Kan-on or kan'on (漢音) are Japanese kanji readings borrowed from Chinese during the Tang dynasty, from the 7th to the 9th centuries; a period which corresponds to the Japanese Nara period. They were introduced by, among others, envoys from Japanese missions to Tang China. Kan-on should not be confused with tō-on (唐音), which were later phonetic loans. Kan-on are on'yomi (音読み) based on the central Chang'an pronunciation of Middle Chinese. The syllable Kan is a reading of Middle Chinese: 漢 (xanH) as per Japanese phonology, referring to the Han dynasty, which had Chang'an as its capital city. Furthermore, Kan (漢) has also become a description for all things Chinese, e.g., kanji ('Chinese characters'). Kan'on partly displaced the earlier go-on, which were "just imitations of Korean imitations, but Kan-on were imitations of the real thing." A minority of characters never had their kan-on transmitted to Japan; their kan-on are sometimes reconstructed in Japanese dictionaries although not specifically marked as such. A few dictionaries go as far as to discard attested kan-on in favour of more systematic pronunciations.

Characteristics as compared to go-on

In consonants

In vowels