Fish in Japanese is 魚, said sakana. Eleven strokes, and it is Kangxi radical 195 in its own right, a fish drawn head up with its tail fin at the bottom. The older word uo survives in set phrases, and gyo takes over in compounds. Written in hiragana sakana is さかな, and in katakana サカナ.
Fish in Japanese
At a sushi counter, the tea often comes in a tall, heavy cup printed all over with kanji. Turn it slowly in your hands and you notice that almost every character starts the same way, with one shape on the left: 鮪, 鯛, 鮭, 鰻, 鯉. Tuna, sea bream, salmon, eel, carp. The shape on the left is 魚, fish, and the cup is a menu of everything it can become.
Fish in Japanese is 魚, and the spoken word is sakana: the fish on your plate, the fish in the river, and the 魚屋 (sakanaya), the fishmonger. But the character has three readings, and you need all of them. Uo is older and lives on in fixed words like 魚市場 (uoichiba), the fish market. Gyo, the on’yomi, takes over inside compounds: 金魚 (kingyo), goldfish, and 人魚 (ningyo), a mermaid.
Sakana and Uo Meaning
Sakana (魚) means fish. In hiragana it is さかな, in katakana サカナ, and it is said “sah-kah-nah,” three even beats with no stress.
The word did not start out meaning fish at all. Sakana is 酒 (saka, the form sake takes in compounds) plus な (na), an old word for any side dish. A sakana was whatever you ate with your drink. Fish was the usual thing on that plate, so over time the word for drinking snacks became the word for fish. The old meaning is still alive and still has its own kanji: 酒の肴 (sake no sakana) is a snack to go with sake, and a juicy piece of office gossip can be the 肴 for an evening’s drinking too.
The original word for fish was uo (うお), used since the eighth century, with a softer variant io in classical prose. Sakana began moving in on its meaning during the Edo period and took over from the Meiji era onward. Dialect maps suggest the change spread from eastern Japan, and uo-type words still hold on in southern Kyushu.
So uo is now the fossil. You hear it in 魚市場 (uoichiba, fish market), 魚河岸 (uogashi, a riverside fish market), 白魚 (shirauo, an icefish) and 魚座 (uoza), Pisces. When sakana follows another word it often softens to zakana: 焼き魚 (yakizakana), grilled fish, and 煮魚 (nizakana), fish simmered in soy and sugar.
The Kanji for Fish: 魚
- Character: 魚
- On’yomi: ギョ (gyo)
- Kun’yomi: うお (uo), さかな (sakana)
- Stroke count: 11
- General meaning: fish
- Radical: 魚 is itself a radical, Kangxi number 195, called うおへん (uohen) when it sits on the left of another character
It is taught in the second year of Japanese primary school. The Jōyō table also gives it one special reading, in 雑魚 (zako), small fry.
Japanese Symbol for Fish
魚 is a pictograph, and it is still easy to see the fish if you stand it on its nose. The top, 𠂊, is the head. The box divided into four, 田, is the body with its scales. The four dots at the bottom are the tail.
Those dots look exactly like 灬, the fire radical at the foot of 熱 (atsui, hot) and 照 (teru, to shine). Here they have nothing to do with fire. The classical Chinese dictionary Shuowen Jiezi notes that a fish’s tail and a swallow’s tail look alike, and 燕 (tsubame), the swallow, ends in the same four dots.
As a radical, 魚 heads one of the busiest families in the dictionary, nearly all of them fish:
- 鮭 (sake, salmon), seventeen strokes
- 鯛 (tai, sea bream), nineteen strokes
- 鰻 (unagi, eel), twenty-two strokes
- 鮪 (maguro, tuna), seventeen strokes
- 鯉 (koi, carp), eighteen strokes
- 鰯 (iwashi, sardine), fish plus 弱, weak
- 鱈 (tara, cod), fish plus 雪, snow
The last two are 国字 (kokuji), characters invented in Japan rather than borrowed from China. Cod is a winter catch, and the snow in 鱈 is the same 雪 explained on snow in Japanese.
