Wani was dispatched to Japan by the (Korean) Kingdom of Baekje during the reign of Emperor Ōjin in the early fifth century, bringing with him knowledge of Confucianism and Chinese characters. The earliest Japanese documents were probably written by bilingual Chinese or Korean officials employed at the Yamato court. For example,
2781-406: The kyōiku kanji, plus 1,110 additional kanji taught in junior high and high school. In publishing, characters outside this category are often given furigana . The jōyō kanji were introduced in 1981, replacing an older list of 1,850 characters known as the tōyō kanji ( 当用漢字 , general-use kanji) , introduced in 1946. Originally numbering 1,945 characters, the jōyō kanji list
2884-474: The on'yomi has a long vowel; long vowels in Japanese generally are derived from sound changes common to loans from Chinese, hence distinctive of on'yomi . These are the Japanese form of hybrid words . Other examples include basho ( 場所 , "place", kun-on , 湯桶読み ) , kin'iro ( 金色 , "golden", on-kun , 重箱読み ) and aikidō ( 合気道 , the martial art Aikido ", kun-on-on , 湯桶読み ) . Ateji often use mixed readings. For instance,
2987-510: The Harappa culture. Existing evidence suggests that most early acts of literacy were, in some areas (such as Egypt), closely tied to power and chiefly used for management practices, and probably less than 1% of the population was literate, as it was confined to a very small group. Scholarship by others, such as Dominique Charpin and a project from the European Union , however, suggest that this
3090-651: The Latin alphabet , Cyrillic script , Greek alphabet , Arabic numerals , etc. for use in information processing. They have had numerous revisions. The current standards are: Gaiji ( 外字 , literally "external characters") are kanji that are not represented in existing Japanese encoding systems . These include variant forms of common kanji that need to be represented alongside the more conventional glyph in reference works and can include non-kanji symbols as well. Gaiji can be either user-defined characters, system-specific characters or third-party add-on products. Both are
3193-441: The ancient Semitic-speaking peoples of northern Canaan invented the consonantal alphabet as early as 1500 BCE. Much of this theory's development is credited to English archeologist Flinders Petrie , who, in 1905, came across a series of Canaanite inscriptions in the turquoise mines of Serabit el-Khadem . Ten years later, English Egyptologist Alan Gardiner reasoned that these letters contain an alphabet as well as references to
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3296-572: The 1,026 first kanji characters that Japanese children learn in elementary school, from first grade to sixth grade. The grade-level breakdown is known as the gakunen-betsu kanji haitōhyō ( 学年別漢字配当表 ) , or the gakushū kanji ( 学習漢字 ) . This list of kanji is maintained by the Japanese Ministry of Education and prescribes which kanji characters and which kanji readings students should learn for each grade. The jōyō kanji ( 常用漢字 , regular-use kanji) are 2,136 characters consisting of all
3399-460: The 1940s, the term literacy has often been used to mean having knowledge or skill in a particular field, such as: Functional illiteracy relates to adults and has been defined in different ways: Functional illiteracy is distinguished from primary illiteracy (i.e., the inability to read and write a short, simple statement concerning one's own everyday life) and learning difficulties (e.g., dyslexia ). These categories have been contested—as has
3502-570: The 1990s suggests that this shift in understanding from "discrete skill" to "social practice" is both ongoing and uneven. Some definitions remain fairly closely aligned with the traditional "ability to read and write" connotation, whereas others take a broader view: The concept of multiliteracies has gained currency, particularly in English Language Arts curricula, on the grounds that reading "is interactive and informative, and occurs in ever-increasingly technological settings where information
3605-565: The 4th and 5th centuries, the Church made efforts to ensure a better clergy, especially the bishops, who were expected to have a classical education—the hallmark of a socially acceptable person in higher society. Even after the remnants of the Western Roman Empire fell in the 470s, literacy continued to be a distinguishing mark of the elite, as communication skills were still important in political and church life (bishops were largely drawn from
3708-493: The 5th century AD and has since had a profound influence in shaping Japanese culture, language, literature, history, and records. Inkstone artifacts at archaeological sites dating back to the earlier Yayoi period were also found to contain Chinese characters. Although some characters, as used in Japanese and Chinese, have similar meanings and pronunciations, others have meanings or pronunciations that are unique to one language or
