Why the pronunciation of some words is different than their components?


美味しい is being pronounced おいしい, but it is not the sum of the way its kanji
components are being pronounced. I think I have also seen it in some other
words. So why is that the pronunciation of some words doesn't make sense when
you look at their kanji components?




This phenomenon is called **jukujikun** in Japanese (熟字訓).

It is when a word's pronunciation is not derived from the standard ON and KUN
readings of the individual characters, but actually from the overall meaning
of the individual kanji characters. In this case, the meaning of the word is
'delicious', corresponding to 美 (beautiful) 味 (taste). In other words, the
characters' KUN and ON readings are completely ignored.

The opposite phenomenon is also possible, i.e. that the meaning of the
individual kanji within a word have no relevance to the overall meaning of the
word. This is called **ateji**. A common example is the word 寿司, where the す
comes from 寿 and the し comes from 司, but the meaning of these kanji is
unrelated to the food. In other words, the characters' meanings are ignored.

These ways of reading kanji are a relic from an earlier time after kanji had
recently been borrowed from Chinese. At that time, there were many different
experimental ways of reading kanji. Over time, most of these died out due to
their complexity, but **jukujikun** and **ateji** have remained and are still
quite common.

A few other common examples of jukujikun are 大人, 今日, 可笑しい, etc.




This phenomenon is called **jukujikun** in Japanese (熟字訓).

It is when a word's pronunciation is not derived from the standard ON and KUN
readings of the individual characters, but actually from the overall meaning
of the individual kanji characters. In this case, the meaning of the word is
'delicious', corresponding to 美 (beautiful) 味 (taste). In other words, the
characters' KUN and ON readings are completely ignored.

The opposite phenomenon is also possible, i.e. that the meaning of the
individual kanji within a word have no relevance to the overall meaning of the
word. This is called **ateji**. A common example is the word 寿司, where the す
comes from 寿 and the し comes from 司, but the meaning of these kanji is
unrelated to the food. In other words, the characters' meanings are ignored.

These ways of reading kanji are a relic from an earlier time after kanji had
recently been borrowed from Chinese. At that time, there were many different
experimental ways of reading kanji. Over time, most of these died out due to
their complexity, but **jukujikun** and **ateji** have remained and are still
quite common.

A few other common examples of jukujikun are 大人, 今日, 可笑しい, etc.

