Example of Kaeriten

Kanbun (漢文, literally "Han writing") is Chinese written for a Japanese audience. Image File history File links Description: This image explains how to read Classical Chinese in Japanese culture (see en:Kanbun). ... Image File history File links Description: This image explains how to read Classical Chinese in Japanese culture (see en:Kanbun). ... Han Chinese (Simplified Chinese: 汉族; Traditional Chinese: 漢族; pinyin: ) is a term which refers to the majority ethnic group within China and the largest single human ethnic group in the world. ...

Before the advent of the modern Japanese writing system and the kana syllabaries, kanbun was used to compose original Japanese texts. Today kanbun is used primarily to annotate classical Chinese and is a required subject in high school, so in modern Japanese, the word "kanbun" can be also used to refer to classical Chinese literature as a whole. Nihongo (meaning Japanese language), written in kanji This article describes the modern Japanese writing system and its history. ... Japanese writing Kanji 漢字 Kana 仮名 Hiragana 平仮名 Katakana 片仮名 Uses Furigana 振り仮名 Okurigana 送り仮名 Romaji ローマ字 For other meanings of Kana, see Kana (disambiguation). ... Classical Chinese or Literary Chinese (文言, pinyin: wényán, literal meaning: literary language or 古文, literal: ancient written language) is a traditional style of written Chinese prose using grammar and vocabulary very different from any modern spoken form of Chinese. ...

Modern kanbun employs a set of marks known as kaeriten (返り点), lit. "return points". For example, the following line by Han Fei Zi: Traditional Chinese: 韓非子 Simplified Chinese: 韩非子 Pinyin: Hán Fēizǐ Wade-Giles: Han Fei-tzu Han Feizi 韓非子 (d. ...

楚人有鬻盾與矛者

would be written in kanbun as:

楚人有_下鬻_二盾與_一レ矛者_上

To read this, the character marked with 下 (down) is shifted to the location marked by 上 (up), and likewise the character marked with 二 (two) is shifted to the location marked by 一 (one). The reverse mark レ indicates that the order of the adjacent characters must be reversed. Step by step, the sentence thus becomes:

楚人盾矛與鬻者有

And the final sentence is now in the Japanese Subject Object Verb order. At this point conjugations can be added with okurigana and character readings can be annotated with furigana. The completed translation is known as kundoku or "Japanese reading", and the set of translation marks used are kunten (訓点) or "Japanese points". In linguistic typology, Subject Object Verb (SOV) is the type of languages in which the subject, object, and verb of a sentence appear (usually) in that order. ... Japanese writing Kanji 漢字 Kana 仮名 Hiragana 平仮名 Katakana 片仮名 Uses Furigana 振り仮名 Okurigana 送り仮名 Romaji ローマ字 Okurigana (送り仮名, literally accompanying letters) are a special use of hiragana suffixes following kanji stems in Japanese written words. ... Japanese writing Kanji 漢字 Kana 仮名 Hiragana 平仮名 Katakana 片仮名 Uses Furigana 振り仮名 Okurigana 送り仮名 Romaji ローマ字 Furigana (ふりがな), also called yomigana, are kana printed next to a kanji or other character to indicate its pronunciation. ...