Originally the Japanese language had no writing system. Until 6th century, any texts in Japan were written in Chinese and would have been read in Chinese.

Over time, however, a system known as kanbun (漢文) was developed, which involved diacritical marks to help Japanese speakers pronounce Chinese characters correctly and allowed changing word order and adding particles and verb endings in accordance with the rules of Japanese grammar. This evolved into a writing system called man'yōgana that used a limited set of Chinese characters for their sound, ignoring their meaning. The modern kana characters later evolved from this system.

The kanji, on the other hand, were never forgotten and they are still used to write Japanese. Their meaning was not ignored; most characters still have the same meaning in Japanese and Chinese. The kanji usually have both Japanese (kun'yomi, 訓読み) and Chinese (on'yomi, 音読み) reading. Both are used in Japanese spoken language.

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