Why is vegetable 野菜 and not just 菜? Whenever I see _vegetable_ translated, it seems to always be as {}. But doesn't by itself mean vegetable? If so, why add the extra character? I've noticed this in a couple of other cases as well, such as {} being used for _language_ even though by itself also means language (such as in ). Are these combinations done just for historical reasons, or is there a logic behind this that I'm missing?

Well, this isn't totally a Japanese problem, but a nature of Chinese vocabulary.

You said " by itself mean vegetable", but more exactly speaking, means:

* "edible plant": , , etc.
* "dish (cooked food other than grain)": , , etc.



A single kanji is often polysemous, and the most of those kanji are only viable within compounds, being interdependent with other characters to specify their meanings.

In modern Japanese, is the only way to refer to "vegetables", and doesn't exist as an independent word.

Similarly, only roughly means "act of speaking", that is "language" (, ...), "word, term" (, ...), or "speech, talk" (, ...). does have a standalone usage, but it's linguistic term of "word", instead of "language".