is a
Japanese
Japanese may refer to:
* Something from or related to Japan, an island country in East Asia
* Japanese language, spoken mainly in Japan
* Japanese people, the ethnic group that identifies with Japan through ancestry or culture
** Japanese diaspor ...
syllabary
In the linguistic study of written languages, a syllabary is a set of written symbols that represent the syllables or (more frequently) moras which make up words.
A symbol in a syllabary, called a syllabogram, typically represents an (optiona ...
, part of the
Japanese writing system
The modern Japanese writing system uses a combination of logographic kanji, which are adopted Chinese characters, and syllabic kana. Kana itself consists of a pair of syllabaries: hiragana, used primarily for native or naturalised Japanese wo ...
, along with ''
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 f ...
'' as well as ''
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 ...
''.
It is a phonetic lettering system. The word ''hiragana'' literally means "flowing" or "simple"
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 p ...
("simple" originally as contrasted with kanji).
Hiragana and katakana are both
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 p ...
systems. With few exceptions, each
mora
Mora may refer to:
People
* Mora (surname)
Places Sweden
* Mora, Säter, Sweden
* Mora, Sweden, the seat of Mora Municipality
* Mora Municipality, Sweden
United States
* Mora, Louisiana, an unincorporated community
* Mora, Minnesota, a city
* M ...
in 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 ...
is represented by one character (or one digraph) in each system. This may be either a vowel such as ''"a"'' (hiragana
あ
A (hiragana: あ, katakana: ア) is a Japanese kana that represents the mora consisting of single vowel . The hiragana character あ is based on the sōsho style of kanji , while the katakana ア is from the radical of kanji . In the modern J ...
); a consonant followed by a vowel such as ''"ka"'' (
か
Ka (hiragana: か, katakana: カ) is one of the Japanese kana, which each represent one mora. Both represent . The shapes of these kana both originate from 加.
The character can be combined with a dakuten, to form が in hiragana, ガ in kat ...
); or ''"n"'' (
ん
ん, in hiragana or ン in katakana, is one of the Japanese kana, which each represent one mora. ん is the only kana that does not end in a vowel sound (although in certain cases the vowel ending of kana, such as す, is unpronounced). The ka ...
), a
nasal sonorant
In phonetics and phonology, a sonorant or resonant is a speech sound that is produced with continuous, non-turbulent airflow in the vocal tract; these are the manners of articulation that are most often voiced in the world's languages. Vowels are ...
which, depending on the context, sounds either like English ''m'', ''n'' or ''ng'' () when syllable-final or like the
nasal vowels of
French,
Portuguese
Portuguese may refer to:
* anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Portugal
** Portuguese cuisine, traditional foods
** Portuguese language, a Romance language
*** Portuguese dialects, variants of the Portuguese language
** Portu ...
or
Polish
Polish may refer to:
* Anything from or related to Poland, a country in Europe
* Polish language
* Poles
Poles,, ; singular masculine: ''Polak'', singular feminine: ''Polka'' or Polish people, are a West Slavic nation and ethnic group, w ...
. Because the characters of the kana do not represent single consonants (except in the case of ん "n"), the kana are referred to as syllabic symbols and not alphabetic letters.
Hiragana is used to write ''
okurigana
are kana suffixes following kanji stems in Japanese written words. They serve two purposes: to inflect adjectives and verbs, and to force a particular kanji to have a specific meaning and be read a certain way. For example, the plain verb fo ...
'' (kana suffixes following a kanji root, for example to inflect verbs and adjectives), various grammatical and function words including
particles
In the physical sciences, a particle (or corpuscule in older texts) is a small localized object which can be described by several physical or chemical properties, such as volume, density, or mass.
They vary greatly in size or quantity, from s ...
, as well as miscellaneous other native words for which there are no
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 ...
or whose kanji form is obscure or too formal for the writing purpose. Words that do have common kanji renditions may also sometimes be written instead in hiragana, according to an individual author's preference, for example to impart an informal feel. Hiragana is also used to write ''
furigana
is a Japanese reading aid consisting of smaller kana or syllabic characters printed either above or next to kanji (logographic characters) or other characters to indicate their pronunciation. It is one type of ruby text. Furigana is also kn ...
