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kanji are logographic Chinese characters, adapted from Chinese family of scripts, Chinese script, used in the writing of Japanese language, Japanese. They were made a major part of the Japanese writing system during the time of Old Japanese and are ...
listed on the , officially announced by the Japanese Ministry of Education. The current list of 2,136 characters was issued in 2010. It is a slightly modified version of the kanji, which was the initial list of
secondary school A secondary school, high school, or senior school, is an institution that provides secondary education. Some secondary schools provide both ''lower secondary education'' (ages 11 to 14) and ''upper secondary education'' (ages 14 to 18), i.e., b ...
-level kanji standardized after
World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...
. 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 kanji and their readings, several rare characters are also included due to their use in the
Constitution of Japan The Constitution of Japan is the supreme law of Japan. Written primarily by American civilian officials during the occupation of Japan after World War II, it was adopted on 3 November 1946 and came into effect on 3 May 1947, succeeding the Meij ...
, which was being written at the same time the original 1,850-character kanji list was compiled. The 2,136 kanji in the kanji consist of: * 1,026 kanji taught in primary school (Grade 1-6) (the kanji) * 1,110 additional kanji taught in secondary school (Grade 7-9)


List


Changes from the kanji

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


History

*1923: The
Ministry of Education An education ministry is a national or subnational government agency politically responsible for education. Various other names are commonly used to identify such agencies, such as Ministry of Education, Department of Education, and Ministry of Pub ...
specified 1,962 kanji and 154 simplified characters. *1931: The former kanji list was revised and 1,858 characters were specified. *1942: 1,134 characters as standard kanji and 1,320 characters as sub- kanji were specified. *1946: The 1,850 characters of 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 kanji were adopted, replacing the list of kanji."In 1981 the list superseded the old 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 kanji list. Twenty-eight ''kanji'' gained new readings, three ''kanji'' lost obscure readings and the of was changed from to . The 196 additional characters are: : : Note: Characters in bold are used in the names of
prefectures A prefecture (from the Latin word, "''praefectura"'') is an administrative jurisdiction traditionally governed by an appointed prefect. This can be a regional or local government subdivision in various countries, or a subdivision in certain inter ...
. kanji followed by a character in brackets are not included in
JIS X 0208 JIS X 0208 is a 2-byte character set specified as a Japanese Industrial Standards, Japanese Industrial Standard, containing 6879 graphic characters suitable for writing text, place names, personal names, and so forth in the Japanese language. Th ...
; 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 kanji , , , and also have official variants. The
Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology The , also known as MEXT, is one of the eleven ministries of Japan that compose part of the executive branch of the government of Japan. History The Meiji period, Meiji government created the first Ministry of Education in 1871. In January 2001 ...
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 A secondary school, high school, or senior school, is an institution that provides secondary education. Some secondary schools provide both ''lower secondary education'' (ages 11 to 14) and ''upper secondary education'' (ages 14 to 18), i.e., ...
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

* kanji (List of kanji by school year) * kanji * * Japanese script reform * Kanji radicals * Learning kanji * The ''
List of Commonly Used Standard Chinese Characters The ''List of Commonly Used Standard Chinese Characters'' is the current standard list of 8,105 Chinese characters published by the government of the People's Republic of China and promulgated in June 2013. The project began in 2001, origina ...
'', a similar standardized list of characters published by the Chinese Ministry of Education, including those designated as "frequently-used" and "commonly-used" * '' Basic Hanja for educational use'', a standardized list of Chinese characters used in Korean (Hanja) published by the South Korean Ministry of Education


References


External links


List of Kanji (Japanese Agency for Cultural Affairs)

Online kanji database
{{DEFAULTSORT:Joyo Kanji Kanji 1981 documents Japanese writing system Chinese character lists