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Sino-Japanese refers to the pronunciation of Chinese characters as used in Japan. They derive from those sounds that came to Japan mainly during the Nara and Heian eras of Japanese history, corresponding to the late Northern and Southern Dynasties, Sui and Tang Dynasties of China. This era in Chinese linguistics corresponds to the Middle Chinese era.
Chinese characters in Japan are called kanji, and the pronunciation falls into two main categories,
Onyomi 音讀
(Literally sound readings) readings of characters are Sino-Japanese, that is, their origins come from borrowed pronunciations of a stage of Chinese sometime in the past. On readings are grouped into several types of pronunciation, according the the approximate time of borrowing.
- Go-On 吳音, are thought to be the oldest readings, coming to Japan via the Korean peninsula when there was a Japanese colony Minama corresponding to the Nara period during the fifth and sixth century CE, through the transliteration of Buddhist texts into Chinese characters that came from China. The sounds are thought to come from an area towards the lower reaches of the Yangtze River, in the modern Chinese provinces of Jiangsu and Zhejiang which was once part of Three Kingdoms state of Wu 吳 in the third century.
- Kan-On 漢音 are thought to have come to Japan later, during the seventh to ninth centuries, when Japanese monks and scholars went to China and brought back the pronunciation of Tang Dynasty China. 漢 refers to the Chinese Han Dynasty and to Chinese people and language in general.
- Tou-On 唐音 and Sou-On 宋音 are post Kan-On readings where 唐 and 宋 refer to the Tang Dynasty and Song Dynasty of China, but like 吳 and 漢 these are almost misnomers, since they post date the corresponding eras that these refer to. Tou-on and Sou-on readings are mostly readings that relate to
- Kanyou-On 慣用音 (literally accustomed readings) are often incorrect readings, but due to their popularity, they have become commonly used.
Kun-yomi 訓讀
(Literally recieved meaning readings)
- Kun readings are native Japanese in origin, and more often than not, polysyllabic.
One kanji or Chinese character may have many pronunciations, or readings. They may have one or more of each type of the above types of readings. For instance, a typical listing in a Japanese kanji dictionary would show the readings as follows
越 (吳) エツ etsu (漢) オチ ochi (慣) オツ otsu (訓) こす ko-su こえる ko-eru
This example shows that the Sino-Japanese readings for 越 are the On-readings etsu and ochi.
The vestiges of Middle Chinese (MC) phonology are found in Sino-Japanese (SJ) pronunciation.
- MC initials [k k'g] have survived as SJ /k/
- MC initial [ŋ] survives as SJ /g/
- MC initial [x ɣ ] survives as SJ /k/
- MC zero initials characters remain as zero initial SJ readings (that is, they begin with vowels or /y/)
- MC retroflex [ʈ]
- MC
- MC
- MC
- MC
- MC
- MC