<
human language, character> /kahn'jee/ (From the Japanese
"kan" - the Chinese Han dynasty, and "ji" -
glyph or letter
of the alphabet. Not capitalised. Plural "
kanji") The
Japanese word for a
Han character used in Japanese.
Kanji
constitute a part of the
writing system used to represent
the Japanese language in written, printed and displayed form.
The term is also used for the collection of all
kanji
letters.
US-ASCII doesn't include
kanji characters, but some
character encodings, including
Unicode, do.
The Japanese writing system also uses hiragana, katakana, and
sometimes romaji (
Roman alphabet letters). These characters
are distinct from, though commonly used in combination with,
kanji.
Furigana are also added sometimes.
(2000-12-30)