or is a style of obfuscated (

cant Cant, CANT, canting, or canted may refer to: Language * Cant (language), a secret language * Beurla Reagaird, a language of the Scottish Highland Travellers * Scottish Cant, a language of the Scottish Lowland Travellers * Shelta or the Cant, a la ...

) Japanese writing popular amongst urban

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

ese youth. As the name suggests ( meaning "gal"), this writing system was created by and remains primarily employed by young women. Like the

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ide ...

phenomenon of

SMS language Short Message Service (SMS) language, textism, or textese is the abbreviated language and slang commonly used in the late 1990s and early 2000s with mobile phone text messaging, and occasionally through Internet-based communication such as ema ...

, it is most often used for sending

cell phone A mobile phone, cellular phone, cell phone, cellphone, handphone, hand phone or pocket phone, sometimes shortened to simply mobile, cell, or just phone, is a portable telephone that can make and receive calls over a radio frequency link whil ...

text messages Text messaging, or texting, is the act of composing and sending electronic messages, typically consisting of alphabetic and numeric characters, between two or more users of mobile devices, desktops/ laptops, or another type of compatible comput ...

, but while text is used as a form of informal shorthand, a message typed in usually requires more characters and effort than the same message typed in plain Japanese. Since writing in requires extra effort, and due to the perception of

confidentiality Confidentiality involves a set of rules or a promise usually executed through confidentiality agreements that limits the access or places restrictions on certain types of information. Legal confidentiality By law, lawyers are often required ...

, sending messages to a peer is seen as a sign of informality or friendship. The origin of this style is unclear but it has been proposed that magazines targeted at teenage girls first made it popular, and the phenomenon started to gain wider attention in media around 2002. The style has been met with increasing criticism, as its use continues to expand. Reported instances of girls using the writing in school work, OLs ("Office ladies") adopting the style in the workplace, and being used in

karaoke Karaoke (; ; , clipped compound of Japanese ''kara'' "empty" and ''ōkesutora'' "orchestra") is a type of interactive entertainment usually offered in clubs and bars, where people sing along to recorded music using a microphone. The music is ...

subtitling, are examples of this. Anthropologist

Laura Miller Laura Miller (born November 18, 1958) is an American journalist and politician who served as the 58th mayor of Dallas, Texas from 2002 through 2007. She decided not to run for re-election in 2007. She was the third woman to serve as mayor of Da ...

has analyzed as an example of gender resistance.Laura Miller. 2011. "Subversive script and novel graphs in Japanese girls' culture." ''Language & Communication'' Vol. 31, Issue 1: 16-26. Several online guides for exist, as well as one published book: (2004).

Formation

leet Leet (or "1337"), also known as eleet or leetspeak, is a system of modified spellings used primarily on the Internet. It often uses character replacements in ways that play on the similarity of their glyphs via reflection or other resemblance. ...

, replaces characters with visually similar characters or combinations of characters. The Japanese language consists of traditional characters of Chinese origin,

kanji are the logographic Chinese characters taken from the Chinese family of scripts, Chinese script and used in the writing of Japanese language, Japanese. They were made a major part of the Japanese writing system during the time of Old Japanese ...

, and two native syllabic scripts called

kana The term may refer to a number of syllabaries used to write Japanese phonological units, morae. Such syllabaries include (1) the original kana, or , which were Chinese characters (kanji) used phonetically to transcribe Japanese, the most pr ...

hiragana is a Japanese syllabary, part of the Japanese writing system, along with ''katakana'' as well as ''kanji''. It is a phonetic lettering system. The word ''hiragana'' literally means "flowing" or "simple" kana ("simple" originally as contrast ...

and

katakana is a Japanese syllabary, one component of the Japanese writing system along with hiragana, kanji and in some cases the Latin script (known as rōmaji). The word ''katakana'' means "fragmentary kana", as the katakana characters are derived fr ...

. These characters and scripts are altered to form hidden messages.

