Abstract
The Kanji 便 (which is used as a morpheme) in Modern Japanese has the sounds bin and ben, and is generally used to denote 'communication' when pronounced as bin, and 'convenience' when pronounced as ben. Examples where bin is used to denote 'convenience' are also found, but they are clearly in the minority. However, before the Meiji period, bin was more used to denote 'convenience', and very few examples of 'communication' are found. This paper shows the relation between bin and ben and their meanings that formed in the Meiji period. Furthermore, we can see the influence of individual examples of 便 on the formation of this relationship. For example, yubin and benri were commonly used in the Meiji period, and are still widely used in Modern Japanese. Yubin is the name of the postal service introduced in the Meiji period, and thus it soon became increasingly used to denote 'communications'. On the other hand, benri which is very similar in meaning to 'convenience', led to the tendency of using ben to denote 'convenience'. As a result, ben was more used to denote 'convenience'. This paper shows that the expansion of the individual examples of kanji can change the relation between the sounds and meanings of the kanji itself.
