As far as I understand it the Japanese Kanjis are derived from the Chinese
ones. This was to introduce a **writing** system in Japan. But for the on‘yomi
reading, the Japanese also took the **spoken** word for the Kanji from the
Chinese one. Does that mean they stopped using the Japanese word for it and
suddenly started to use a different Chinese word in their spoken language? Why
would they do it? What was the motivation or driving factor to use Chinese
pronunciation in Japan?

Or, did they just adopt the Chinese pronunciation for words that didn’t exist
back then in Japan?
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kanji pronunciation
Why was on'yomi (音読み) created?
> Does that mean they stopped using the Japanese word for it and suddenly
> started to use a different Chinese word in their spoken language?

That's the other way around. People had spoken Chinese at first when they read
documents, which were written in Chinese, like songs were sung in Latin. Then,
those words were naturally taken into Japanese vocabulary.

So, on'yomi was not so much created as given from the beginning. It's rather
kun'yomi that's created.
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> As far as I understand it the Japanese Kanjis are derived from the Chinese
> ones. This was to introduce a writing system in Japan.

Way back in history Japan was a backwards island and Japanese leadership knew
it. So they sent their best people to study / learn from Chinese society. They
returned with knowledge about science, economics, etc. and a writing system (
**kanji** ).

"Onyomi" can be thought of as "the Chinese reading". Onyomi sounds typically
are like しゃく、にゅう、しょ、みゃん, etc. which sounds like Chinese. Native Japanese sound
beautiful: soft vowels, あ、い、う、え、お and consonants. This is "kunyomi".

Before scholars returned with their kanji / (onyomi sounds), kunyomi was the
sound of the vernacular. That is why the names of people, places, traditions,
etc. that are considered historically Japanese use kunyomi for their kanji
(except the 4 main island names and 2 capitals cities: 本州, 東京 京都, etc. the
reasons for this is explained later). A Japanese last name with some "on-yomi"
reading is unusual and suggests that family "might" have some aristocratic
lineage (this can be a great conversation starter. it would be a funny
"complement" to say.) Only the elites / scholars would have known the writing
system, thus would have known the "on-yomi" sounds to put in their last name.

Even to this day, in conversation, one might sound more scholarly by using
"on-yomi" sounds in his / her speech. "みょうにち" instead of "あした" and "しゃしんき"
instead of "カメラ", "さんぱつや" instead of "とこやさん", etc. While speaking with "on-
yomi" is always understood, in most settings the "on-yomi" version of most
words is not natural so it will probably get noticed.

Some words were introduced into Japanese only via the written language. Those
words are Japanese, but they only have onyomi readings. Other than those, many
kanjis have have both onyomi and kunyomi readings. And surprisingly some kanji
only have kunyomi readings as well.

The Japanese writing system is obviously a mess. They imported words, and
writing, from China in the past. They continue to import words from the West.
But English and Chinese words / letters have no connection to Japanese
grammar, so weird permutations to the Japanese language such as 送り仮名 、 サ変名詞
、美化語、振り仮名、etc. are needed to fit the imported words into Japanese grammar

But, all languages are "messy" and full of "loan words" from other languages.
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