Why the double up?

In the kanji of Isekai 異世界 why is a world kanji used twice? Is it to represent parallel worlds? Also, in jisho, it shows the Furigana in Hiragana but the separate kanji have neither of the readings in Kunyomi. Is it because when compounds are used it changes the On reading to Hiragana? Please explain

2 comments
  1. 世界 by itself just means “world”

    異 means “different” or “unusual” so literally translated it could be something like “different world”

    Not sure about the jisho question…usually all furigana ive seen in jisho is in hiragana…regardless of which reading gets used

    And usually when multiple kanji make up a word without any hiragana in between, the onyomi is used….there are exceptions of course

    In contrast, when a word has hiragana in between, almost always you use kunyomi for every kanji that make it up…but there are also exceptions

  2. 異世界 comes from 世界 (sekai), which means “world”.

    The word 世界 was borrowed from Chinese. Chinese words tend to be two-character compounds for a variety of reasons, like removing ambiguity (since a single character usually has a range of possible meanings).

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