Kanji (help·info) (漢字) are the Chinese characters that are used in the modern Japanese logographic writing system along with hiragana (ひらがな, 平仮名), katakana (カタカナ, 片仮名), Arabic numerals, and the occasional use of the Latin alphabet (also known as Rōmaji). The Japanese term kanji (漢字) literally means "Han characters".
Chinese characters first came to Japan on articles imported from China. An early instance of such an import was a gold seal given by...
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Kanji (help·info) (漢字) are the Chinese characters that are used in the modern Japanese logographic writing system along with hiragana (ひらがな, 平仮名), katakana (カタカナ, 片仮名), Arabic numerals, and the occasional use of the Latin alphabet (also known as Rōmaji). The Japanese term kanji (漢字) literally means "Han characters".
Chinese characters first came to Japan on articles imported from China. An early instance of such an import was a gold seal given by the emperor of the Eastern Han Dynasty in 57 AD. It is not clear when Japanese people started to gain a command of Classical Chinese by themselves. The first Japanese documents were probably written by Chinese immigrants. For example, the diplomatic correspondence from King Bu of Wa to Emperor Shun of the Liu Song Dynasty in 478 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. From the 6th century onwards, Chinese documents written in...
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