Go-on

readings from Chang'an during the Nara period. Like kan-on readings, they are said to display the characteristics of Middle Chinese.

Introduced to Japan during the 5th and 6th centuries, when China was divided into separate Northern and Southern Dynasties, it is thought that go-on readings were imported either directly from the Southern dynasty, or through the Korean peninsula. This explanation is based mainly on historical reasoning: there was an influx of other foreign thought from China and Korea to Japan at that time, including both Buddhist and Confucianist thought. However, there is no historical documentation to conclusively demonstrate that go-on readings are actually based on Southern dynastic Chinese.

Go-on readings are used particularly often in Buddhist terms and legal terms, especially those of the Nara and Heian periods. When kan-on readings were introduced to Japan, their go-on equivalents did not disappear, and even today, go-on and kan-on readings continue to be used together. Go-on readings were also used for the Chinese characters of the ancient Japanese syllabary used in the Kojiki.

Name

Go-on readings were formerly referred to as , or one of many other similar names. It is thought that Japanese students studying in China adopted this practice, and, taking the position that Chang'an's readings were the correct ones, they also began to refer to Japan's previously imported kanji readings as "go-on".

Go-on readings are also sometimes referred to as . Because the sounds could not be distinguished in Chinese, both "-o" and "-u" were considered acceptable pronunciations upon their import to Japanese.

Japanese and Min Nan

We can find some similarities in sound between Japanese and Min Nan language which is spoken in the southern Fujian of China and Taiwan even in modern days.

References

Most of the content of this article comes from the equivalent Japanese-language article, accessed on June 5th, 2006.

Footnotes