Japanese Symbols

Translating Japanese Symbols & Tattoos
Are you researching information on Japanese names or Japanese symbols? Maybe you are considering translating a Western name into Japanese kanji. It is so easy to get the WRONG Japanese symbols or get the wrong Kanji tattoo design if you are NOT a fluent speaker of Japanese.

As is the case for other transliterations, writing Japanese names in English poses several issues, mainly romanization and name order issues. Transliteration quite simply is the mapping from one system of writing into another. It attempts to be 'lossless' so that an educated reader can reconstruct the original spelling of unknown transliterated words.

Japanese names are usually written in kanj. Kanji's are literally Chinese characters used in Japanese and can be one of the five character sets used in the modern Japanese writing system, the other four being hiragana, katakana, the Roman alphabet (rômaji), and Arabic numerals. A name written in kanji may have more than one common pronunciation, only one of which is correct for a given individual.
Japanese symbols - Japanese kanjis - Japanese Symbols - Japanese Scripts - Japanese Characters

Sample of different Japanese symbols

An example of this is female names which often often end in the syllable ko, written with the kanji meaning "child". This was quite common up until the 1980s, and still continues. Male names occasionally end with the syllable ko, but very rarely using the kanji. If a male name ends in ko, it ends in hiko, using the kanji. Common male name endings are -shi and -o; names ending with -shi are often verbs.

Kanji names in Japan are governed by the government's rules on kanji use. As of 2004 there were officially 2,232 "name kanji" used in personal names, and the Japanese government plans to increase this list by 578 kanji. The reason for this is to ensure that names can be written and read by those literate in Japanese. There are also rules governing names considered to be inappropriate; for example, in 1993 two parents who tried to name their child Akuma (devil) were prohibited from doing so.

100% Accurate Japanese Symbols - Kanji Tattoo Design
Readings and Interpretations of Japanese Symbols

A kanji character may have several (in rare cases ten or more) possible pronunciations, depending on its context, intended meaning, use in compounds, and location in the sentence. These pronunciations, or readings, are typically categorized as either on'yomi or kun'yomi (often abbreviated on and kun).

On'yomi (Chinese reading)

The on'yomi of a kanji (also called its on reading or Chinese reading) is based on the Japanese approximation of the original Chinese pronunciation of the character at the time it was introduced. Some kanji were reintroduced from different parts of China at different times, and so have multiple on'yomi (and often multiple meanings as well).

Kun'yomi (Japanese reading)

The kun'yomi of a kanji (also called its kun reading, Japanese reading, or somewhat misleadingly its native reading) is a reading based on the pronunciation of a native Japanese word, or yamatokotoba, that closely approximated the meaning of the Chinese character when it was introduced. Again, there can be multiple kun readings for the same kanji, and some kanji have no kun'yomi at all.

To the non Japanese speaker all this information on Japanese symbols can seem very daunting. It is best to speak to a native speaker who is not just literate in Japanese but understands the difference between readings of kanjis and the different styles of Japanese symbols.


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