Kanbun

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Example of how a classic Chinese text is read in Japanese. The Arabic numbers indicate the order of reading.

Kanbun ( 漢文 , German “ Han script”, also “Han text (e)”) refers to literature in Japan written in Chinese characters . It is also classical Chinese .

Very old texts in Japan were written completely or mostly in Chinese, although the Man'yōgana also showed very early attempts to use the characters only with the phonetic value to denote the pronunciation of the Japanese of that time. Later on Kanbun was used almost exclusively in religious contexts, but was still important for communicating with the Chinese. Since the Japanese Kanji largely correspond to the traditional Chinese characters , these texts can (theoretically) also be read by the Japanese. However, Japanese grammar is completely different from Chinese. This also applies to the word order; in Japanese, for example, the verb is at the end of the sentence.

Historical development

The earliest traditional Japanese works, such as the Nihon Ryōiki (around 820) and the Imperial Stories , are written entirely in the Chinese style (so-called Hakubun 白文 "white texts"). Later came the reading aids, from which several systems emerged, initially the kaerites ( 返点 , "points of rotation") for determining the word order. In the okoto-th ( ヲ コ ト 点 ) the symbols “ - ”, “ 丨 ”, “ • ” and “ └ ” were arranged in a certain way around the characters or between them. Then they represented a certain Japanese syllable, primarily grammatical particles. There were also kuntenbun ( 訓 点 文 ), texts with instruction symbols , of which there were a number of variants. There was no uniform Kanbun as such. Furthermore, characters were also reproduced according to their phonetic value, e.g. B. 陀羅尼 da-ran-ni for from the Sanskrit derived Dharani (=  Mantra ).

Japanese scholars wrote Kanbun in the Meiji period . Legal texts were published in this style until the end of World War II.

variants

To put the words in the Japanese order, markers are added to the characters to indicate the reading order. To the sentence of Han Fei

" 楚人 有 鬻 盾 與 矛 者 "

"There was a person from Chu who sold shields and spears."

According to the principle of kanbun kundoku ( 漢文 訓 読 ) easier to read in Japanese, it is marked as follows:

「楚人 有下鬻二盾 與一 レ矛 者上」

With the help of the markings, the characters are now mentally rearranged so that they correspond to the Japanese word order. Here, the swap mark ( レ ) is considered first. It positions the character 矛 before the character 與 . Now the marking "below" ( 下 ) after the symbol 有 means that this symbol moves to the position marked with "above" ( 上 ). Likewise, the character marked with “two” ( 二 ) moves to the place marked with “one” ( 一 ). This results in the following order:

「楚人 盾 矛 與 鬻 者 有」

In traditional Japanese spelling, the text would be written and read as follows:

「楚人 に 盾 と 矛 と を 鬻 ぐ 者 が 有 る。」

So-hito ni tate to hoko to o hisagu mono ga aru.

Unicode

Main article : Unicode block Kanbun

The Kanbun markings have been part of the Unicode standard since Version 1.1, which appeared in 1993 . This is a coding of the annotation characters described above, which indicate the Japanese reading order of the Chinese text. The characters are two kaerites , the link mark ( ㆐ ) and the swap mark ( ㆑ ) as well as four different numbering groups of Kanji :

  1. Numbers ( ㆒ ㆓ ㆔ ㆕ ) "one, two, three, four"
  2. Position information ( ㆖ ㆗ ㆘ ) "above, middle, below"
  3. Celestial trunks ( ㆙ ㆚ ㆛ ㆜ ) "first, second, third, fourth celestial stem"
  4. Levels ( ㆝ ㆞ ㆟ ) "Heaven, Earth, Man"

The characters are coded in the block from U + 3190 to U + 319F:

0 1 2 3 4th 5 6th 7th 8th 9 A. B. C. D. E. F.
U + 319x ㆐ ㆑ ㆒ ㆓ ㆔ ㆕ ㆖ ㆗ ㆘ ㆙ ㆚ ㆛ ㆜ ㆝ ㆞ ㆟

See also

Textbooks

  • Astrid Brochlos: Kanbun 漢文 の 基礎 - Basics of the classic Sino-Japanese written language. Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden 2004, ISBN 3-447-04902-2 ; Series title: Asia and Africa Studies at the Humboldt University of Berlin, 16, ISSN  0948-9789
  • Sydney Crawcour: An introduction to Kanbun. University of Michigan, Ann Arbor 1965
  • Inge-Lore Kluge, Hannelore Eisenhofer-Halim (eds.): 漢文 Kanbun - A text and exercise book. Peter Lang, Frankfurt 1997, ISBN 3-631-31412-4 ; Series title: European University Publications Series 27, Volume 62, ISSN  0721-3581
  • Bruno Lewin : An outline of the Japanese grammar. Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden 1959
  • Jan Pierson: Key to Classical Japanese - a List of Inflected and Uninflected Suffixes and Particles of the 7th and 8th Century. Brill, Leiden 1956

Web links