Hiragana is a Japanese syllabary, part of the Japanese writing system, along with ''katakana'' as well as ''kanji''. It is a phonetic lettering system. The word ''hiragana'' literally means "flowing" or "simple" kana ("simple" originally as contrast ...

consisting of connected strokes are replaced by symbols or

Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

letters: for example, may be rendered as the section symbol §. Hiragana consisting of detached elements are replaced by sequences of kana, Western letters, or symbols. For example, may be typed as , ま (

vertical bar The vertical bar, , is a glyph with various uses in mathematics, computing, and typography. It has many names, often related to particular meanings: Sheffer stroke (in logic), pipe, bar, or (literally the word "or"), vbar, and others. Usage ...

and hiragana ) or (ま (open parenthesis and ), may be typed as レナ (katakana ), Iナ (capital i, ), or († (open parenthesis,

dagger A dagger is a fighting knife with a very sharp point and usually two sharp edges, typically designed or capable of being used as a thrusting or stabbing weapon.State v. Martin, 633 S.W.2d 80 (Mo. 1982): This is the dictionary or popular-use de ...

), and may be typed as ナ= (katakana , equals sign) or †こ (dagger, hiragana ).

Katakana is a Japanese syllabary, one component of the Japanese writing system along with hiragana, kanji and in some cases the Latin script (known as rōmaji). The word ''katakana'' means "fragmentary kana", as the katakana characters are derived fr ...

is frequently replaced by similar-looking

, such as for or for , in a reversal of the process that turned

man'yōgana is an ancient writing system that uses Chinese characters to represent the Japanese language. It was the first known kana system to be developed as a means to represent the Japanese language phonetically. The date of the earliest usage of this ...

into

. Kana and

rōmaji The romanization of Japanese is the use of Latin script to write the Japanese language. This method of writing is sometimes referred to in Japanese as . Japanese is normally written in a combination of logographic characters borrowed from Ch ...

may be mixed freely, even within a word, and

Latin letters The Latin script, also known as Roman script, is an alphabetic writing system based on the letters of the classical Latin alphabet, derived from a form of the Greek alphabet which was in use in the ancient Greek city of Cumae, in southern Italy ...

in rōmaji may be replaced with similar-looking

Cyrillic , bg, кирилица , mk, кирилица , russian: кириллица , sr, ћирилица, uk, кирилиця , fam1 = Egyptian hieroglyphs , fam2 = Proto-Sinaitic , fam3 = Phoenician , fam4 = G ...

letters, such as replacing N with И ( Cyrillic I). Compound

are decomposed into left and right elements, which are written as individual kanji or kana. For example, the kanji in , meaning "like, enjoy" may be split into (the kanji for woman and child, respectively). In addition to the basic obfuscation provided by character replacement, another technique used to disguise the content of the message is to use vocabulary and grammar that is uncharacteristic of standard usage. Combined with character substitution, this can make the meaning of the message almost unintelligible to those not "in the know". This is analogous to the use of leet's specialized grammar. However, the flexible nature of the

Japanese language is spoken natively by about 128 million people, primarily by Japanese people and primarily in Japan, the only country where it is the national language. Japanese belongs to the Japonic or Japanese- Ryukyuan language family. There have been ma ...

means that although phrases sound peculiar to someone expecting formal or even commonly

colloquial Colloquialism (), also called colloquial language, everyday language or general parlance, is the linguistic style used for casual (informal) communication. It is the most common functional style of speech, the idiom normally employed in conver ...

Japanese, they are often technically still grammatically correct. For example, the sentence is "Right now I am feeling very good." in standard normal-polite Japanese. By first rewording this as or – which roughly translates as "(I have a) Super good feeling!" – and then converting to to get or , the message could prove difficult for those not versed in the style to understand.

Conversion chart

The original Japanese

followed by

romaji The romanization of Japanese is the use of Latin script to write the Japanese language. This method of writing is sometimes referred to in Japanese as . Japanese is normally written in a combination of logographic characters borrowed from Ch ...

