52523
I was talking to someone about the etymology of the word "emoji" recently, and
how it comes from
[絵文字](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E7%B5%B5%E6%96%87%E5%AD%97) in Japanese.

I knew that [絵](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E7%B5%B5#Japanese) means
"picture", and that
[文字](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E6%96%87%E5%AD%97#Japanese) means
"character", but I was unable to explain why the
[文](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E6%96%87#Japanese) kanji is necessary when
[字](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E5%AD%97#Japanese) also means "character"
by itself.

Are 字 and 文字 interchangeable, or do they have different connotations/usage
patterns?
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2017-08-20T10:27:56.357
52522
2017-08-20T10:27:56.357
9212
question
synonyms
What is the difference between 字 and 文字?
It appears that this question has already been answered on
[Quora](https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-difference-
between-%E5%AD%97-and-%E6%96%87%E5%AD%97), so - as per [this meta
question](https://japanese.meta.stackexchange.com/q/754/9212) - I'll provide
an overview of what I've learned here:

  * 字 and 文字 are, on their own, generally interchangeable. 
    * Compare "phone" and "telephone" in English.
  * However, this may not be the case with compounds. 
    * For example, 漢字 is fine, but 漢文字 sounds strange.

**Trivia:** According to
[Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shuowen_Jiezi), these kanji were (and
maybe still are?) used to make a distinction between characters with a single
radical and those with multiple radicals in Chinese:

> The title of the work draws a basic distinction between two types of
> characters, wén 文 and zì 字, the former being those composed of a single
> graphic element (such as shān 山 "mountain"), and the latter being those
> containing more than one such element (such as hǎo 好 "good" with 女 "woman"
> and 子 "child") which can be deconstructed into and analyzed in terms of
> their component elements.

However, I do not believe that this applies to modern Japanese (if it ever
applied to Japanese at all).
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2017-08-20T10:27:56.357
52523
2017-08-20T10:27:56.357
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52522
answer