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Concept
Kanbun
Summary
A Kanbun is a form of Classical Chinese used in Japan from the Nara period to the mid-20th century. Much of Japanese literature was written in this style and it was the general writing style for official and intellectual works throughout the period. As a result, Sino-Japanese vocabulary makes up a large portion of the Japanese lexicon and much classical Chinese literature is accessible to Japanese readers in some resemblance of the original. The corresponding system in Korean is gugyeol (口訣/구결).
The Japanese writing system originated through adoption and adaptation of Written Chinese. Some of Japan's oldest books (e.g., Nihon Shoki) and dictionaries (e.g., Tenrei Banshō Meigi and Wamyō Ruijushō) were written in kanbun. Other Japanese literary genres have parallels; the Kaifūsō is the oldest collection of Kanshi "Chinese poetry composed by Japanese poets". Burton Watson's English translations of kanbun compositions provide an introduction to this literary field.
Samuel Martin coined the term "Sino-Xenic" in 1953 to describe Chinese as written in Japan, Korea, and other "foreign" (hence "-xenic") zones on China's periphery. Roy Andrew Miller notes that although Japanese kanbun conventions have Sino-Xenic parallels with other traditions for reading Classical Chinese like Korean hanmun 한문 (漢文) and Vietnamese Hán Văn (Hán Văn/漢文), only kanbun has survived into the present day. He explains how
in the Japanese kanbun reading tradition a Chinese text is simultaneously punctuated, analyzed, and translated into classical Japanese. It operates according to a limited canon of Japanese forms and syntactic structures which are treated as existing in a one-to-one alignment with the vocabulary and structures of classical Chinese. At its worst, this system for reading Chinese as if it were Japanese became a kind of lazy schoolboy's trot to a classical text; at its best, it has preserved the analysis and interpretation of large body of literary Chinese texts which would otherwise have been completely lost; hence, the kanbun tradition can often be of great value for an understanding of early Chinese literature.
Official source
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