Jōyō Kanji

The is the guide to kanji characters and their readings, announced officially by the Japanese Ministry of Education. Current ''jōyō kanji'' are those on a list of 2,136 characters issued in 2010. It is a slightly modified version of the ''tōyō kanji'', which was the initial list of secondary school-level kanji standardized after World War II. The list is not a comprehensive list of all characters and readings in regular use; rather, it is intended as a literacy baseline for those who have completed compulsory education, as well as a list of permitted characters and readings for use in official government documents. Due to the requirement that official government documents make use of only ''jōyō kanji'' and their readings, several rare characters are also included due to their use in the Constitution of Japan, which was being written at the same time the original 1,850-character ''tōyō kanji'' list was compiled.

The 2,136 kanji in the ''jōyō kanji'' consist of:
* 1,026 kanji taught in primary school (Grade 1-6) (the ''kyōiku kanji'')
* 1,110 additional kanji taught in secondary school (Grade 7-12)

Changes from the ''tōyō kanji''

In 1981, the ''jōyō kanji'' replaced the ''tōyō kanji'' as the standardized list of common kanji. The differences between the two consisted of 95 additional characters, and the simplification of as .

The 95 additional characters are as follows:

:

History

*1923: The Ministry of Education specified 1,962 kanji and 154 simplified characters.
*1931: The former ''jōyō kanji'' was revised and 1,858 characters were specified.
*1942: 1,134 characters as standard ''jōyō kanji'' and 1,320 characters as sub-''jōyō kanji'' were specified.
*1946: The 1,850 characters of ''tōyō kanji'' were adopted by law "as those most essential for common use and everyday communication". This list included 881 'basic requirement' kanji for elementary school.
*1981: The 1,945 characters of ''jōyō kanji'' were adopted, replacing the list of ''tōyō kanji''."In 1981 the ''jōyō kanji'' list superseded the old ''tōyō kanji'' list — the list of Chinese characters which was announced in November 1946 and designated for daily use." -''Japan Times'' editorial
"Revising the list of kanji"
, Nov. 16, 2008, retrieved 27 May 2009.
*2010: The list was revised on 30 November to include an additional 196 characters and remove 5 characters (, , , , and ), for a total of 2,136. The amendment also made changes to the readings of ''kanji'' present in the previous ''jōyō kanji'' list. Twenty-eight ''kanji'' gained new readings, three ''kanji'' lost obscure readings and the ''kun'yomi'' of was changed from to . The 196 additional characters are:

:
: Note: Characters in bold are used in the names of prefectures. ''Jōyō kanji'' followed by a character in brackets are not included in JIS X 0208; the character in brackets is the unofficial print variant JIS X 0208 does have. JIS X 0208 also lacks , but does include the official variant . The ''jōyō kanji'' , , , and also have official variants.
The Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology instructed teachers to start teaching the new characters in fiscal 2012, so that junior high school students would be able to read them and high school students would be able to write them. High schools and universities started using the characters in their entrance exams in the 2015 academic year.http://www.japantoday.com/category/national/view/govt-to-announce-new-list-of-kanji-for-common-use-at-end-of-month

See also

* List of jōyō kanji
* Kyōiku kanji (List of kanji by school year)
* Jinmeiyō kanji
* Hyōgaiji
* Japanese script reform
* Kanji radicals
* Learning kanji

References

External links

List of Jōyō Kanji (Japanese Agency for Cultural Affairs)

Online jōyō kanji database

{{DEFAULTSORT:Joyo Kanji
Kanji
1981 documents
Japanese writing system