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The jinmeiyō kanji (人名用漢字, Japanese pronunciation: [dʑimmeːjoːkaꜜɲdʑi], lit. ' kanji for use in personal names ') are a set of 863 Chinese characters known as "name kanji" in English.
Man'yōgana (万葉仮名, Japanese pronunciation: [maɰ̃joꜜːɡana] or [maɰ̃joːɡana]) is an ancient writing system that uses Chinese characters to represent the Japanese language. It was the first known kana system to be developed as a means to represent the Japanese language phonetically. The date of the earliest usage of this type of ...
The jōyō kanji (常用漢字, Japanese pronunciation: [dʑoːjoːkaꜜɲdʑi], lit. "regular-use kanji") are those kanji listed on the Jōyō kanji hyō (常用漢字表, literally "list of regular-use kanji"), officially announced by the Japanese Ministry of Education. The current list of 2,136 characters was issued in 2010.
In earlier Japanese, digraphs could also be formed with w-kana. Although obsolete in modern Japanese, the digraphs くゎ (/kʷa/) and くゐ/くうぃ(/kʷi/), are preserved in certain Okinawan orthographies. In addition, the kana え can be used in Okinawan to form the digraph くぇ, which represents the /kʷe/ sound.
Precedence is given to grammar over pronunciation. For example, the verb warau (to laugh) is written わらふ warafu, and in accordance with Japanese grammar rules, waraō, the volitional form of warau, is written わらはう warahau. The kana づ du and ぢ di, which are mostly only used in rendaku in modern kana usage, are more common.
Nanori (Japanese: 名乗り, "to say or give one's own name") are the often non-standard kanji character readings (pronunciations) found almost exclusively in Japanese names. In the Japanese language, many Japanese names are constructed from common characters with standard pronunciations. However, names may also contain rare characters which ...
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Many generalizations about Japanese pronunciation have exceptions if recent loanwords are taken into account. For example, the consonant [p] generally does not occur at the start of native (Yamato) or Chinese-derived (Sino-Japanese) words, but it occurs freely in this position in mimetic and foreign words. [2]