Ateji

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In modern Japanese, ateji (当て字 or 宛字 or あてじ) are kanji used phonetically to represent native or borrowed words. Such a practice is referred as man'yōgana in pre-modern Japanese.

For example, sushi is often written with the ateji 寿司. The character 寿 means "one's natural life span" and 司 means "to administer", neither of which have anything to do with the food. Ateji as a means of representing loanwords have been largely superseded in modern Japanese by the use of katakana, although many ateji coined in earlier eras still linger on.

When using ateji to represent loanwords, the kanji are sometimes chosen for both their semantic and phonetic values. A stock example is 倶楽部 (kurabu) for "club", where the characters can be interpreted loosely in sequence as "together", "fun" and "place". Another example is 合羽 (kappa) for the Portuguese capa, a kind of raincoat. The characters can mean "wings coming together", as the pointed capa resembles a bird with wings folded together.

Ateji should not be confused with kun'yomi (訓読み), Japanese reading, or native reading, where a kanji is assigned the native Japanese equivalent as its reading.

The converse, where the kanji characters are used for their meaning without regard to their original reading and are assigned a new reading, is also a form of ateji. An example is 煙草 (tabako) for "tobacco," where the individual kanji have no phonetic relationship to the compound. Compounds that are established in the language are known as 熟字訓 (jukujikun), while improvised uses is just ateji (eg, 宿敵 as "raibaru" (rival) or 強敵 as "tomo" (friend)).