This article focuses on the features that are unique to kanji. See Chinese character for the common features with Chinese characters used in the Korean and Chinese languages.
History of kanji
There is some disagreement about the beginning of Chinese characters use in Japan, but it is generally accepted that Buddhist monks brought Chinese texts back to Japan in about the 5th century, and these were read in the Chinese language. Over time, a system known as kanbun emerged: this was essentially Chinese text with diacritical marks to allow Japanese speakers to read it in accordance with the rules of Japanese grammar.
Japanese it self had no written form. Eventually a writing system called manyogana (used in the ancient poetry anthology Manyoshu) evolved that used a limited set of kanji for their phonetic value alone, not for their semantic value, which was necessary for writing Japanese poetry. Manyogana written in highly cursive style became hiragana, a writing system that was accessible to women (who were denied higher education). Major works of Heian-era literature by women were written in hiragana. Katakana emerged via a parallel path: monastery students simplified manyogana to a single constituent element. Hiragana and katakana are referred to collectively as kana.
As the Japanese system of writing matured and expanded, kanji began to be used to write certain parts of speech, such as nouns, adjectives and verbs, while kana were used to write verb endings, uniquely Japanese words, and foreign words (but note that this usage developed much later originally foreign words were written using kanji, chosen either for their meaning or to spell the word phonetically.).
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