'', a reading aid that shows the
pronunciation
Pronunciation is the way in which a word or a language is spoken. This may refer to generally agreed-upon sequences of sounds used in speaking a given word or language in a specific dialect ("correct pronunciation") or simply the way a particular ...
of kanji characters.
There are two main systems of
ordering hiragana: the old-fashioned
iroha
The is a Japanese poem. Originally the poem was attributed to the founder of the Shingon Esoteric sect of Buddhism in Japan, Kūkai, but more modern research has found the date of composition to be later in the Heian period (794–1179). Th ...
ordering and the more prevalent
gojūon
In the Japanese language, the is a traditional system ordering kana characters by their component phonemes, roughly analogous to alphabetical order. The "fifty" (''gojū'') in its name refers to the 5×10 grid in which the characters are disp ...
ordering.
Writing system
After the
1900 script reform, which deemed hundreds of characters
hentaigana
In the Japanese writing system, are variant forms of hiragana.
History
Today, with few exceptions, there is only one hiragana for each of the forty-five moras that are written without diacritics or digraphs. However, traditionally there ...
, the hiragana syllabary consists of 48 base characters, of which two (
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 ...
and
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 ...
) are only used in some proper names:
* 5 singular vowels:
あ
A (hiragana: あ, katakana: ア) is a Japanese kana that represents the mora consisting of single vowel . The hiragana character あ is based on the sōsho style of kanji , while the katakana ア is from the radical of kanji . In the modern J ...
''a'' ,
い
I (い in hiragana or イ in katakana) is one of the Japanese kana each of which represents one mora. い is based on the sōsho style of the kanji character 以, and イ is from the radical (left part) of the kanji character 伊. In the mode ...
''i'' ,
う
U (う in hiragana or ウ in katakana) is one of the Japanese kana, each of which represents one mora. In the modern Japanese system of alphabetical order, they occupy the third place in the modern Gojūon (五十音) system of collating kana. ...
''u'' ,
え
In Japanese writing, the kana え (hiragana) and エ (katakana) ( romanised ''e'') occupy the fourth place, between う and お, in the modern Gojūon (五十音) system of collating kana. In the Iroha, they occupy the 34th, between こ and ...
''e'' ,
お
In Japanese writing, the kana お (hiragana) and オ (katakana) occupy the fifth place, between え and か, in the modern Gojūon (五十音) system of collating kana. In the Iroha, they occupy the 27th, between の and く. In the table a ...
''o''
* 42 consonant–vowel unions
**
へ
へ, in hiragana, or ヘ in katakana, is one of the Japanese 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 c ...
is pronounced when used as a particle.
**
を
を, in hiragana, or ヲ in katakana, is one of the Japanese kana, each of which represents one mora. The combination of a W-column kana letter with ゛を゙ in hiragana was introduced to represent oin the 19th century and 20th century.
Mode ...
is only used as a
particle
In the physical sciences, a particle (or corpuscule in older texts) is a small localized object which can be described by several physical or chemical properties, such as volume, density, or mass.
They vary greatly in size or quantity, from ...
and in some names. It is often pronounced instead.
**
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 ...
and
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 ...
are both obsolete, only used in some names. They are usually respectively pronounced and instead.
* 1 singular consonant (
ん
ん, in hiragana or ン in katakana, is one of the Japanese kana, which each represent one mora. ん is the only kana that does not end in a vowel sound (although in certain cases the vowel ending of kana, such as す, is unpronounced). The ka ...
)
These are conceived as a 5×10 grid (''
gojūon
In the Japanese language, the is a traditional system ordering kana characters by their component phonemes, roughly analogous to alphabetical order. The "fifty" (''gojū'') in its name refers to the 5×10 grid in which the characters are disp ...
'', , "Fifty Sounds"), as illustrated in the adjacent table, read and so forth (but ''si''→''shi'', ''ti''→''chi'', ''tu''→''tsu'', ''hu''→''fu''), with the singular consonant appended to the end. Of the 50 theoretically possible combinations, ''yi'', ''ye'', and ''wu'' are obsolete, while ''wi'' (
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 ...
), and ''we'' (
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 ...
