Kanji literally means "Han characters."
Kanji, used in Japanese writing, shares its origin and characters with the traditional Chinese writing system known as hanzi. Let's break this down further:
- Kanji (漢字) is the term used in Japanese to refer to these characters.
- Han Characters are the characters themselves, originating from China.
- Hanzi (漢字/汉字) is the Chinese term for the same character writing system.
Essentially, kanji are adopted Chinese characters used in the Japanese writing system. They represent not just sounds, but also meanings, and are an integral part of written Japanese, alongside hiragana and katakana.
