, or the Sino-Japanese reading, is the reading of a

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 ...

based on the historical Chinese pronunciation of the character. A single kanji might have multiple ''on'yomi'' pronunciations, reflecting the Chinese pronunciations of different periods or regions. ''On'yomi'' pronunciations are generally classified into ''

go-on are Japanese kanji readings based on the classical pronunciations of Chinese characters of the historically prestigious eastern Jiankang (now Nanjing) dialect. ''Go-on'' are the earliest form of , preceding the readings. Both ''go-on'' and ...

'', ''

kan-on are Japanese kanji readings borrowed from Chinese during the Tang dynasty, from the 7th to the 9th centuries; a period which corresponds to the Japanese Nara period. They were introduced by, among others, envoys from Japanese missions to Tang ...

'', ''

tō-on are Japanese kanji readings imported from China by Zen monks and merchants during and after the Song dynasty, as a form of . See also * ''On'yomi'': Sino-Japanese readings ** '' Kan-on'': an earlier type of reading ** ''Go-on are Japanes ...

'' and ''kan'yō-on'', roughly based on when they were borrowed from China. Generally, ''on'yomi'' pronunciations are used for technical, compound words, while the native ''

kun'yomi is the way of reading kanji characters using the native Japanese word that matches the meaning of the Chinese character when it was introduced. This pronunciation is contrasted with ''on'yomi'', which is the reading based on the original Chi ...

'' pronunciation is used for singular, simpler words.

Usage

''On'yomi'' primarily occur in , many of which are the result of the adoption, along with the kanji themselves, of Chinese words for concepts that either did not exist in Japanese or could not be articulated as elegantly using native words. This borrowing process is often compared to the English borrowings from Latin, Greek, and Norman French, since Chinese-borrowed terms are often more specialized, or considered to sound more erudite or formal, than their native counterparts (occupying a higher

linguistic register In sociolinguistics, a register is a variety of language used for a particular purpose or particular communicative situation. For example, when speaking officially or in a public setting, an English speaker may be more likely to follow prescri ...

). The major exception to this rule is

family name In many societies, a surname, family name, or last name is the mostly hereditary portion of one's personal name that indicates one's family. It is typically combined with a given name to form the full name of a person, although several give ...

s, in which the native ''kun'yomi'' are usually used (though ''on'yomi'' are found in many personal names, especially men's names). Kanji invented in Japan (

kokuji In Japanese, or are kanji created in Japan rather than borrowed from China. Like most Chinese characters, they are primarily formed by combining existing characters - though using combinations that are not used in Chinese. Since kokuji ar ...

) would not normally be expected to have ''on'yomi'', but there are exceptions, such as the character "to work", which has the ''kun'yomi'' "''hatara(ku)''" and the ''on'yomi'' "''dō''", and "gland", which has only the ''on'yomi'' "''sen''"—in both cases these come from the ''on'yomi'' of the phonetic component, respectively "''dō''" and "''sen''".

Characteristics

In Chinese, most characters are associated with a single Chinese sound, though there are distinct

literary and colloquial readings Differing literary and colloquial readings for certain Chinese characters are a common feature of many Chinese varieties, and the reading distinctions for these linguistic doublets often typify a dialect group. Literary readings () are usually ...

. However, some homographs () such as (Mandarin: ' or ', Japanese: ''an, gō, gyō'') have more than one reading in Chinese representing different meanings, which is reflected in the carryover to Japanese as well. Additionally, many Chinese syllables, especially those with an

entering tone A checked tone, commonly known by the Chinese calque entering tone, is one of the four syllable types in the phonology of Middle Chinese. Although usually translated as "tone", a checked tone is not a tone in the western phonetic sense but rather ...

, did not fit the largely consonant-vowel (CV)

phonotactics Phonotactics (from Ancient Greek 'voice, sound' and 'having to do with arranging') is a branch of phonology that deals with restrictions in a language on the permissible combinations of phonemes. Phonotactics defines permissible syllable struc ...

of classical Japanese. Thus most ''on'yomi'' are composed of two morae (beats), the second of which is either a lengthening of the vowel in the first mora (to ''ei'', ''ō'', or ''ū''), the vowel ''i'', or one of the syllables ''ku'', ''ki'', ''tsu'', ''chi'', ''fu'' (historically, later merged into ''ō'' and ''ū''), or moraic ''n'', chosen for their approximation to the final consonants of Middle Chinese. It may be that palatalized consonants before vowels other than ''i'' developed in Japanese as a result of Chinese borrowings, as they are virtually unknown in words of native Japanese origin, but are common in Chinese.

