📜 The Birth of Onyomi and Kunyomi: The Story of How Japanese Adopted Kanji

Introduction

When Japanese adopted Kanji,
it was not merely an "importation of characters."
Different linguistic systems met, collided, and eventually settled into a quiet compromise.
In that process, while protecting its own vocabulary and sensibilities,
Japanese welcomed the vast system of Kanji into its own interior.

Onyomi and Kunyomi are the traces of that compromise.
The state of Japanese, where two readings coexist,
feels like the very "layers of culture" formed over a long period of time.

I. When Kanji Arrived

Kanji were transmitted to Japan via the Korean Peninsula around the 4th to 5th centuries.
At the time, Japanese had no writing system,
and Kanji were accepted as they were as "symbols representing Chinese words."
A system where meaning and sound were one.
When Japanese encountered this, the first thing that emerged was Onyomi.

Transcribing foreign sounds exactly as they were.
It is similar to an attitude of respecting knowledge that came from the outside as it is.

II. The Attempt to Read Classical Chinese as Japanese

Eventually, a desire arose to read texts written in Kanji as Japanese.
However, Chinese and Japanese have completely different word orders and grammars.

To bridge that difference,
the "techniques of re-reading" such as kaeriten, okurigana, and kunten
were quietly invented.

Replacing the meaning of Kanji with Japanese words.
At that moment, Kunyomi was born.

Mountain is read as "yama," and river is read as "kawa."
That was the first step in Japanese drawing Kanji into its own language
while protecting its own vocabulary.

III. When Kunyomi Spread

From Nara to Heian.
A culture of writing in Japanese grew,
and the world of Wago (native Japanese words) quietly spread over the Kanji.

Words of daily life, words of sensation, words of the body.
They were more natural in Japanese than in the sounds of Chinese.

Therefore, Kanji were used as "vessels of meaning,"
and Japanese words were gently poured into those vessels.

"Sei" (Life)

• i(kiru) (to live)

• u(mareru) (to be born)

• ha(eru) (to grow)

• nama (raw)

• i (keru)

The fact that a single kanji can have multiple kunyomi readings is the result of the breadth of kanji meanings overlapping with the richness of the Japanese vocabulary.
4. Layers of Onyomi

On the other hand, the importation of onyomi was not a one-time event.

The arrival of Buddhism, the voyages of the Kentoshi (envoys to Tang China), trade, and exchanges through Zen Buddhism.
The sounds of the Chinese language reached Japan in different forms throughout the ages.

Go-on, Kan-on, and To-on.
Each sound, carrying the atmosphere of its respective era, layered itself onto the Japanese language.

Onyomi is also a 'history of the Chinese language' inscribed within Japanese.

5. Shinjitai and Kyujitai: When Character Forms Change

After the war, Japan made a major decision to standardize the shapes of kanji.
In 1946, the Toyo Kanji list was announced.
Complex kyujitai (old character forms) were simplified for education and practical use,
and were established as shinjitai (new character forms).

體 became 体, 學 became 学, and 國 became 国.
It was a process of refining the shapes of characters for the future.

However, the old forms did not disappear.
In personal names, signs, and stone monuments at temples and shrines,
the quiet weight of the old forms still remains.

I believe that layers of time reside even in the shapes of characters.

6. The Path Chosen by Japanese

Onyomi and kunyomi.
There are almost no other languages in the world where two types of readings coexist.

While accepting sounds from the outside,
it continued to protect the words within.
The choice to layer these two on top of the same character
quietly tells the story of how the Japanese language has nurtured itself.

Kanji changed the Japanese language.
However, the Japanese language also changed kanji.

In that back-and-forth,
the dual structure of onyomi and kunyomi was born,
and I believe that is how the Japanese language of today was formed.

End

The history of the Japanese language accepting kanji is a story
of how things from the outside and things from within
have come to terms with each other over a long period of time.

Onyomi and kunyomi are the traces of that compromise,
and they are also proof that the Japanese language,
while protecting its own language, faced the world's writing systems.

Quietly, yet surely.
The Japanese language accepted kanji,
and has nurtured them as its own words.