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Discussion: Meaning of Chinese characters ignored?
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MattiT |
Meaning of Chinese characters ignored?
Aug 22 2008, 8:11 AM EDT
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. 3 out of 4 found this valuable. Do you?
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Indigohub |
1. RE: Meaning of Chinese characters ignored?
Aug 30 2008, 4:42 AM EDT
Some of the Reiki symbols aren't Japanese characters at all. Even the characters for Reiki are often written in two ways - sometimes in a very old style for the first character. Transcription of the characters by people who don't read/write or understand the characters has caused great variation in the way the characters that are Japanese to be written. 2 out of 2 found this valuable. Do you? |
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MattiT |
2. Kanji and Reiki symbols
Aug 30 2008, 2:18 PM EDT
The Reiki symbols and kanji are two different things altogether, although two of the four Reiki symbols consist of kanji characters. The Japanese kanji were modernized after the second World War, and the kanji for 'reiki' are sometimes written in the old style that was being used when Usui-sensei was alive (靈氣) and sometimes in the modern style (霊気). There are also various calligraphic styles in Japan, not necessarily easy to identify as the same characters by a non-Japanese reader. By the way, many Japanese actually do not use the kanji for the word 'reiki' nowadays - they write it using katakana (レイキ) as if it was a loan word - presumably because the original kanji have negative connotations for the Japanese. 2 out of 3 found this valuable. Do you? |
reikiwiki |
3. RE: Kanji and Reiki symbols
Sep 5 2008, 1:23 AM EDT
Yes, sometimes there is confusion as to whether the kanji for Reiki is a symbol and, as you say Matti, - it is not. Yes the word Reiki is made from two kanji - if the word Reiki is written as kanji. We have a lot of information about the origins of the word Reiki on our website including the different styles of writing kanji (there are more than 2). It is fascinating how kanji has evolved. Here is the link: http://www.reiki.net.au/copy.asp?id=BenefitsMeaning As to the Reiki symbols... there are 4 of them. Two of them are in fact Japanese kanji and the other 2 are symbols that can be found within the Japanese culture. 4 out of 4 found this valuable. Do you? |
