The term kanji technically refers to Japanese writing,
while the term hanzi
refers to Chinese writing.
However, "kanji" is used generically throughout this site when
referring to Chinese character writing for
several reasons.
The Japanese originally had no writing system and borrowed from
Chinese script to come up with their own. As such, you will notice most characters are
essentially the same in both systems (as well as for Korean hanja).
As a matter of fact, the two characters for kanji
(above) translate literally as "Chinese characters" and are the same for both
Chinese and Japanese, with some slight stylistic
variations.
Aside from that, the term kanji is found in
English dictionaries, while hanzi
is not. Additionally, more often than not folks type kanji versus
hanzi
into search engines to get to our site. As a
small company, we need to balance staying in
business with what is technically
correct. Hopefully, we'll be able to grow sufficiently enough, or the term
hanzi
will gain enough popularity, such that this won't be
a challenge for us down the road.
