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Go-on

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Go-on or goon (呉音; English: /ˈɡoʊ.ɒn/ GOH-on; Japanese pronunciation: [ɡo.oɴ] or [ɡoꜜoɴ], lit. "Wu sound") are an early layer of Japanese kanji readings (on'yomi), predating kan-on (漢音). Go-on was transmitted with Chinese classical and Buddhist texts and remains particularly common in Buddhist vocabulary.[1] Both go-on and kan-on reflect Middle Chinese pronunciations, adapted to Japanese phonology.[1]

History and uses

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Go-on is the earliest of the three main historical layers of Chinese-based kanji readings, followed by kan-on and tōsō-on.[2]

A common account traces the transmission of go-on to people from Baekje who had contact with the Wu region of southern China during the Six Dynasties.[3] Edwin G. Pulleyblank identifies the Wu of go-on with the old southern capital of Jiankang (modern Nanjing) and its surroundings, where he suggests an older Chinese pronunciation standard was particularly persistent.[4] The Nihon Kokugo Daijiten also records a theory tracing its origins further back, through the Korean Peninsula, to Chinese pronunciations of the Han and Wei periods.[5]

Map showing sea routes between Japan and Tang China
Routes followed by Japanese missions to Tang China, which brought kan-on readings to Japan.[1]

Kan-on was introduced through missions to Tang China and other contacts during the Nara and early Heian periods. Go-on readings continued in use alongside it: 行 is read gyō in shugyō (修行; "Buddhist practice"), but kō in kyūkō (急行; "express train").[1]

Compounds can also mix the two layers. In modern Japanese, for example, gengo (言語; "language") combines kan-on gen with go-on go.[6]: 373  In a study of two historical dictionaries, Hideyuki Ohshima compared selected two-character Sino-Japanese word forms whose characters had distinct go-on and kan-on readings. Mixed readings accounted for about 15% of the forms in the 12th-century Iroha Jiruishō and about 24% in the Nippo Jisho, published in 1603–1604.[6]: 376–380, 388 

Some historical go-on readings were lost after kan-on was introduced. Sino-Japanese character dictionaries (kanwa jiten) nevertheless supply go-on readings for their entries, including artificial readings inferred from Chinese fanqie spellings. Marc Hideo Miyake also describes a dictionary that supplied some unattested go-on and kan-on readings by analogy with homophonous characters in the historical Chinese works Guangyun and Yunjing.[7]

Names

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These readings were formerly called wa-on (和音; lit. "Japanese sound"). The name go-on is attested for this reading layer from the mid-Heian period, including in Fujiwara no Kintō's Hokuzanshō (北山抄, compiled c. 1012–1021).[5][8] The Nihon Kokugo Daijiten suggests that this usage imitated a Chinese practice of contrasting southern go-on with kan-on, regarded as the correct pronunciation. It attributes the later theory of a southern Chinese origin to the association of the name with Wu.[5]

Characteristics

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Go-on distinguishes voiced and voiceless consonants that are merged in kan-on. It also has initial m- and n- where kan-on has b- and d-, respectively: 馬 ("horse") has go-on ma and kan-on ba, while 男 ("man") has nan and dan.[9]

Readings of selected characters
Kanji Meaning Go-on Kan-on Middle Chinese transcription[10]
明[11] "bright" myō mei mjaeng
京[12] "capital" kyō kei kjaeng
上[13] "up" jō shō dzyangX, dzyangH
下[14] "below" ge ka haeX, haeH

In the Middle Chinese transcriptions, X marks the rising tone and H the departing tone.[15]

See also

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References

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  1. 1 2 3 4 Nakazawa, Nobuyuki (5 February 2019). 同じ漢字なのに、日本語と中国語では発音がまったく違うのはなぜですか [Why are the pronunciations of the same kanji completely different in Japanese and Chinese?]. ことば研究館 (in Japanese). National Institute for Japanese Language and Linguistics. Retrieved 11 August 2026.
  2. ↑ Shibatani, Masayoshi (1990). The Languages of Japan. Cambridge University Press. pp. 120–121. ISBN 978-0-521-36918-3.
  3. ↑ Mineya, Tōru. 呉音. 改訂新版 世界大百科事典 (in Japanese). Heibonsha. Retrieved 22 October 2026 – via Kotobank.
  4. ↑ Pulleyblank, Edwin G. (1991). Lexicon of Reconstructed Pronunciation: In Early Middle Chinese, Late Middle Chinese, and Early Mandarin. UBC Press. pp. 2–3. ISBN 0-7748-0366-5.
  5. 1 2 3 呉音. Seisenban Nihon Kokugo Daijiten (in Japanese). Shōgakukan. Retrieved 11 August 2026 – via Kotobank.
  6. 1 2 Ohshima, Hideyuki (2022). 中世における呉音漢音混読現象の展開―『色葉字類抄』と『日葡辞書』の漢語語形の比較を通じて― [The Blending of Go-on and Kan-on in Medieval Japanese: Compared with Sino-Japanese Words Found in Iroha Jiruishō and Nippo Jisho]. Mathematical Linguistics (in Japanese). 33 (6): 373–388. doi:10.24701/mathling.33.6_373.
  7. ↑ Miyake, Marc Hideo (2003). Old Japanese: A Phonetic Reconstruction. Routledge. pp. 104–105. ISBN 978-1-134-40373-8.
  8. ↑ 北山抄. Seisenban Nihon Kokugo Daijiten (in Japanese). Shōgakukan. Retrieved 22 October 2026 – via Kotobank.
  9. ↑ 呉音. ブリタニカ国際大百科事典 小項目事典 (in Japanese). Retrieved 11 August 2026 – via Kotobank.
  10. ↑ Baxter, William H.; Sagart, Laurent (20 September 2014). "Baxter–Sagart Old Chinese reconstruction, version 1.1: order by Mandarin and Middle Chinese" (PDF). pp. 56, 77, 97, 120.
  11. ↑ 明. Digital Daijisen (in Japanese). Shogakukan. Retrieved 22 October 2026 – via Kotobank.
  12. ↑ 京. Digital Daijisen (in Japanese). Shogakukan. Retrieved 22 October 2026 – via Kotobank.
  13. ↑ 上. Digital Daijisen (in Japanese). Shogakukan. Retrieved 22 October 2026 – via Kotobank.
  14. ↑ 下. Digital Daijisen (in Japanese). Shogakukan. Retrieved 22 October 2026 – via Kotobank.
  15. ↑ Baxter, William H. (1992). A Handbook of Old Chinese Phonology. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. p. 31. ISBN 978-3-11-012324-1.
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