Ateji
Encyclopedia
In modern Japanese
, primarily refers to kanji
used phonetically to represent native or borrowed words, without regard to the meaning of the underlying characters. This is analogous to man'yōgana in pre-modern Japanese. The term ateji is also used for the opposite process, writing words using kanji for meaning only, without regard to the reading.
For example, sushi
is often written with the ateji 寿司. Though the two characters are respectively read as su and shi, the character 寿 means "one's natural life span" and 司 means "to administer", neither of which has anything to do with the food. Ateji as a means of representing loanwords have been largely superseded in modern Japanese by the use of katakana
, although many ateji coined in earlier eras still linger on.
An example of the opposite process (meaning only) is 煙草 (tabako) for "tobacco", where the individual kanji respectively mean "smoke" and "herb" but have no phonetic relationship to the word tabako. This is also considered a kind of ateji.
. A stock example is 倶楽部 (kurabu) for "club
", where the characters can be interpreted loosely in sequence as "together", "fun" and "place". Another example is 合羽 (kappa) for the Portuguese
capa, a kind of raincoat
. The characters can mean "wings coming together", as the pointed capa resembles a bird with wings folded together.
). Despite the existence of the kana, ad hoc Chinese characters continued to be used for representing words, as is traditional in China.
Ateji is primarily used today for historical terms – in historical order, these are primarily Sanskrit terms dating from the introduction of Buddhism to Japan, Portuguese terms from the 16th and 17th centuries, and Dutch terms from the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries – see Japanese words of Portuguese origin
and Japanese words of Dutch origin
. Ateji found some use in the Meiji era and in the 20th century, but has largely been superseded by katakana.
terms used in some chants also derive from ateji. The terms and , or "Perfection of Wisdom" and "Fully Enlightened", both appear in the Heart Sutra
, but are written using ateji kanji that preserve the pronunciation, but have no other logical connection.
When a native Japanese word is written as a compound by meaning only, and this spelling is established in the language, as in , the word is a kind of ateji (because a meaning-only compound), and is known specifically as 熟字訓 (jukujikun). Intentional improvised uses of irregular kanji spellings (instead of as spelling mistakes) are referred to as 義訓 gikun, and generally require furigana
to be read properly; many jukujikun (established meaning-spellings) began life as gikun (improvised meaning-spellings). A loan-word example is reading 宿敵 shukuteki 'mortal enemy' as the English-derived word raibaru 'rival'.
While standardized ateji uses okurigana
, as in 可愛い (kawai-i) having the 〜い so that it can inflect as 可愛かった (kawai-katta) for the past tense, gikun that is only intended for one-off usage need not have sufficient okurigana. For example, 辛い kara-i, "spicy, salty" is an adjective and requires an 〜い, but it might be spelt for example as 花雷 ka-rai (both legitimate on readings of the characters) on a poster, for example, where there is no intention of inflecting this spelling.
These are classed as kun'yomi of a single character, because the character is being used for meaning only (without the Chinese pronunciation), rather than as ateji, which is the classification used when a loan-word term is written as a compound (2 or more characters), following either sound only (as in 天麩羅) or meaning only (as in 煙草 – the sound タバコ cannot be broken down into readings of individual characters). In principle these could be considered as 1-character ateji (meaning only), but because the reading corresponds to a single character, these are considered readings instead.
Note that most of these characters are for units, in many cases using new characters (kokuji) coined during the Meiji period
, such as .
Japanese language
is a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities. It is a member of the Japonic language family, which has a number of proposed relationships with other languages, none of which has gained wide acceptance among historical linguists .Japanese is an...
, primarily refers to kanji
Kanji
Kanji are the adopted logographic Chinese characters hanzi that are used in the modern Japanese writing system along with hiragana , katakana , Indo Arabic numerals, and the occasional use of the Latin alphabet...
used phonetically to represent native or borrowed words, without regard to the meaning of the underlying characters. This is analogous to man'yōgana in pre-modern Japanese. The term ateji is also used for the opposite process, writing words using kanji for meaning only, without regard to the reading.
