Postby thegooseking » August 18th, 2015 2:16 pm
klaragrannas-san,
Kanji have a sound (usually more than one, depending on the reading), and a meaning (although that meaning isn't always used in Japanese). The easiest way to think of nanori is that it's just another reading of kanji, like kun'yomi and on'yomi.
So, broadly speaking (and massively oversimplifying), kun'yomi is how you read a kanji when it's used in a native Japanese word, on'yomi is how you read a kanji when it's used in a word imported from Chinese, and nanori is how you read a kanji when it's used in a name.
It's not always so simple. Names can also use kun'yomi or on'yomi too. For instance, Yuki-sensei's name is an on'yomi reading of 由紀, but also a kun'yomi reading of 雪 - it's a native Japanese word that is 'converted' to on'yomi by using different kanji, to indicate that it is a name rather than a regular noun.
Nanori is sort of the opposite of this. Whereas Yuki's name uses kanji for sound, but the meaning is based on the sound rather than the kanji (using kanji this way is called ateji), nanori is often used when you want a name with the meaning of the kanji, but a different sound to the regular kun'yomi or on'yomi readings. So one nanori reading of 雪 is Kiyo - it has the same meaning as Yuki, but it's written and pronounced very differently, since in this case the meaning comes from the kanji, not the sound.
I hope that helps and isn't just confusing.
小狼
