12570
I wanted to know if there is any reference source or authoritative material
about kanji pronunciations and when they were first imported into Japanese?
Any book or electronic source, English or Japanese.

I would like something like this (data are wrong here, it's just a sample of
what I need to see):

会

  * カイ -- imported into Japan during the Tang dynasty, 12th century, for the word 会議
  * エ -- imported during the Ming dynasty, 15th century, for the word 仏会
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question
kanji history onyomi
Is there any reference material for the origins of kanji on-yomi?
_On_ readings are usually divided into four categories:

  * [呉音](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Go-on)（ごおん）
  * [漢音](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kan-on)（かんおん）
  * [唐音](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T%C5%8D-on)（とうおん）
  * [慣用読み](http://kotobank.jp/word/%E6%85%A3%E7%94%A8%E9%9F%B3)（かんようよみ）

The first three categories represent three broad periods of borrowing from
Chinese. The fourth category represents "customary" readings--generally
variations on readings from the above three categories which have nonetheless
been accepted as part of the Japanese language. You can read more about these
categories on Wikipedia [in
English](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On%27yomi#On.27yomi_.28Sino-
Japanese_reading.29) or [in
Japanese](http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%97%A5%E6%9C%AC%E3%81%AB%E3%81%8A%E3%81%91%E3%82%8B%E6%BC%A2%E5%AD%97#.E9.9F.B3.E8.AA.AD.E3.81.BF).

* * *

Some kanji dictionaries written in Japanese (called 漢和辞典{かんわじてん}) show which
readings fall into which categories, but others do not; I don't know of _any_
kanji dictionaries with English definitions that have this information.
Generally speaking, larger 漢和辞典 are more likely to mark readings this way. (In
addition, larger 漢和辞典 are more likely to contain less common readings.)

Here are a couple dictionaries which do mark readings this way:

  * 新漢語林（しんかんごりん） (published by 大修館書店)
  * 新選漢和辞典（しんせんかんわじてん） (published by 小学館)

Some 国語辞典{こくごじてん} have entries for kanji too, and some of these indicate
呉・漢・唐・慣用 as well. For example, [大辞泉](http://dic.yahoo.co.jp/) is available
free online, and it has entries for some kanji, marked `[漢字項目]` in the
Yahoo!辞書 interface. For example, take a look at the entry for
[清](http://dic.yahoo.co.jp/dsearch?enc=UTF-8&p=%E6%B8%85&dtype=0&dname=0na&stype=1&pagenum=1&index=20995600):

> ［音］ **セイ** （漢） **ショウ** （シャウ）（呉） シン（唐） ［訓］ **きよい きよまる きよめる** すむ さやか すがやか

See [大辞泉の凡例](http://dic.yahoo.co.jp/guide/jj/jj9.html) for more information.

Another online resource, [as blutorange points
out](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/questions/12555/is-there-any-
reference-material-for-the-origins-of-kanji-on-yomi/12570#comment26919_12555),
is Wiktionary. I'll reproduce the example links here, in case the comment is
ever deleted: [行](http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E8%A1%8C) and
[御](http://ja.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E5%BE%A1).
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answer