What is the etymology of 仮名? It is known as Japanese syllabary character, but how are the meanings of each kanji in this kanji compound related to the sense of "kana"?
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2Your question is unclear. Do you mean, "how does the kanji spelling 仮名 relate to the 'syllabary character' meaning of the term kana"?– Eiríkr ÚtlendiJan 19, 2017 at 0:14
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No, I meant meaning, not spelling. Spelling is orthography, meaning is semantics. I don't know how else to rephrase my question. The question was well understood by @user4092 and was answered very well.– user1602Jan 19, 2017 at 0:43
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2I'm glad user4092 was able to divine your intent. Note that, in Japanese, spelling (in kanji) is inherently mixed with meaning. 仮名 as a spelling conveys the meaning "borrow; provisional" for 仮, and "name; label" for 名. This matches their use: Chinese characters (originally) used as labels or names, that were borrowed for their phonetic values.– Eiríkr ÚtlendiJan 19, 2017 at 1:20
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As I understand 仮名 is not 当て字 but a 熟語 whose senses are closely related to each character's meanings. Do you have any authoritative reference that equates jukugo spelling with its meaning?– user1602Jan 19, 2017 at 1:32
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You may choose to leave your question as it is, but four (of a sufficient five) people have already voted to close as "unclear what you're asking". You might want to make your question more clear so that not only user4092 understands it, but other people as well.– Earthliŋ ♦Jan 19, 2017 at 6:24
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2 Answers
Etymology
Addressing the specific etymology of 仮名{かな}, this comes from earlier reading かんな, itself a shift from earlier かりな, of the same kanji spelling. 仮{かり} here is cognate with 借{か}りる "to borrow", and 名{な} can mean "name", and by extension, "label" or "designation", or even (in specific contexts) "character". The sense arose from the idea of Chinese characters that were borrowed for their phonetic value, as opposed to 真名{まな} (literally "real names / labels / characters"), which described the use of Chinese characters that were used for their real meanings.
History
The literal senses of kana vs. mana as in "borrowed" vs. "real" were used to distinguish how Chinese characters were used when Japanese was written entirely in Chinese characters, in works such as the Kojiki, Nihon Shoki, or the Man'yōshū. This kind of writing is difficult to write and difficult to read, as it isn't always clear if a given kanji is being used phonetically for its sound, or semantically for its meaning.
By way of example, have a look at some of the text of the Man'yōshū here. This layout gives the text as written in full kanji (the lines marked 原文{げんぶん}, "original text, source text"), mixed kanji/kana similar to modern Japanese writing (the lines marked 訓読{くんどく}, literally "meaning reading" in reference to how the text would sound when read intelligibly in Japanese, as opposed to reading it as all on'yomi or essentially borrowed Chinese), and in pure kana (the lines marked 仮名{かな}).
This early poetry anthology was an important enough text in the history of Japanese writing that it lent its name to this writing system: another name for these kanji used phonetically was 万葉仮名{まんようがな}, "borrowed characters as used in the Man'yōshū". Over time, the modern kana (the characters that have no meaning and only represent sound values) developed out of the cursive forms of the man'yōgana that were used for those sounds. Murasaki Shikibu is notable for writing in kana, such as her book The Tale of Genji, indicating that the phonetic symbols had developed and been adopted for common use by the early 1000s.
There were multiple man'yōgana used to represent each of the syllables of Japanese. There were 29 different characters that could be used to spell し, for instance. As man'yōgana writing developed, these different kanji were cursive-ized and abbreviated into kana forms. Kana standardization didn't happen until 1900, with further reforms in 1946. Prior to these changes, each sound could have umpteen different kana. The kana that were removed from regular use by these spelling reforms are now called 変体仮名{へんたいがな}. You might still encounter these from time to time, mainly just in business signs or deliberately old-fashioned writing.
answered Jan 23, 2017 at 18:29
When you try to write a name of a person called "Waka-takeru" with kanji, you have two ways to do it. One is using kanjis that mean "waka" and "takeru" respectively i.e. 幼武 or 若建. This usage is called 真名{まな}. The other is using kanjis that phonetically stand for wa, ka, ta, ke, ru respectively i.e. 獲加多支鹵, which is called 仮名, meaning not authentic description.
