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Preface to the Second Edition
This book is an extensive revision of the original edition of A Guide to Remembering
Japanese Characters compiled by Kenneth Henshall and published in 1988. The
original 1988 edition represents a pioneering work in English on the etymologies of
the official General Use characters (Jōyō kanji) in use at that time. Since then, much
has changed: a very substantial amount of scholarly research has been published on
character etymologies and related areas, mainly in Japanese and Chinese, but also
some in English. Another change has been that in 2010 there appeared a revised, expanded
version of the Jōyō kanji list, the official list of characters for general use; this
increased the basic number of characters for use in school education and government
publications from 1945 (in the list promulgated in 1981) to 2136. In response
to these changes, this second edition has been prepared. While care has been taken
in the preparation of this work, any errors and omissions remain the responsibility
of the authors.
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