< human language , character > /kahn'jee/ (From the Japanese "kan" - the Chinese Han dynasty, and "ji" - glyph or letter of the alphabet. Not capitalised. Plural "kanji") The Japanese word for a Han character used in Japanese. Kanji constitute a part of the writing system used to represent the Japanese language in written, printed and displayed form. The term is also used for the collection of all kanji letters .
US-ASCII doesn't include kanji characters, but some character encodings , including Unicode , do.
The Japanese writing system also uses hiragana, katakana, and sometimes romaji ( Roman alphabet letters). These characters are distinct from, though commonly used in combination with, kanji. Furigana are also added sometimes.
(2000-12-30)