Ateji

In modern Japanese, nihongo|"ateji"|当て字 or 宛字 or あてじ are kanji used phonetically to represent native or borrowed words. This is analogous to "man'yōgana" in pre-modern Japanese.

For example, sushi is often written with the "ateji" 寿司. The character 寿 means "one's natural life span" and 司 means "to administer", neither of which have anything to do with the food. "Ateji" as a means of representing loanwords have been largely superseded in modern Japanese by the use of "katakana", although many "ateji" coined in earlier eras still linger on.

When using "ateji" to represent loanwords, the kanji are sometimes chosen for both their semantic and phonetic values. A stock example is 倶楽部 ("kurabu") for "club", where the characters can be interpreted loosely in sequence as "together", "fun" and "place". Another example is 合羽 ("kappa") for the Portuguese "capa", a kind of raincoat. The characters can mean "wings coming together", as the pointed "capa" resembles a bird with wings folded together.

"Ateji" should not be confused with "kun'yomi" (訓読み), Japanese reading, or native reading, where a kanji is assigned the native Japanese equivalent as its reading.

The converse, where the kanji characters are used for their meaning without regard to their original reading and are assigned a new reading, is also a form of "ateji". An example is 煙草 ("tabako") for "tobacco", where the individual kanji have no phonetic relationship to the compound. Compounds that are established in the language are known as 熟字訓 ("jukujikun"), while improvised uses are just "ateji" (for example, 宿敵 as "raibaru" "rival", or 強敵 as "tomo" "friend").

ee also

*"Jiajie" in Chinese
*List of foreign place names in Japanese
*Transliteration into Chinese characters