George Files

Kanji and Freedom.

Kanji (漢字) are Chinese characters used in Japanese writing and just like all Chinese/Japanese logograms they look really cool when used in large sizes on banners and posters. Too bad they’re not that clear at the text sizes I prefer for the Latin alphabet. Funnily enough, there’s also Wasei Kanji (和製漢字) which are Chinese characters from Japan, which means that they’re in the Chinese style but they’re native to Japan. The best part is, some of them are adopted in China.

My favourite Kanji are Jiyuu 自由 meaning Freedom and 禅, Zen. There’s something about foreign scripts that makes them appealing. I wish I could devote some time to studying the language, but as my previous forays into French and German show, I’m not much of a language person. In any case, if you have a Character Map installed and you like these characters, you can just pick and choose what you want, without actually knowing anything, like so. Don’t you just love technology?

Ah well, link time:

• A little index of names written in hiragana
• About.com’s page on Kanji
• A page from 2005, that has some nicely written Kanji
• A Brazilian site with some nice Kanji

Posted by roshan.george under Musings, Reading |