Based on my limited understanding, Japanese is unique compared to other Chinese-character based languages in that they have both a native and original Chinese reading for kanji. It seems like other languages would either just created new logograms (Chu Nom, Sawndip, Gukja) or use Chinese characters for their phonetic value only (such as Korean before Hangul).
So my question is, when Japanese imported Chinese characters during the 5th-6th century did they immediately make a distinction between the original reading of a character and a native reading of it’s intrinsic meaning? Or did it take some time before they adopted Kun’yomi? If this is the case, at what point in history did both On and Kun readings come into use when reading Kanji?
I ask this because I am aware of Man’yogana, and so I suspect that they had a similar system to Korea before Kun’yomi was ‘invented’.
by zxchew