3811-481: The 7th century, a record of trading for cloth and salt. The Japanese language had no written form at the time Chinese characters were introduced, and texts were written and read only in Chinese. Later, during the Heian period (794–1185), a system known as kanbun emerged, which involved using Chinese text with diacritical marks to allow Japanese speakers to read Chinese sentences and restructure them into Japanese on
3914-463: The Apostles' epistles or some other part of Scripture. And if he is illiterate he shall go at the first, third and sixth hours to someone who can teach and has been appointed for him. He shall stand before him and learn very studiously and with all gratitude. The fundamentals of a syllable, the verbs and nouns shall all be written for him and even if he does not want to he shall be compelled to read. During
4017-462: The Canaanite goddess Asherah . In 1948, William F. Albright deciphered the text using new evidence, including a series of inscriptions from Ugarit . Discovered in 1929 by French archaeologist Claude F. A. Schaeffer , some of these inscriptions were mythological texts (written in an early Canaanite dialect) that consisted of a 30-letter cuneiform consonantal alphabet. Another significant discovery
4120-610: The Chinese pronunciation but was not the Chinese pronunciation or reading itself, similar to the English pronunciation of Latin loanwords. There also exist kanji created by the Japanese and given an on'yomi reading despite not being a Chinese-derived or a Chinese-originating character. Some kanji were introduced from different parts of China at different times, and so have multiple on'yomi , and often multiple meanings. Kanji invented in Japan ( kokuji ) would not normally be expected to have on'yomi , but there are exceptions, such as
4223-539: The Chinese sound. A few characters were invented in Japan by constructing character components derived from other Chinese characters. After the Meiji Restoration , 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 general public. Since the 1920s, the Japanese government has published character lists periodically to help direct
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4326-587: The Hebrew and Aramaic alphabets, as these languages evolved during the same time period, share similar features, and are commonly categorized into the same language group. When the Israelites migrated to Canaan between 1200 and 1000 BCE, they adopted a variation of the Canaanite alphabet. Baruch ben Neriah , Jeremiah's scribe, used this alphabet to create the later scripts of the Old Testament . The early Hebrew alphabet
4429-419: The Japanese court. In ancient times, paper was so rare that people wrote kanji onto thin, rectangular strips of wood, called mokkan ( 木簡 ). These wooden boards were used for communication between government offices, tags for goods transported between various countries, and the practice of writing. The oldest written kanji in Japan discovered so far were written in ink on wood as a wooden strip dated to
4532-737: The Kingdom of Nabataea, then to the Sinai and Arabian peninsulas, eventually making its way to Africa; and east, where it later influenced the development of the Brahmi script in India. Over the next few centuries, Imperial Aramaic script in Persia evolved into Pahlavi , "as well as for a range of alphabets used by early Turkish and Mongol tribes in Siberia , Mongolia and Turkestan ". During this period, literacy spread among
4635-701: The Late Bronze Age , successor alphabets appeared throughout the Mediterranean region and were used in Phoenician , Hebrew , and Aramaic . According to Goody, these cuneiform scripts may have influenced the development of the Greek alphabet several centuries later. Historically, the Greeks contended that their writing system was modeled after the Phoenicians. However, many Semitic scholars now believe that Ancient Greek
4738-758: The Pacific , as well as Latin America and the Caribbean , have adult literacy rates over 90%. In other regions, illiteracy persists at higher rates; as of 2013, the adult literacy rate in South Asia and North Africa was 67.55% and 59.76% in Sub-Saharan Africa . In much of the world, high youth literacy rates suggest that illiteracy will become less common as more educated younger generations replace less educated older ones. However, in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, where
4841-468: The actions and judgments of government officials. Indus script is largely pictorial and has not yet been deciphered; as such, it is unknown whether it includes abstract signs. It is thought that they wrote from right to left and that the script is logographic . Because it has not been deciphered, linguists disagree on whether it is a complete and independent writing system; however, it is generally thought to be an independent writing system that emerged in
4944-429: The ancient Sumerians invented writing . During this era, literacy was "a largely functional matter, propelled by the need to manage the new quantities of information and the new type of governance created by trade and large scale production". Early writing systems first emerged as a recording system in which people used tokens with impressed markings to manage trade and agricultural production. The token system served as