For example, sushi
Sushi
is a Japanese food consisting of cooked vinegared rice combined with other ingredients . Neta and forms of sushi presentation vary, but the ingredient which all sushi have in common is shari...
is often written with the ateji 寿司. Though the two characters are respectively read as su and shi, the character 寿 means "one's natural life span" and 司 means "to administer", neither of which has anything to do with the food. Ateji as a means of representing loanwords have been largely superseded in modern Japanese by the use of katakana
Katakana
is a Japanese syllabary, one component of the Japanese writing system along with hiragana, kanji, and in some cases the Latin alphabet . The word katakana means "fragmentary kana", as the katakana scripts are derived from components of more complex kanji. Each kana represents one mora...
, although many ateji coined in earlier eras still linger on.
An example of the opposite process (meaning only) is 煙草 (tabako) for "tobacco", where the individual kanji respectively mean "smoke" and "herb" but have no phonetic relationship to the word tabako. This is also considered a kind of ateji.
Usage
Ateji today are used conventionally for certain words, such as 寿司, though these words may be written in hiragana (especially for native words – すし is also found for sushi), or katakana (especially for borrowed words), with preference depending on the particular word, context, and choice of the writer. Ateji are particularly common in traditional store signs and menus. For example, kōhii, the Japanese word for "coffee", is generally written using the katakana コーヒー, but on the sign for coffee shops and on their menus, it is often written with the ateji 珈琲. Conversely, tabako, the Japanese word for "tobacco", is generally written as たばこ or タバコ (in hiragana – despite being a loanword – or katakana), even in signs, and rarely written as with the ateji 煙草.Phono-semantic matching
When using ateji to represent loanwords, the kanji are sometimes chosen for both their semantic and phonetic values, a form of phono-semantic matchingPhono-semantic matching
Phono-semantic matching is a linguistic term referring to camouflaged borrowing in which a foreign word is matched with a phonetically and semantically similar pre-existent native word/root....
. A stock example is 倶楽部 (kurabu) for "club
Club
A club is an association of two or more people united by a common interest or goal. A service club, for example, exists for voluntary or charitable activities; there are clubs devoted to hobbies and sports, social activities clubs, political and religious clubs, and so forth.- History...
", where the characters can be interpreted loosely in sequence as "together", "fun" and "place". Another example is 合羽 (kappa) for the Portuguese
Portuguese language
Portuguese is a Romance language that arose in the medieval Kingdom of Galicia, nowadays Galicia and Northern Portugal. The southern part of the Kingdom of Galicia became independent as the County of Portugal in 1095...
capa, a kind of raincoat
Raincoat
A raincoat is a waterproof or water-resistant coat worn to protect the body from rain. The term rain jacket is sometimes used to refer to raincoats that are waist length. A rain jacket may be combined with a pair of rain pants to make a rain suit.Modern raincoats are often constructed of...
. The characters can mean "wings coming together", as the pointed capa resembles a bird with wings folded together.
History
The ad hoc usage of Chinese characters for sound dates to the introduction of Chinese characters to Japan, in the man'yōgana – the same sound might be represented by many different characters, at the discretion of the author. The kana (hiragana and katakana) were then developed as systematic simplifications of man'yōgana, to be used for sound – each Japanese mora corresponds to a single hiragana character and a single katakana character (with some exceptions due to sound shifts over the centuries – see historical kana usageHistorical kana usage
The , or , refers to the in general use until orthographic reforms after World War II; the current orthography was adopted by Cabinet order in 1946. By that point the historical orthography was no longer in accord with Japanese pronunciation...
). Despite the existence of the kana, ad hoc Chinese characters continued to be used for representing words, as is traditional in China.
Ateji is primarily used today for historical terms – in historical order, these are primarily Sanskrit terms dating from the introduction of Buddhism to Japan, Portuguese terms from the 16th and 17th centuries, and Dutch terms from the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries – see Japanese words of Portuguese origin
Japanese words of Portuguese origin
Many Japanese words of Portuguese origin entered the Japanese language when Portuguese Jesuit priests introduced Christian ideas, Western science, technology and new products to the Japanese during the Muromachi period ....
and Japanese words of Dutch origin
Japanese words of Dutch origin
Japanese words of Dutch origin started to develop when the Dutch East India Company initiated trading in Japan from the factory of Hirado in 1609...