Classification

Generally, ''on'yomi'' are classified into four types according to their region and time of origin: * readings derive from the pronunciation used in the

Northern and Southern dynasties The Northern and Southern dynasties () was a period of political division in the history of China that lasted from 420 to 589, following the tumultuous era of the Sixteen Kingdoms and the Eastern Jin dynasty. It is sometimes considered a ...

of China during the 5th and 6th centuries, primarily from the speech of the capital

Jiankang Jiankang (), or Jianye (), as it was originally called, was the capital city of the Eastern Wu (229–265 and 266–280 CE), the Jin dynasty (265–420), Eastern Jin dynasty (317–420 CE) and the Southern Dynasties (420–552), including the Ch ...

(today's Nanjing). They are related to

Wu Chinese , region = Shanghai, Zhejiang, southern Jiangsu, parts of Anhui and Jiangxi provinces; overseas and migrant communities , ethnicity = Wu , speakers = million , date = 2021 , ref = e27 , fa ...

and the Shanghainese language. * readings come from the pronunciation utilized during the

Tang dynasty The Tang dynasty (, ; zh, c=唐朝), or the Tang Empire, was an Dynasties of China, imperial dynasty of China that ruled from 618 to 907, with an Wu Zhou, interregnum between 690 and 705. It was preceded by the Sui dynasty and followed ...

of China in the 7th to 9th centuries, primarily from the standard speech of the capital,

Chang'an Chang'an (; zh, t=長安, s=长安, p=Cháng'ān, first=t) is the traditional name of the city now named Xi'an and was the capital of several Chinese dynasties, ranging from 202 BCE to 907 CE. The site has been inhabited since Neolithic time ...

(modern

Xi'an Xi'an is the list of capitals in China, capital of the Chinese province of Shaanxi. A sub-provincial city on the Guanzhong plain, the city is the third-most populous city in Western China after Chongqing and Chengdu, as well as the most populou ...

). Here, ''Kan'' refers to Han Chinese people or

China proper China proper, also called Inner China, are terms used primarily in the West in reference to the traditional "core" regions of China centered in the southeast. The term was first used by Westerners during the Manchu people, Manchu-led Qing dyn ...

. * readings are based on the pronunciations of later dynasties of China, such as the

Song A song is a musical composition performed by the human voice. The voice often carries the melody (a series of distinct and fixed pitches) using patterns of sound and silence. Songs have a structure, such as the common ABA form, and are usu ...

and Ming. They cover all readings adopted from the

Heian era The is the last division of classical Japanese history, running from 794 to 1185. It followed the Nara period, beginning when the 50th emperor, Emperor Kammu, moved the capital of Japan to Heian-kyō (modern Kyoto). means in Japanese. It is a ...

to the

Edo period The , also known as the , is the period between 1600 or 1603 and 1868 in the history of Japan, when the country was under the rule of the Tokugawa shogunate and some 300 regional ''daimyo'', or feudal lords. Emerging from the chaos of the Sengok ...

. This is also known as . * readings, which are mistaken or changed readings of the kanji that have become accepted into the Japanese language. In some cases, they are the actual readings that accompanied the character's introduction to Japan but do not match how the character "should" (is prescribed to) be read according to the rules of character construction and pronunciation. The most common form of readings is the ''kan-on'' one, and use of a non-''kan-on'' reading in a word where the ''kan-on'' reading is well known is a common cause of reading mistakes or difficulty, such as in (''go-on''), where is usually instead read as ''kai''. The ''go-on'' readings are especially common in

Buddhist Buddhism, also known as Buddhadharma and Dharmavinaya, is an Indian religion and List of philosophies, philosophical tradition based on Pre-sectarian Buddhism, teachings attributed to the Buddha, a wandering teacher who lived in the 6th or ...

terminology such as , as well as in some of the earliest loans, such as the Sino-Japanese numbers. The ''tō-on'' readings occur in some later words, such as , , and . The ''go-on'', ''kan-on'', and ''tō-on'' readings are generally

cognate In historical linguistics, cognates or lexical cognates are sets of words that have been inherited in direct descent from an etymological ancestor in a common parent language. Because language change can have radical effects on both the s ...

(with rare exceptions of homographs; see below), having a common origin in

Old Chinese Old Chinese, also called Archaic Chinese in older works, is the oldest attested stage of Chinese language, Chinese, and the ancestor of all modern varieties of Chinese. The earliest examples of Chinese are divinatory inscriptions on oracle bones ...

, and hence form linguistic doublets or triplets, but they can differ significantly from each other and from modern Chinese pronunciation.

Examples

References

{{Japanese language Kanji Japanese writing system terms