Quote:
Originally Posted by Nyororin
There is, indeed, a significant difference. Instead of thinking of all Kanji as standalone words, think of them as components. The same sort of idea exists in English, and for similar reasons.
Kanji are not originally Japanese. They were "borrowed" from Chinese, and applied to the Japanese language. Over time a lot of things have become very strongly intertwined, but in the end they are not (except for a few special cases) originally Japanese. Written Japanese combines these components to form specific meanings.
A similar example in English would be the use of Latin and Greek roots for words. Segments themselves carry meaning, but in most cases they are combined to form the final word. Alone, and you would just sound strange.
In both languages, this is particularly strong when it comes to ideas and concepts that are not easily defined.
In English, the word "reality" is formed from "real" and "ity" - "real" being the part that carries the actual meaning, "ity" just transforms it into a noun. But yet I doubt that you would use "real" in place of "reality" - it simply wouldn`t be correct.
|
lehmans terms: kunyomi vs onyomi ?