5047-648: The benefits of literacy, some recent literature in economics, starting with the work of Kaushik Basu and James Foster, distinguishes between a "proximate illiterate" and an "isolated illiterate". A "proximate illiterate" lives in a household with literate members, while an "isolated illiterate" lives in a household where everyone is illiterate. Isolated illiteracy is more common among older populations in wealthier nations, where people are less likely to live in multigenerational households with potentially literate relatives. A 2018/2019 UNESCO report noted that "conversely, in low and lower middle income countries, isolated illiteracy
5150-508: The book and the register" and that "no one, either free or slave, could afford to be illiterate". Similarly, Dupont points out, "The written word was all around them, in both public and private life: laws, calendars, regulations at shrines, and funeral epitaphs were engraved in stone or bronze. The Republic amassed huge archives of reports on every aspect of public life." The imperial civilian administration produced masses of documentation used in judicial, fiscal, and administrative matters, as did
5253-417: The brain. Kanji readings are categorized as either on'yomi ( 音読み , literally "sound reading" ) , from Chinese, or kun'yomi ( 訓読み , literally "meaning reading" ) , native Japanese, and most characters have at least two readings—at least one of each. However, some characters have only a single reading, such as kiku ( 菊 , "chrysanthemum", an on -reading) or iwashi ( 鰯 , "sardine",
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#17329139065535356-687: The broader sense "nowadays" or "current", such as 今日的 ("present-day"), although in the phrase konnichi wa ("good day"), konnichi is typically spelled wholly with hiragana rather than with the kanji 今日 . Jukujikun are primarily used for some native Japanese words, such as Yamato ( 大和 or 倭 , the name of the dominant ethnic group of Japan, a former Japanese province as well as ancient name for Japan), and for some old borrowings, such as 柳葉魚 ( shishamo , literally "willow leaf fish") from Ainu, 煙草 ( tabako , literally “smoke grass”) from Portuguese, or 麦酒 ( bīru , literally “wheat alcohol”) from Dutch, especially if
5459-400: The character 働 "to work", which has the kun'yomi " hatara(ku) " and the on'yomi " dō ", and 腺 "gland", which has only the on'yomi " sen "—in both cases these come from the on'yomi of the phonetic component, respectively 動 " dō " and 泉 " sen ". The kun'yomi ( 訓読み , [kɯɰ̃jomi] , lit. "meaning reading") , the native reading,
5562-431: The characters' individual on'yomi or kun'yomi . From the point of view of the character, rather than the word, this is known as a nankun ( 難訓 , "difficult reading") , and these are listed in kanji dictionaries under the entry for the character. Gikun are other readings assigned to a character instead of its standard readings. An example is reading 寒 (meaning "cold") as fuyu ("winter") rather than
5665-514: The characters, and only infrequently as konchō , the on'yomi of the characters. The most common reading is kesa , a native bisyllabic Japanese word that may be seen as a single morpheme , or as a compound of ke (“this”, as in kefu , the older reading for 今日 , “today”), and asa , “morning”. Likewise, 今日 ("today") is also jukujikun , usually read with the native reading kyō ; its on'yomi , konnichi , does occur in certain words and expressions, especially in
5768-450: The city of Sapporo ( サッポロ ), whose name derives from the Ainu language and has no meaning in Japanese, is written with the on-kun compound [札幌] Error: {{Lang}}: invalid parameter: |4= ( help ) (which includes sokuon as if it were a purely on compound). Gikun ( 義訓 ) and jukujikun ( 熟字訓 ) are readings of kanji combinations that have no direct correspondence to
5871-705: The common people, both in town and country, are equally intense in their admiration. Frequently, have we seen the butcher-boy, with his tray on his shoulder, reading with the greatest avidity the last "Pickwick"; the footman (whose fopperies are so inimitably laid bare), the maidservant, the chimney sweep, all classes, in fact, read "Boz". From the mid-19th century onward, the Second Industrial Revolution saw technological improvements in paper production. The new distribution networks, enabled by improved roads and rail, resulted in an increased capacity to supply printed material. Social and educational changes increased
5974-466: The competition of the world. In the late 19th century, gas and electric lighting were becoming more common in private homes, replacing candlelight and oil lamps, enabling reading after dark and increasing the appeal of literacy. Data published by UNESCO shows that the worldwide literacy rate among adults has increased, on average, by 5 percentage points every decade since 1950, from 55.7% in 1950 to 86.2% in 2015. Due to rapid population growth , while
6077-555: The concept of "illiteracy" itself—for being predicated on narrow assumptions, primarily derived from school-based contexts, about what counts as reading and writing (e.g., comprehending and following instructions). Script is thought to have developed independently at least five times in human history: in Mesopotamia , Egypt , the Indus civilization , lowland Mesoamerica , and China . Between 3500 BCE and 3000 BCE, in southern Mesopotamia,
