Ideographic Annotation Two Mark

It marks the anchor for a return in reading order. In a marked Kanbun passage, read on to ㆒, then return to ㆓ and read the phrase that belongs before the verb in Chinese word order. In Japanese, this family of return marks is called kaeriten.

The ㆓ and ㆒ marks can span intervening text. Other Kanbun marks—㆒・㆓・㆔・㆕, ㆖・㆗・㆘, ㆙・㆚・㆛・㆜, and ㆝・㆞・㆟—support longer or nested jumps.

Where did the Kanbun return mark come from?

It grew out of annotation practice, not a single invention. A Japanese Kanbun source dated 783–788 is the earliest documented evidence discussed for return-point marking; its numeral order may have come from a Silla exemplar. Scholars trace the wider system to proofreading marks, and a recognizably modern hierarchy was in place by the end of the 14th century.

The marks let readers preserve Classical Chinese wording while following Japanese word order, a practice called kunten. Schools used different conventions before a Ministry of Education report standardized the teaching method in 1912. Related reading aids appear in 12th-century Korean gugyeol, Vietnamese annotations, and gloss marks in Chinese Dunhuang manuscripts from the 7th–9th centuries. These are related reading practices, not proof that this exact character traveled unchanged.

A 2018 Japanese university-admissions test shows Kanbun marks in educational typesetting.

Why does ㆓ look like 二?

Its form comes from a numeral; its Kanbun job is different. The character preserves the shape of ordinary 二 as a special-purpose reading mark.

In Kanbun typography, it may be raised or repositioned as an annotation. A supporting Japanese font can supply a full-size form for layout software to scale and position; plain text may show a 二-like shape without its original placement.