魚 also turns up at the end of spellings chosen for meaning rather than sound. 秋刀魚, autumn sword fish, is read sanma, the Pacific saury of September grills. 章魚 is tako, octopus. And 紙魚, paper fish, is shimi, the silverfish that eats old books.
How to Write 魚 in Japanese
Eleven strokes, top to bottom: head, body, tail.
The head comes first, in two strokes. A short sweep down to the left, then a stroke that runs right and turns into a longer sweep down to the left, making the shape of a small ク.
The body is 田, five strokes. The left vertical. Then the top and right side in one turning stroke. Then the middle vertical, and only then the middle horizontal; in Japanese stroke order, 田 puts its inner vertical before its inner horizontal. The bottom horizontal closes the box.
The tail is four dots, written left to right. The first leans down to the left, the other three lean down to the right, and they spread a little wider than the box above.
How to Say Fish in Japanese
Sakana is three beats, “sah-kah-nah,” every vowel short and open as in “father.” Uo is two beats, “oo-oh,” with lips rounded, and gyo is a single beat, “gyoh,” as in the first sound of 魚類 (gyorui), fish as a scientific class.
Real sentences:
- 魚が好きです。(Sakana ga suki desu.) I like fish.
- 朝ご飯は焼き魚とご飯とみそ汁です。(Asagohan wa yakizakana to gohan to misoshiru desu.) Breakfast is grilled fish, rice and miso soup.
- この魚は何ですか。(Kono sakana wa nan desu ka.) What fish is this?
- 魚を三枚におろす。(Sakana o sanmai ni orosu.) To fillet a fish into three pieces.
- 魚市場は朝が早い。(Uoichiba wa asa ga hayai.) The fish market starts early.
The second sentence is the classic Japanese breakfast, and the word for the meal itself comes from rice, as explained on rice in Japanese. The fourth is kitchen Japanese: 三枚おろし (sanmai oroshi), three-piece filleting, leaves two fillets and the backbone.
Words and Compounds With 魚
| Word | Reading | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| 魚屋 | sakanaya | fishmonger, fish shop |
| 焼き魚 | yakizakana | grilled fish |
| 煮魚 | nizakana | simmered fish |
| 魚市場 | uoichiba | fish market |
| 金魚 | kingyo | goldfish |
| 人魚 | ningyo | mermaid |
| 雑魚 | zako | small fry; a nobody |
| 出世魚 | shusseuo | a fish whose name changes as it grows |
| 熱帯魚 | nettaigyo | tropical fish |
雑魚 is the word with two lives. In the kitchen it is a mixed catch of little fish. Said of people it means a small fry, someone not worth bothering with, and anime villains fling it at heroes they underestimate.
出世魚 is the most Japanese of them. 出世 (shusse) means getting ahead in life, and these are fish that change their names as they grow, the way a samurai took a new name at adulthood or on promotion. The yellowtail is the famous one. In the Kanto region it goes wakashi, inada, warasa and finally buri. In the Kansai region it is tsubasu, hamachi, mejiro, buri. So the hamachi on a sushi menu is a young buri.
Then the proverb: 魚心あれば水心 (uogokoro areba mizugokoro), if the fish has a heart for the water, the water has a heart for the fish. Goodwill is answered with goodwill, and in a business setting it can mean, a little slyly, you scratch my back.
Fish in Japanese Culture
Japan, an island country of rivers and coasts, gave its fish a ranking. By old custom the finest freshwater fish was the carp and the finest saltwater fish was the sea bream, and both were served at celebrations. The koi, the ayu and the giant spider crab of those waters are profiled in our guide to Japanese animals.
The sea bream, 鯛 (tai), owes part of its standing to its name, which completes the word めでたい (medetai), joyful or auspicious. A whole red tai, head and tail intact, still appears at weddings and New Year, and it sits among the osechi ryori dishes for the same pun.
The carp, 鯉, carries a story instead. In the Chinese legend a carp that swims up the waterfall at the Dragon Gate becomes a dragon, the transformation explained on dragon in Japanese, and dictionaries even list 出世魚 as another name for the carp because of it. That is why giant cloth carp fly from poles in early May for Children’s Day, and why koi fish are bred, prized and tattooed as symbols of perseverance.
