Go-on

Go-on (呉音^?, "sound from the Wu region") are one of the several possible ways of reading Japanese kanji. They are based on the classical pronunciations of Chinese characters of the then-prestigious eastern Jiankang (now Nanjing) dialect.

It preceded the kan-on (漢音^?) readings. Both go-on and kan-on exhibit characteristics of Middle Chinese.

Introduced to Japan during the 5th and 6th centuries, when China was divided into separate Northern and Southern dynasties, go-on readings are possibly imported either directly from the Southern dynasty or the Korean Peninsula. This explanation is based mainly on historical reasoning: there was an influx of thinkers from China and Korea to Japan at that time, including both Buddhist and Confucian practitioners. However, there is no historical documentation to conclusively demonstrate that go-on readings are actually based on southern Chinese.

That being said, Shibatani has noted that go-on readings make up the first of three waves of Chinese loans to the Japanese language, the others being kan-on and tou-sou-on (meaning Tang Song sound), with go-on mainly associated with Buddhism

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