Chinese Characters in Japan： Chinese characters in Japanese are also a part of Japanese culture.
Are the meanings of Chinese characters mixed in Japanese characters related to their meanings in the context of China? Let’s look at the following words: unusual, anxious, wife, topic, ginseng, note. In Japanese, the meanings of these words are as follows:
"Extraordinary exit" means emergency exit;
"Jian" means very cheap;
"Wife" means old women;
"Putting the topic" means freedom without restriction;
"Ginseng" means carrot;
"Annotation" means booking and ordering food.
From the ancient times (from the 6th century to the 7th century), Japanese officially accepted Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism from Chinese mainland and the Korean Peninsula, and Chinese characters were its medium. Many years before China script was introduced into Japan, the local people had lived for a long time and had their own language, but there was no script. After Chinese was spread, they used the pronunciation of Chinese characters to mark what they said, and their understanding of Chinese characters came according to their own habits.
During the Meiji period, Japanese scholars translated Western European languages with Chinese, and created the words "economy", "labor", "ban" and "occasion", which are now widely used in Chinese. Chinese characters are used to record Japanese, and in the hands of Japanese people, they gradually develop characteristics different from Chinese characters. Some Chinese characters are pronounced according to ancient Chinese, while others are pronounced according to Japanese. Some words are written in the same way as Chinese, but their meanings are different; The Japanese even created new Chinese characters for the convenience of writing and expressing meanings, which are called "national characters".
Although the origin of Japanese characters is in China, after thousands of years of Chinese characters crossing the ocean, from imitation to choice to creation, the native and imported characters collide with each other, constantly expanding the writing system.
Recently, the Japanese scholar Hiroyuki Sasakahara’s work "Chinese Characters in Japan" was published in Chinese. The author said that in Japan, Chinese characters are rich and diverse, including widely circulated typos, "ghost characters" that no one can understand, language characters used by a specific class, personal words in literary works, and artistic words on advertising signs … Japanese Chinese characters experts have collected a lot of data and information.
On the afternoon of May 19th, Liu Xiaofeng, a professor of history in Tsinghua University, and Sun Jianjun, an associate professor of Japanese in Peking University, gave a lecture in Beijing to explain the development of Chinese characters in Japan and explore the similarities and differences between Chinese and Japanese cultures.
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Looking at Japan from Chinese characters
Words are clues to spy on different cultural systems. Roman characters are used in the Christian cultural circle, Greek characters are used in the Greek Orthodox Church, Cyrillic characters are used in the Russian Orthodox Church, Hebrew characters are used in the Jewish cultural circle, Arabic characters are used in the Islamic cultural circle, and Chinese characters are used in the Confucian cultural circle.
Since the Warring States period, Chinese characters have gradually spread abroad. A survey shows that up to today, about 90% of Vietnamese vocabulary and 70% of Korean vocabulary come from Chinese. In Viet Nam and the Korean Peninsula, Chinese characters have been replaced successively, and even Chinese characters suffered twists and turns in China in the 20th century. However, Japan still keeps Chinese characters in its own national writing system. For a long historical period, China, North Korea, Japan and Viet Nam in the East Asian Chinese character circle shared the Chinese character writing system. However, only China and Japan are still using Chinese characters at the national level.
"From the 4th century when Chinese characters were introduced into Japan to today, Chinese characters have been used in the Japanese archipelago for more than 1,700 years. However, we need to realize that many changes have taken place in Chinese characters in Japan, and many new contents have grown. It is already a part of the Japanese cultural tradition. In fact, it is not only Japanese characters, but also the ancient culture of China introduced to Japan. " Liu Xiaofeng said.
After thousands of years of absorption and development, Chinese characters have already taken root in Japan and become a part of Japanese culture. Hiroyuki Sasakahara noticed that Chinese characters have undergone great changes in Japan, and many vulgar characters have appeared. He believes that these changes show the possibility of evolution of Chinese characters and the inherent diversity of Chinese characters. More importantly, Japanese characters show the Japanese way of thinking.
Hiroyuki Sasakahara is known as "Doctor of Chinese Characters". He often gives lectures, talks and is active in the media on the topic of Chinese characters, and has written many books such as The Present of Chinese Characters, The Heart of Japan in Chinese Characters, Japanese and Chinese Characters, Chinese Characters and Society.