, and then various versions of the Japanese character in gyaru moji. The following chart is also available in image form. *あ a：　ぁ・ァ・了 *い i：　ぃ・ィ・ﾚヽ・ﾚ丶・レ）・ﾚ`・L丶・Lヽ *う u：　ぅ・ゥ・宀・ヴ *え e：　ぇ・ェ・之・工・ヱ *お o：　ぉ・ォ・才・汚 *か ka：　ｶゝ・ｶ丶・ｶヽ・ｶ`・ｶゞ【が】 *き ki：　(ｷ・(≠・L≠・‡ *く ku：　＜・〈・勹 *け ke：　ヶ・(ﾅ・ﾚ†・ﾚﾅ・, ナ・l+・Iﾅ *こ ko：　〓・=・]・⊃ *さ sa：　廾・±・(十・L+ *し shi：　 ι・∪ *す su：　￡ *せ se：　世・Ш *そ so：　ξ・ζ・`ﾉ・丶/・ヽ丿 *た ta：　ﾅ=・+=・†ﾆ・ﾅﾆ *ち chi：　干・千・于・5 *つ tsu：　っ・ッ・⊃ *て te：　τ・

〒 is the service mark of Japan Post and its successor, Japan Post Holdings, the postal operator in Japan. It is also used as a Japanese postal code mark since the introduction of the latter in 1968. Historically, it was used by the , which oper ...

*と to：　┠・┝・┣・├ *な na：　ﾅょ・十ょ・†ょ・ﾅg *に ni：　(ﾆ・, =・丨ﾆ・L=・I=・ *ぬ nu：　йu *ね ne：　йё *の no：　/・丿・σ *は ha：　ﾊ〃【バ】・ﾊo【パ】・'`・八・l￡・(￡・ﾉ, ・ﾉl・ﾚ￡ *ひ hi：　ﾋ〃【ビ】・ﾋo【ピ】・匕 *ふ fu：　ﾌ〃【ブ】・ﾌo【プ】・ヴ *へ he：　ﾍ〃【べ】・ﾍo【ペ】・～ *ほ ho：　ﾎ〃【ボ】・ﾎo【ポ】・朮 *ま ma：　ма・мα *み mi：　彡 *む mu：　

￡ The pound sign is the currency symbol, symbol for the pound unit of account, unit of Pound sterling, sterling – the currency of the United Kingdom and previously of Kingdom of Great Britain, Great Britain and of the Kingdom of England. The s ...

′・厶 *め me：　×・x・χ・乂 *も mo：　м○・мσ *や ya：　ゃ・ャ *ゆ yu：　ゅ・ュ・ф *よ yo：　ょ・ョ・∋・чｏ *ら ra：　 яа *り ri：　L, ・l)・ﾚ｣・ﾚ)・┗』・└丿 *る ru：　

ゐ (: , : ) is a nearly-obsolete Japanese (Japanese phonetic characters, each of which represents one mora). The combination of a W-column kana letter with in was introduced to represent iin the 19th century and 20th century. It is presumed th ...

・

ゑ in , or in , is a nearly obsolete Japanese . The combination of a W-column kana letter with in was introduced to represent ein the 19th century and 20th century. It is presumed that represented , and that and indicated different pronun ...

・儿・lﾚ・｣レ *れ re：　яё *ろ ro：　з・З・□・回 *わ wa：　ゎ・ヮ・wα *を wo：　щo *ん n：　ω・冫・ｗ・h * ー (

long vowel In linguistics, vowel length is the perceived length of a vowel sound: the corresponding physical measurement is duration. In some languages vowel length is an important phonemic factor, meaning vowel length can change the meaning of the word, f ...

mark)：　→・⇒

Compound kanji

Here are some examples of created from compound kanji. The

characters are followed by their reading and meaning, and the derived from them: * → * → * →

Examples

Cultural attitudes

As a youth culture element produced by women, is not well received by the older Japanese public. From a traditionalist perspective, rejects the elegant, painstaking brushstrokes of Japanese writing embraced by the art of

Japanese calligraphy also called is a form of calligraphy, or artistic writing, of the Japanese language. Written Japanese was originally based on Chinese characters only, but the advent of the hiragana and katakana Japanese syllabaries resulted in intrin ...

. From a contemporary perspective, may be likened to other, comical recent scripts, such as the bubble-like from the 1980s. Since its widespread use in the early 2000s, television programs and public attention has taken note of . However, this innovative writing system subverts cultural norms and breaks linguistic barriers, characterizing with a rebellious nature.

References

External links

Japanese girls devise their own written language
{{Japanese subcultures Japanese popular culture Japanese writing system Mobile phone culture Obfuscation Cant languages Gyaru Gender in language Japanese words and phrases