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I have encountered another sentence while translating some text of Japanese history The sentence is:

人家の竈(かまど)から炊煙が立ち上っていないことに気づいて租税を免除します。 jinka no kamado kara 炊煙 ga tachiagatteinai koto ni kidzuite sozei wo menjo shimasu.

So I have these words:

人家 jinka

炊煙

I have problem with the meaning of jinka. Does this refer to houses and buildings in that period of history? In case of 炊煙. As I found out 炊 taku means cooking and 煙 kemu means fume and smoke. So Do I presume well if I think they mean "fumes and smokes deriving from cooking"? And how can we pronounce it?

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As snailplane points out, you can find 炊煙{すいえん} in the dictionary. It's the smoke that comes from cooking, presumably an older word since all the definitions refer specifically to smoke from a かまど, but as your rather astute skills of deduction have ascertained, it is in fact smoke from cooking.

人家 is not exclusively a historical word. It refers to houses where people live and is used today.

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