According to Hiroyuki Sasakahara’s self-report, he was obsessed with etymology since he was a child. When he was at school, he saved pocket money to buy the world’s largest Hanhe dictionary, Dahanhe Dictionary. He is particularly interested in the practical use of Japanese characters and the social changes reflected by the changes of Chinese characters. After more than 30 years of academic research, he compiled and published Borrowed Words and Borrowed Pronunciation: A Dictionary of Chinese Characters.
Thanks to his achievements in Chinese character research, Hiroyuki Sasakahara won the title of "the first person to study Japanese characters" and participated in the formulation of Japanese commonly used Chinese characters list, Chinese characters for personal names, Japanese national language dictionary and Japanese national language textbooks. Japanese Characters published by Iwabo Bookstore is the most well-known work of Hiroyuki Sasakahara.
The name of the Japanese
At the scene, everyone also talked about the name of the Japanese. Liu Xiaofeng said: "After the Meiji Restoration, Japan will establish a modern nation-state according to the national system of Europe and the United States. Everyone in modern times must have his own surname and name. At that time, many people didn’t have their own surnames, but only one name, such as Shisanlang. What if they had a surname? It happens that there is a pine tree in his house, which is called Panasonic. "
Sun Jianjun said: "In the past, the Japanese didn’t have a surname, only a first name. Later, they gradually got a surname because they had a household registration system. However, there were many names behind them, such as Taro, Jiro, Saburo and Shiro. At most, they added a few words they thought were better in front of them, such as tortoise, crane and pine, to express longevity. After the 21st century, there are some words that they think are very good, such as flying Xiang, too, or too big. Some parents may decide to use Xiang when a famous baseball player happens to have it in his name. Girls look for something with a nice voice, such as sakura, which means cherry blossoms. "
On-site scholars also said that the relationship between names and the times is really strong. There are popular words in every era. For example, when "Wen" was popular, it happened to be the Taisho era, stressing democracy; In the Showa era, when militarism prevailed in the early stage, the word "discipline" was popular, and when the war ended in the later stage, "harmony" was emphasized. From the meaning of each Chinese character, you can vaguely see the shadow of the times.
Can Chinese characters go abroad return?
For China readers, Japanese scholars’ research provides us with a new perspective, not from inside China, but from the whole Chinese cultural circle. The development and mutual influence of Chinese characters in East Asian countries is both familiar and unfamiliar to Chinese, and it is also an enlightening lesson.
Hiroyuki Sasakahara stressed that we should look at the evolution of Chinese characters from the front. He wrote in the Preface: "Of course, we should learn from the etymology, idioms and story idioms of ancient China, but we should never be bound by them." As Chinese, what we need to think about is: As the hometown of Chinese characters, how should China recognize and accept these changes?
Sun Jianjun studied the language changes from the end of the curtain to the beginning of Meiji. "In particular, how the new Chinese words produced after absorbing western civilization were formed in Japanese at that time, and what impact did they have on China? At the same time, in the process of their formation, what influence does China have on them? " Sun Jianjun said.
There are many phenomena of Japanese Chinese characters feeding back to the motherland, and the most classic example is "gland". This word sounds like a Chinese character born in China, but in fact, it is an out-and-out Japanese man-made word. In the late 18th century, the Japanese came into contact with western knowledge through the Dutch. In 1774, Hiroshi Sugita, a Japanese "Lanxue" doctor, first translated "klier" into "Jilil". However, this translation is very inconvenient. For example, tonsils are translated into "Lill of Bataan nuclear machine". Later, Zhen Zhai, a disciple of Sugita Xuanbai, created the word "gland", which was introduced to China together with western medicine, and now it has become a familiar word.
At present, Japan is the only big country that uses a lot of Chinese characters except China. However, the few Japanese characters in Japanese have been rejected from the Chinese character system in China. For example, the name of former Japanese Prime Minister Keizo Kobayashi has been written as "Keizo Obuchi" in the China media, and the name of former economic planning department chief Taiichi Horiya is often mistakenly written as "Taiichi".
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