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Limitations of This Book
This book does not seek to be a comprehensive dictionary of characters as used
in Japanese: its scope is limited in principle to the 2,136 characters of the Revised
General Character (Kaitei Jōyō kanji) List officially adopted in Japan in 2010, though
in the process of explaining the etymologies for that list many other characters are
analyzed for the benefit of those readers looking for greater detail. Nor does it deal
with the now relatively minor irregularities of kana spelling in the modern kana
spellings. Readers who are looking for model shapes as a guide for everyday writing
practice and other information such as stroke order and stroke count should refer
to A Guide to Reading and Writing Japanese, which is another work in the Tuttle
Language Library.
Christopher Seeley
Christchurch, New Zealand
December 2015
26 Introduction