6180-525: The demand for reading matter, as rising literacy rates, particularly among the middle and working classes, created a new mass market for printed material. Wider schooling helped increase literacy rates, which in turn helped lower the cost of publication. Unskilled labor forces were common in Western Europe, and, as British industry improved, more engineers and skilled workers who could handle technical instructions and complex situations were needed. Literacy
6283-484: The diplomatic correspondence from King Bu of Wa to Emperor Shun of Liu Song in 478 AD has been praised for its skillful use of allusion . Later, groups of people called fuhito were organized under the monarch to read and write Classical Chinese . During the reign of Empress Suiko (593–628), the Yamato court began sending full-scale diplomatic missions to China, which resulted in a large increase in Chinese literacy at
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#17329139065536386-618: 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 communication . The term kanji in Japanese literally means " Han characters". It is written in Japanese by using the same characters as in traditional Chinese , and both refer to the character writing system known in Chinese as hanzi ( traditional Chinese : 漢字 ; simplified Chinese : 汉字 ; pinyin : hànzì ; lit. ' Han characters'). The significant use of Chinese characters in Japan first began to take hold around
6489-629: The elite. These oracle-bone inscriptions were the early ancestors of modern Chinese script and contained logosyllabic script and numerals. By the time of the consolidation of the Chinese Empire during the Qin and Han dynasties ( c. 200 BCE ), written documents were central to the formation and policing of a hierarchical bureaucratic governance structure reinforced through law. Within this legal order, written records kept track of and controlled citizen movements, created records of misdeeds, and documented
6592-574: The entire word—rather than each part of the word being centered over its corresponding character, as is often done for the usual phono-semantic readings. Broadly speaking, jukujikun can be considered a form of ateji , though in narrow usage, " ateji " refers specifically to using characters for sound and not meaning (sound-spelling), whereas " jukujikun " refers to using characters for their meaning and not sound (meaning-spelling). Many jukujikun (established meaning-spellings) began as gikun (improvised meaning-spellings). Occasionally,
6695-461: The first alphabetic system ( c. 750 BCE ) that used distinctive signs for consonants and vowels. Goody contests: The importance of Greek culture of the subsequent history of Western Europe has led to an over-emphasis, by classicists and others, on the addition of specific vowel signs to the set of consonantal ones that had been developed earlier in Western Asia. Many scholars argue that
6798-462: The fly, by changing word order and adding particles and verb endings, in accordance with the rules of Japanese grammar . This was essentially a kind of codified sight translation . Chinese characters also came to be used to write texts in the vernacular Japanese language , resulting in the modern kana syllabaries. Around 650 AD, a writing system called man'yōgana (used in the ancient poetry anthology Man'yōshū ) evolved that used
6901-433: The historical male name suffix 右衛門 -emon , which was shortened from the word uemon . The kanji compound for jukujikun is often idiosyncratic and created for the word, and there is no corresponding Chinese word with that spelling. In other cases, a kanji compound for an existing Chinese word is reused, where the Chinese word and on'yomi may or may not be used in Japanese. For example, 馴鹿 (“reindeer”)
7004-497: The lack of a suitable writing medium, as when the Western Roman Empire collapsed, the import of papyrus to Europe ceased. Since papyrus perishes easily and does not last well in the wetter European climate, parchment was used, which was expensive and accessible only by the church and the wealthy. Paper was introduced into Europe via Spain in the 11th century and spread north slowly over the next four centuries. Literacy saw
7107-412: The limitation of kanji. After the Meiji Restoration and as Japan entered an era of active exchange with foreign countries, the need for script reform in Japan began to be called for. Some scholars argued for the abolition of kanji and the writing of Japanese using only kana or Latin characters. However, these views were not so widespread. However, the need to limit the number of kanji characters
7210-705: The majority of them are not in common use in any country, and many are obscure variants or archaic forms. A list of 2,136 jōyō kanji is regarded as necessary for functional literacy in Japanese. Approximately a thousand more characters are commonly used and readily understood by the majority in Japan and a few thousand more find occasional use, particularly in specialized fields of study but those may be obscure to most out of context. A total of 13,108 characters can be encoded in various Japanese Industrial Standards for kanji . Individual kanji may be used to write one or more different words or morphemes , leading to different pronunciations or "readings." The correct reading
