In Japanese, why are there different numbers for 4, 7, and 9?

Question

4 can be yon or shi; 7 can be nana or shichi, and 9 is ku or kyu. Does one choice come from one dialect? If so, which is which? I understand there was a vanishing or struggling minority people who still live or lived until recently on either Hokkaido or the island just to the south of it. Innu? They were called Innu?

Answer 1

It is not minority's dialect.

Ancient Japanese ppl didn't use Kanji(Chinese characters) first.
Japanese had their own pronunciation and rule in their language already.
When Kanji was introduced to Japan first, maybe they were the diplomatic correspondence or immigrants from China, Japanese took the letters but didn't take their grammar.

Japan put the Japanese pronunciation to Kanji one by one. However, when they correspond with Chinese, they wrote the documents in Chinese grammar and with characters. It would appear that there were also many Chinese immigrants in Japan then.

It means there were 2 different pronunciation for Kanji in Japan.
Today the Chinese style pronunciation is called "On yomi"* (Chinese reading).
Japanese domestic pronunciation is called "Kun yomi" (Japanese reading).
*"On" means "sound". It means Japan took the sound from China.


Your question is little different from these distinction. However you can find the vestige in there too.

4's "shi" is similar to "si" in Chinese reading.
The "Chi" of 7's "shichi" is similar to "qi" in Chinese reading.
9's "ku" or "kyu" are from "jiu" in Chinese.


Actually many (not all though) Kanji has/had both "On yomi" and "Kun yomi". Today the pronunciation changed a lot compared with the ancient time.

Other numbers also change the sound when it is not used for counting. Specially when it is used in name.

1 can be "i" and "hito"
2 can be "ji"
3 can be "zo"
5 can be "itsu"
6 can be "mui" and "mutsu"
8 can be "ya"

Today's PM of Japan is Shinzo Abe. The "zo" of his name is the number 3. but people don't pronounce as "san".

You don't need to remember all. Don't bother with these. The 2 different pronunciation of 4,7,9 are most important in daily life.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kanji#On.27yomi_.28Chinese_reading.29

Answer 2

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1 - ichi 2 - ni 3 - san 4 - yon / shi 5 - go 6 - roku (i've never heard of it being 'lok' but seeing as the japanese don't have an 'L' in their alphabet, i doubt this is correct) 7 - nana / shichi 8 - hachi 9 - kyu 10 - jyu the reason for the multiple readings of the number 4, is that the number 4 for the japanese is similar to the number 13 for others. 4 is their typically unlucky number. the reading 'shi' also means death, and hence the second reading of 'yon'. for different situations and counters for objects, the different readings for 4 and 7 are used. typically, 'yon' and 'shichi' are the most often correct for 4 and 7, although, unless you are specifically told which reading goes with what, either reading will convey the same message. 'yon' and 'shichi' are the more polite ways of saying 4 and 7, rather than 'shi' and 'nana'. hope this helped.

Answer 3

In Japanese "shi" means death. Therefore, it is an unlucky number to say so many times it's politer to go with yon or nana instead. There are some exceptions of when you *have* to say shi/shichi, but otherwise yon and nana are preferred.
EDIT: Actually, "ku" is part of a word that means suffering. So that would be why.

However, in Japanese there are different ways of saying all times of numbers. There's special words for certain days of the week, the age twenty, when counter... it's not just 4, 7, and 9.

Answer 4

I read somewhere (I could be wrong) that there is a set of Native Japanese numbers, and then what they imported from China, and why there is two is because one of them is the native Japanese number and the other came from Chinese I believe.... And if you were to say 4:00, you say "yo ji" not "shi ji." And same for nana and shichi, in some cases you can only use shichi, and others you can use nana. It has something to do with the Kanji and how you read it.

Answer 5

i vaguely remembered from learning japanese a long time ago in bethlehem that for the numbers that have different names, one word traces its root back to the native Ainu, while the other one comes from Chinese.

Answer 6

Can't answer your first question, but the people you're talking about are called Ainu.

Here's a link about numbering that might help: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_numbers