Japanese Symbols

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Many Kanji or Japanese symbols originate from the picture of what the symbol means.

For example, the symbol for Katana (shown on the left) was developed from a picture of a sword (yes, it is hard to picture, but imagine a moon-shape sword standing up with the handle on the top left, and a wide blade with the sharp point on the bottom.) However, it is hard to draw a picture of just a blade. So what did they do? They came up with an idea to draw a picture of a sword and put a "dot" to point out the blade of the sword. It's just like putting an arrow or circle to point out where you would like someone to see. That's how they came up with the symbol for blade, "Ha." As you will start to notice, many Kanji characters are very similar. (The symbol for Power (Chikara) is also very similar to the symbol for Katana. We didn't want to confuse you too much today!) So be careful when you want to use any Kanji for something permanent, like a tattoo!

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