How do you read and translate "十二鬼月" in Japanese and English?

Question

According to the Demon Slayer wiki, this is how you write "Twelve Demon Moons" in Japanese but I'm not sure if this is correct.

Also according to the wiki, it's read as "Jūnikizuki". I'm confused why it's not read as "Jūni Onitsuki".

1. Are there other ways to read or write Twelve Demon Moons in Japanese?
2. Is the wiki wrong?

I understand "zuki" is the moon, but the word "ki" I'm not sure.

I'm really interested on how this is read and the explanations behind it. I think this will provide me and others some more understanding about how Japanese is written and read.

Thank you.

Answer 1

Japanese has two different types of readings for kanji: on-yomi and kun-yomi. This has to do with the ancient history of how kanji was introduced into the Japanese writing system (which you could read more about here if you wanted).

When you look up a kanji in a dictionary, all the readings are listed. For example, this site lists the readings for this kanji (鬼). And under the on-readings you see the reading キ (ki) which is the one that is used in this word.

For information about when each reading type is used you can see questions like this one.

If you look up 月 you'll note that づき (zuki) is not one of the readings, but つき (tsuki) is. The reason づき is used here is because of something called rendaku, where sometimes sounds are changed based on the sounds that come before it. See more about rendaku here if you're interested.