7313-420: The merchant classes, and 15-20% of the total population may have been literate. The Aramaic language declined with the spread of Islam , which was accompanied by the spread of Arabic . Until recently, it was thought that the majority of people were illiterate in the classical world, though recent work challenges this perception. Anthony DiRenzo asserts that Roman society was "a civilization based on
7416-488: The municipalities. The army kept extensive records relating to supply and duty rosters and submitted reports. Merchants, shippers, and landowners (and their personal staffs), especially of the larger enterprises, must have been literate. In the late fourth century, the Desert Father Pachomius would expect the literacy of a candidate for admission to his monasteries: They shall give him twenty Psalms or two of
7519-482: The names of plants and animals (with exceptions), and for emphasis on certain words. Since ancient times, there has been a strong opinion in Japan that kanji is the orthodox form of writing, but there were also people who argued against it. Kamo no Mabuchi , a scholar of the Edo period , criticized the large number of characters in kanji. He also appreciated the small number of characters in kana characters and argued for
7622-407: The need for gaiji for most users. Nevertheless, they persist today in Japan's three major mobile phone information portals, where they are used for emoji (pictorial characters). Unicode allows for optional encoding of gaiji in private use areas , while Adobe's SING (Smart INdependent Glyphlets) technology allows the creation of customized gaiji. The Text Encoding Initiative uses
7725-604: The original list published in 1952, but new additions have been made frequently. Sometimes the term jinmeiyō kanji refers to all 2,999 kanji from both the jōyō and jinmeiyō lists combined. Hyōgai kanji ( 表外漢字 , "unlisted characters") are any kanji not contained in the jōyō kanji and jinmeiyō kanji lists. These are generally written using traditional characters, but extended shinjitai forms exist. The Japanese Industrial Standards for kanji and kana define character code-points for each kanji and kana , as well as other forms of writing such as
7828-474: The other. For example, 誠 means 'honest' in both languages but is pronounced makoto or sei in Japanese, and chéng in Standard Mandarin Chinese . Individual kanji characters and multi-kanji words invented in Japan from Chinese morphemes have been borrowed into Chinese, Korean, and Vietnamese in recent times. These are known as Wasei-kango , or Japanese-made Chinese words. For example,
7931-747: The percentage of adults who were illiterate decreased, the actual number of illiterate adults increased from 700 million in 1950 to 878 million in 1990, before starting to decrease and falling to 745 million by 2015. The number of illiterate adults remains higher than in 1950, "despite decades of universal education policies, literacy interventions and the spread of print material and information and communications technology (ICT)". Available global data indicates significant variations in literacy rates between world regions. North America, Europe, West Asia , and Central Asia have almost achieved full literacy for men and women aged 15 or older. Most countries in East Asia and
8034-407: The practice of using a part of a kanji character) emerged via a parallel path: monastery students simplified man'yōgana to a single constituent element. Thus the two other writing systems, hiragana and katakana , referred to collectively as kana , are descended from kanji. In contrast with kana ( 仮名 , literally "borrowed name", in reference to the character being "borrowed" as
8137-594: The presence or absence of the -shii ending ( okurigana ). A common example of a verb with jukujikun is 流行る ( haya-ru , “to spread, to be in vogue”), corresponding to on'yomi 流行 ( ryūkō ). A sample jukujikun deverbal (noun derived from a verb form) is 強請 ( yusuri , “extortion”), from 強請る ( yusu-ru , “to extort”), spelling from 強請 ( kyōsei , “extortion”). Note that there are also compound verbs and, less commonly, compound adjectives, and while these may have multiple kanji without intervening characters, they are read using
8240-402: The readings contradict the kanji), or clarification if the referent may not be obvious. Jukujikun are when the standard kanji for a word are related to the meaning, but not the sound. The word is pronounced as a whole, not corresponding to sounds of individual kanji. For example, 今朝 ("this morning") is jukujikun . This word is not read as *ima'asa , the expected kun'yomi of
8343-475: The rest are kun ), or 12 if related verbs are counted as distinct. The on'yomi ( 音読み , [oɰ̃jomi] , lit. "sound(-based) reading") , the Sino-Japanese reading, is the modern descendant of the Japanese approximation of the base Chinese pronunciation of the character at the time it was introduced. It was often previously referred to as translation reading , as it was recreated readings of