. Ateji found some use in the Meiji era and in the 20th century, but has largely been superseded by katakana.
Sanskrit
In Buddhist Japanese, SanskritSanskrit
Sanskrit , is a historical Indo-Aryan language and the primary liturgical language of Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism.Buddhism: besides Pali, see Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit Today, it is listed as one of the 22 scheduled languages of India and is an official language of the state of Uttarakhand...
terms used in some chants also derive from ateji. The terms and , or "Perfection of Wisdom" and "Fully Enlightened", both appear in the Heart Sutra
Heart Sutra
The Heart Sūtra is a Mahāyāna Buddhist sūtra. Its Sanskrit name literally translates to "Heart of the Perfection of Transcendent Wisdom." The Heart Sūtra is often cited as the best known and most popular of all Buddhist scriptures.-Introduction:The Heart Sūtra is a member of the Perfection of...
, but are written using ateji kanji that preserve the pronunciation, but have no other logical connection.
Related concepts
Ateji should not be confused with kun'yomi (訓読み), Japanese reading, or native reading, where a kanji is assigned the native Japanese equivalent as its reading – ateji refers to compounds (2 or more characters).When a native Japanese word is written as a compound by meaning only, and this spelling is established in the language, as in , the word is a kind of ateji (because a meaning-only compound), and is known specifically as 熟字訓 (jukujikun). Intentional improvised uses of irregular kanji spellings (instead of as spelling mistakes) are referred to as 義訓 gikun, and generally require furigana
Furigana
is a Japanese reading aid, consisting of smaller kana, or syllabic characters, printed next to a kanji or other character to indicate its pronunciation. In horizontal text, yokogaki, they are placed above the line of text, while in vertical text, tategaki, they are placed to the right of the line...
to be read properly; many jukujikun (established meaning-spellings) began life as gikun (improvised meaning-spellings). A loan-word example is reading 宿敵 shukuteki 'mortal enemy' as the English-derived word raibaru 'rival'.
While standardized ateji uses okurigana
Okurigana
are kana suffixes following kanji stems in Japanese written words. They serve two purposes: to inflect adjectives and verbs, and to disambiguate kanji with multiple readings...
, as in 可愛い (kawai-i) having the 〜い so that it can inflect as 可愛かった (kawai-katta) for the past tense, gikun that is only intended for one-off usage need not have sufficient okurigana. For example, 辛い kara-i, "spicy, salty" is an adjective and requires an 〜い, but it might be spelt for example as 花雷 ka-rai (both legitimate on readings of the characters) on a poster, for example, where there is no intention of inflecting this spelling.
Single-character loan words
In some rare cases, an individual kanji has a loan word reading, though most often these words are written in katakana. Notable examples include , , (these three are the only widely recognized or used), , and (marginally understood, used in some settings), while the rest are obscure – see list of single character loan words for more.These are classed as kun'yomi of a single character, because the character is being used for meaning only (without the Chinese pronunciation), rather than as ateji, which is the classification used when a loan-word term is written as a compound (2 or more characters), following either sound only (as in 天麩羅) or meaning only (as in 煙草 – the sound タバコ cannot be broken down into readings of individual characters). In principle these could be considered as 1-character ateji (meaning only), but because the reading corresponds to a single character, these are considered readings instead.
Note that most of these characters are for units, in many cases using new characters (kokuji) coined during the Meiji period
Meiji period
The , also known as the Meiji era, is a Japanese era which extended from September 1868 through July 1912. This period represents the first half of the Empire of Japan.- Meiji Restoration and the emperor :...
, such as .
See also
- Jiajie in Chinese
- Transliteration into Chinese charactersTransliteration into Chinese charactersIn Chinese, transcription is known as yīnyì or yìmíng . While it is common to see foreign names left in their original forms in a Chinese text, it is also common to transcribe foreign proper nouns into Chinese characters....