), are now uncommon in modern Japanese. ''Wo'' (
を
を, in hiragana, or ヲ in katakana, is one of the Japanese kana, each of which represents one mora. The combination of a W-column kana letter with ゛を゙ in hiragana was introduced to represent oin the 19th century and 20th century.
Mode ...
), pronounced , is common as a
particle
In the physical sciences, a particle (or corpuscule in older texts) is a small localized object which can be described by several physical or chemical properties, such as volume, density, or mass.
They vary greatly in size or quantity, from ...
but otherwise rare.
These basic characters can be modified in various ways. By adding a ''
dakuten
The , colloquially , is a diacritic most often used in the Japanese kana syllabaries to indicate that the consonant of a syllable should be pronounced voiced, for instance, on sounds that have undergone rendaku (sequential voicing).
The , ...
'' marker ( ゛), a
voiceless consonant
In linguistics, voicelessness is the property of sounds being pronounced without the larynx vibrating. Phonologically, it is a type of phonation, which contrasts with other states of the larynx, but some object that the word phonation implies v ...
is turned into a
voiced consonant
Voice or voicing is a term used in phonetics and phonology to characterize speech sounds (usually consonants). Speech sounds can be described as either voiceless (otherwise known as ''unvoiced'') or voiced.
The term, however, is used to ref ...
: ''k''→''g'', ''ts/s''→''z'', ''t''→''d'', ''h''→''b'' and ''ch''/''sh''→''j'' (also
''u''→''v(u)''). For example, か (''ka'') becomes が (''ga''). Hiragana beginning with an ''h'' (or ''f'') sound can also add a ''
handakuten
The , colloquially , is a diacritic most often used in the Japanese kana syllabaries to indicate that the consonant of a syllable should be pronounced voiced, for instance, on sounds that have undergone rendaku (sequential voicing).
The , c ...
'' marker ( ゜) changing the ''h'' (''f'') to a ''p''. For example, は (''ha'') becomes ぱ (''pa'').
A small version of the hiragana for ''ya'', ''yu'', or ''yo'' (ゃ, ゅ or ょ respectively) may be added to hiragana ending in ''i''. This changes the ''i'' vowel sound to a glide (
palatalization) to ''a'', ''u'' or ''o''. For example, き (''ki'') plus ゃ (small ''ya'') becomes (''kya''). Addition of the small ''y'' kana is called ''
yōon
The , also written as ''yōon'', is a feature of the Japanese language in which a mora is formed with an added sound, i.e., palatalized, or (more rarely in the modern language) with an added sound, i.e. labialized.
''Yōon'' are represented i ...
''.
A small ''tsu'' っ, called a ''
sokuon
The is a Japanese symbol in the form of a small hiragana or katakana '' tsu''. In less formal language it is called or , meaning "small ''tsu''". It serves multiple purposes in Japanese writing.
Appearance
In both hiragana and katakana, ...
'', indicates that the following consonant is
geminated
In phonetics and phonology, gemination (), or consonant lengthening (from Latin 'doubling', itself from ''gemini'' 'twins'), is an articulation of a consonant for a longer period of time than that of a singleton consonant. It is distinct from s ...
(doubled). In Japanese this is an important distinction in pronunciation; for example, compare , ''saka'', "hill" with , ''sakka'', "author". However, it cannot be used to double an ''n'' – for this purpose, the singular ''n'' (ん) is added in front of the syllable, as in みんな (''minna'', "all"). The ''sokuon'' also sometimes appears at the end of utterances, where it denotes a
glottal stop, as in (, "Ouch!").
Hiragana usually spells
long vowels with the addition of a second vowel kana; for example, おかあさん (''o-ka-a-sa-n'', "mother"). The ''
chōonpu'' (long vowel mark) (ー) used in katakana is rarely used with hiragana, for example in the word , ''
rāmen'', but this usage is considered non-standard in Japanese. However, the
Okinawan language
The Okinawan language (, , , ) or Central Okinawan, is a Northern Ryukyuan languages, Ryukyuan language spoken primarily in the southern half of the Okinawa Island, island of Okinawa, as well as in the surrounding islands of Kerama Islands, Ker ...
uses chōonpu with hiragana. In informal writing, small versions of the five vowel kana are sometimes used to represent trailing off sounds (, ''haa'', , ''nee''). Standard and voiced
iteration marks are written in hiragana as ゝ and ゞ respectively.