8446-463: The same given name . If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change that link to point directly to the intended article. Retrieved from " https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Sōji&oldid=1159986456 " Categories : Given names Japanese masculine given names Masculine given names Hidden categories: Articles containing Japanese-language text Articles with short description Short description
8549-526: The senatorial class) in a new cultural synthesis that made "Christianity the Roman religion". However, these skills were less needed in the absence of a large imperial administrative apparatus whose middle and top echelons were dominated by the elite. Even so, in pre-modern times, it is unlikely that literacy was found in more than about 30–40% of the population. During the Dark Ages , the highest percentage of literacy
8652-737: The seventh century BCE. In the Near East , it was common to record events on clay using the cuneiform script; however, writing Aramaic on leather parchments became common during the Neo-Assyrian empire. With the rise of the Persians in the 5th century BCE, Achaemenid rulers adopted Aramaic as the "diplomatic language". Darius the Great standardized Aramaic, which became the Imperial Aramaic script. This Imperial Aramaic alphabet rapidly spread: west, to
8755-575: The standard readings samu or kan , and instead of the usual spelling for fuyu of 冬 . Another example is using 煙草 (lit. "smoke grass") with the reading tabako ("tobacco") rather than the otherwise-expected readings of *kemuri-gusa or *ensō . Some of these, such as for tabako , have become lexicalized , but in many cases this kind of use is typically non-standard and employed in specific contexts by individual writers. Aided with furigana , gikun could be used to convey complex literary or poetic effect (especially if
8858-481: The study of "literacy" as a concept can be divided into two periods: the period before 1950, when literacy was understood solely as alphabetical literacy (word and letter recognition); and the period after 1950, when literacy slowly began to be considered as a wider concept and process, including the social and cultural aspects of reading and writing and functional literacy . The range of definitions of literacy used by NGOs , think tanks , and advocacy groups since
8961-471: The transformation of social systems that rely on literacy and the changing uses of literacy within those evolving systems. According to 2015 data collected by the UNESCO Institute for Statistics , about two-thirds (63%) of the world's illiterate adults are women. This disparity was even starker in previous decades, and from 1970 to 2000, the global gender gap in literacy decreased significantly. Around
9064-411: The usual kun'yomi . Examples include 面白い ( omo-shiro-i , “interesting”, literally “face + white”) and 狡賢い ( zuru-gashiko-i , “sly”, lit. “cunning, crafty + clever, smart”). Typographically, the furigana for jukujikun are often written so they are centered across the entire word, or for inflectional words over the entire root—corresponding to the reading being related to
9167-471: The vast majority of the world's illiterate youth live, lower school enrollment implies that illiteracy will persist to a greater degree. According to 2013 data, the youth literacy rate (ages 15 to 24) is 84% in South Asia and North Africa and 70% in sub-Saharan Africa. However, the distinction between literacy and illiteracy is not clear-cut. Given that having a literate person in the household confers many of
9270-605: The word for telephone , 電話 denwa in Japanese, was derived from the Chinese words for "electric" and "conversation." It was then calqued as diànhuà in Mandarin Chinese, điện thoại in Vietnamese and 전화 jeonhwa in Korean. Chinese characters first came to Japan on official seals, letters, swords, coins, mirrors, and other decorative items imported from China . The earliest known instance of such an import
9373-721: The word was borrowed before the Meiji period . Words whose kanji are jukujikun are often usually written as hiragana (if native), or katakana (if borrowed); some old borrowed words are also written as hiragana , especially Portuguese loanwords such as かるた ( karuta ) from Portuguese " carta " (English “card”) or てんぷら ( tempura ) from Portuguese " tempora " (English “times, season”), as well as たばこ ( tabako ). Sometimes, jukujikun can even have more kanji than there are syllables, examples being kera ( 啄木鳥 , “woodpecker”), gumi ( 胡頽子 , “silver berry, oleaster”), and Hozumi ( 八月朔日 ,
9476-522: Was essential to be hired. A senior government official told Parliament in 1870: Upon the speedy provision of elementary education depends our industrial prosperity. It is of no use trying to give technical teaching to our citizens without elementary education; uneducated labourers—and many of our labourers are utterly uneducated—are, for the most part, unskilled labourers, and if we leave our work–folk any longer unskilled, notwithstanding their strong sinews and determined energy, they will become overmatched in
