by Nao

fumi, bun, mon

A friend of mine is Chinese. Her name has this character, which reads “wen.” We usually read this character “bun.” Bun means text or a sentence. To write a sentence is “bun wo kaku.” To write sentences is “bunshō wo kaku.” Shō means a chapter. Chinese writings are kanbun. Bunmatsu means the end of a sentence. Buntai is a literary style. Bungaku and bungei mean literature. The gei of bungei means art. Bunsai means literary talent. If you are blessed with this talent, you are “bunsai ni megumareteiru.” Megumareru means “to be blessed.” Bunbōgu is stationery. Gu means material or a tool. Civilization is bunmei. The four great ancient civilizations of the world are called yon dai bun mei.

Bunraku is the Japanese traditional puppet theater. It is also known as ningyōjōruri. You can see an introduction of the world of bunraku here.

We also read it mon. The Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology is Monbu kagaku shō. We call monkashō for short. Mon is today’s character. The bu of monbu means division. Kagaku means science and shō means ministry. Formerly, it was the Ministry of Education (monbushō). We therefore see this character imply education.

Fumi is another reading of this character. It means a letter or a message written on paper, but it sounds classical. A common word for a letter is tegami. Te means a hand and gami is the voiced sound of kami, which means paper.

An unordinary reading of this character is “mo.” It is used for moji, meaning a letter or a character. Upper-case letters are ōmoji and lower-case letters are komoji.

1. Draw the dot on the top.
2. Draw the horizontal line from the left to the right.
3. Go backward and draw the sweeping stroke from below the horizontal line.
4. Draw the other sweeping stroke pushing up a little in the beginning and make it broader at the end.