Even the names are a cultural choice. Fish go by many local names around Japan, and today the names used at the Tokyo fish market count as the national standard.
As a Tattoo
魚 on its own says fish, plainly, the way the sign above a fishmonger’s stall says it. A Japanese reader will not mind it, but will wonder why.
If you are drawn to fish because of what they mean in Japan, choose the specific fish. The koi, 鯉, carries perseverance and the dragon legend, and in irezumi the koi is usually drawn as an image rather than written. If you are a Pisces, the sign is 魚座 (uoza), and 座 alone means seat.
Check the look-alikes. 漁 (ryou, fishing, as in 漁師 ryoushi, fisherman) is 魚 with the water radical added. 角 (kado, a corner, or tsuno, a horn) has a similar head and body but no tail. 黒 (kuro, black) shares the four dots.
Watch the Chinese form. Simplified Chinese writes fish as 鱼, with a single horizontal stroke where the four dots should be. Japanese and traditional Chinese both keep the four dots. A design copied from a mainland source will show the simplified form, and every fish character follows suit: 鲤 is simplified, 鯉 is Japanese.
Eleven strokes is a moderate load. The four small boxes of 田 are the part that fills in first, so give the character size and keep the dots clearly apart.
Confirm with a native speaker before you ink. You can preview the character in vertical and horizontal layouts with the Japanese Tattoo Generator, and read the wider background in our guide to japanese tattoo meanings.
Related Kanji
For more characters from the river, the sea and the kitchen, browse the kanji library.
Sources and Further Reading
- 常用漢字表 (Cabinet Notice No. 2 of 2010), Agency for Cultural Affairs the readings ギョ, うお and さかな for 魚, with 魚市場, 魚屋, 煮魚 and the special reading 雑魚
- 魚 in KANJIDIC2, WWWJDIC, Electronic Dictionary Research and Development Group eleven strokes, radical 195 and second-grade status
- 魚, Digital Daijisen, Jitsū and Heibonsha World Encyclopedia (Kotobank) sakana from saka plus na, the tail like a swallow's in Shuowen Jiezi, readings such as sanma and tako, carp and sea bream as the finest fish, Tokyo market names as the standard
- 肴, Nihon Kokugo Daijiten (Kotobank) sakana replacing uo and io from the Edo period to Meiji, and uo-type words in southern Kyushu
- 出世魚, Digital Daijisen, Nihon Kokugo Daijiten and Nipponica (Kotobank) the Kanto and Kansai names for yellowtail, the Edo-period luck, and the carp as a 出世魚
FAQ
How do you say fish in Japanese?
The everyday word is sakana, written 魚 and said “sah-kah-nah,” three even beats. In a few fixed words the older reading uo appears, as in 魚市場 (uoichiba), the fish market. Inside compounds the character is read gyo, as in 金魚 (kingyo), goldfish.
What is the difference between sakana and uo?
They are the same fish in different centuries. Uo was the original Japanese word, used since the eighth century. Sakana first meant a snack eaten with sake and only took over the meaning of fish in the Edo and Meiji periods. Today sakana is the normal word, and uo survives in set compounds.
What is the kanji for fish?
The kanji for fish is 魚, eleven strokes, and it is Kangxi radical 195 in its own right. It is a pictograph: the top is the head, the 田 shape is the scaled body, and the four dots are the tail. Its readings are さかな (sakana), うお (uo) and ギョ (gyo).
Why do so many fish kanji have 魚 on the left?
Because 魚 is the fish radical, called uohen when it stands on the left. It marks a character as a kind of fish, and the right side gives the sound or a hint: 鮭 is salmon, 鯛 sea bream, 鰻 eel, 鯉 carp. Some, like 鰯 (sardine) and 鱈 (cod), were invented in Japan.
Is 魚 the same in Chinese?
Traditional Chinese writes 魚 exactly as Japanese does. Simplified Chinese, used in mainland China, writes 鱼, with one horizontal stroke in place of the four dots, and simplifies every fish character the same way. Mandarin reads it yú. For a Japanese design, use the four-dot form.