9579-475: Was expanded to 2,136 in 2010. Some of the new characters were previously jinmeiyō kanji; some are used to write prefecture names: 阪 , 熊 , 奈 , 岡 , 鹿 , 梨 , 阜 , 埼 , 茨 , 栃 and 媛 . As of September 25, 2017, the jinmeiyō kanji ( 人名用漢字 , kanji for use in personal names) consists of 863 characters. Kanji on this list are mostly used in people's names and some are traditional variants of jōyō kanji. There were only 92 kanji in
9682-544: Was first used by the Olmec and Zapotec civilizations in 900–400 BCE. These civilizations used glyphic writing and bar-and-dot numerical notation systems for purposes related to royal iconography and calendar systems. The earliest written notations in China date back to the Shang dynasty in 1200 BCE. These systematic notations, inscribed on bones, recorded sacrifices made, tributes received, and animals hunted, which were activities of
9785-466: Was found among the clergy and monks, as they made up much of the staff needed to administer the states of western Europe. An abundance of graffiti written in the Nabataean script dating back to the beginning of the first millennium CE has been taken to imply a relatively high degree of literacy among the general population in the ancient Arabic-speaking world. Post-Antiquity illiteracy was made worse by
9888-542: Was made in 1953 when three arrowheads were uncovered, each containing identical Canaanite inscriptions from 12th century BCE. According to Frank Moore Cross , these inscriptions consisted of alphabetic signs that originated during the transitional development from pictographic script to a linear alphabet. Moreover, he asserts, "These inscriptions also provided clues to extend the decipherment of earlier and later alphabetic texts". The Canaanite script's consonantal system inspired alphabetical developments in later systems. During
9991-572: Was not the case in all ancient societies: both Charpin and the EU's emerging scholarship suggest that writing and literacy were far more widespread in Mesopotamia than scholars previously thought. According to social anthropologist Jack Goody , there are two interpretations regarding the origin of the alphabet. Many classical scholars, such as historian Ignace Gelb , credit the Ancient Greeks for creating
10094-519: Was prominent in the Mediterranean region until Neo-Babylonian rulers exiled the Jews to Babylon in the 6th century BCE. It was then that the new script ( Square Hebrew ) emerged, and the older one rapidly died out. The Aramaic alphabet also emerged sometime between 1200 and 1000 BCE. Although early examples are scarce, archeologists have uncovered a wide range of later Aramaic texts, written as early as
10197-526: Was reduced, and formal lists of characters to be learned during each grade of school were established. Some characters were given simplified glyphs , called shinjitai ( 新字体 ) . Many variant forms of characters and obscure alternatives for common characters were officially discouraged. These are simply guidelines, so many characters outside these standards are still widely known and commonly used; these are known as hyōgaiji ( 表外字 ) . The kyōiku kanji ( 教育漢字 , lit. "education kanji") are
10300-574: Was somewhat widespread by the Old Babylonian period. Nonetheless, professional scribes became central to law, finances, accounting, government, administration, medicine, magic, divination, literature, and prayers. Egyptian hieroglyphs emerged between 3300 BCE and 3100 BCE; the iconography emphasized power among royals and other elites. The Egyptian hieroglyphic writing system was the first notation system to have phonetic values; these symbols are called phonograms . Writing in lowland Mesoamerica
10403-542: Was the King of Na gold seal given by Emperor Guangwu of Han to a Wa emissary in 57 AD. Chinese coins as well as inkstones from the first century AD have also been found in Yayoi period archaeological sites. However, the Japanese people of that era probably had little to no comprehension of the script, and they would remain relatively illiterate until the fifth century AD, when writing in Japan became more widespread. According to
10506-618: Was understood, and in May 1923, the Japanese government announced 1,962 kanji characters for regular use. In 1940, the Japanese Army decided on the "Table of Restricted Kanji for Weapons Names" ( 兵器名称用制限漢字表 , heiki meishō yō seigen kanji hyō ) which limited the number of kanji that could be used for weapons names to 1,235. In 1942, the National Language Council announced the "Standard Kanji Table" ( 標準漢字表 , hyōjun kanji-hyō ) with
10609-669: Was well established in early 18th century England, when books geared towards children became far more common. Near the end of the century, as many as 50 were printed every year in major cities around England. In the 19th century, reading would become even more common in the United Kingdom. Public notes, broadsides, handbills, catchpennies and printed songs would have been usual street literature before newspapers became common. Other forms of popular reading material included advertising for events, theaters, and goods for sale. In his 1836/1837 Pickwick Papers Charles Dickens's said that: even
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