Table of hiragana
The following table shows the complete hiragana together with the
modified Hepburn romanization and
IPA
IPA commonly refers to:
* India pale ale, a style of beer
* International Phonetic Alphabet, a system of phonetic notation
* Isopropyl alcohol, a chemical compound
IPA may also refer to:
Organizations International
* Insolvency Practitioners ...
transcription in the ''gojūon'' order. Hiragana with ''dakuten'' or ''handakuten'' follow the ''gojūon'' kana without them, with the ''yōon'' kana following. Those in bold do not use the initial sound for that row. For all syllables besides ん, the pronunciation indicated is for word-initial syllables, for mid-word pronunciations see below.
Spelling–phonology correspondence
In the middle of words, the ''g'' sound (normally ) may turn into a
velar nasal
The voiced velar nasal, also known as agma, from the Greek word for 'fragment', is a type of consonantal sound used in some spoken languages. It is the sound of ''ng'' in English ''sing'' as well as ''n'' before velar consonants as in ''Englis ...
or
velar fricative
A velar fricative is a fricative consonant produced at the velar place of articulation. It is possible to distinguish the following kinds of velar fricatives:
*Voiced velar fricative, a consonant sound written as in the International Phonetic Alph ...
. An exception to this is numerals; 15 ''jūgo'' is considered to be one word, but is pronounced as if it was ''jū'' and ''go'' stacked end to end: .
In many accents, the ''j'' and ''z'' sounds are pronounced as
affricates ( and , respectively) at the beginning of utterances and fricatives in the middle of words. For example, ''sūji'' 'number', ''zasshi'' 'magazine'.
In archaic forms of Japanese, there existed the ''kwa'' ( ) and ''gwa'' ( ) digraphs. In modern Japanese, these phonemes have been phased out of usage and only exist in the extended
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 f ...
digraphs for approximating foreign language words, names and
loanword
A loanword (also loan word or loan-word) is a word at least partly assimilated from one language (the donor language) into another language. This is in contrast to cognates, which are words in two or more languages that are similar because th ...
s.
The singular ''n'' is pronounced before ''t'', ''ch'', ''ts'', ''n'', ''r'', ''z'', ''j'' and ''d'', before ''m'', ''b'' and ''p'', before ''k'' and ''g'', at the end of utterances, and some kind of
high
High may refer to:
Science and technology
* Height
* High (atmospheric), a high-pressure area
* High (computability), a quality of a Turing degree, in computability theory
* High (tectonics), in geology an area where relative tectonic uplift ...
nasal vowel before vowels, palatal approximants (''y''), and
fricative consonants (''s'', ''sh'', ''h'', ''f'' and ''w'').
In kanji readings, the diphthongs ''ou'' and ''ei'' are today usually pronounced (long o) and (long e) respectively. For example, (lit. ''toukyou'') is pronounced 'Tokyo', and ''sensei'' is 'teacher'. However, ''tou'' is pronounced 'to inquire', because the ''o'' and ''u'' are considered distinct, ''u'' being the verb ending in the dictionary form. Similarly, ''shite iru'' is pronounced 'is doing'.
For a more thorough discussion on the sounds of Japanese, please refer to
Japanese phonology
The phonology of Japanese features about 15 consonant phonemes, the cross-linguistically typical five-vowel system of , and a relatively simple phonotactic distribution of phonemes allowing few consonant clusters. It is traditionally described ...
.
Obsolete kana
Hentaigana
Polysyllabic kana
''yi'', ''ye'' and ''wu''
''yi''
Though ''ye'' did appear in some textbooks during the
Meiji period
The is an era of Japanese history that extended from October 23, 1868 to July 30, 1912.
The Meiji era was the first half of the Empire of Japan, when the Japanese people moved from being an isolated feudal society at risk of colonization ...
along with another kana for ''yi'' in the form of cursive 以. Today it is considered a
Hentaigana
In the Japanese writing system, are variant forms of hiragana.
History
Today, with few exceptions, there is only one hiragana for each of the forty-five moras that are written without diacritics or digraphs. However, traditionally there ...
by scholars and is encoded in Unicode 10 ()
[Walter & Walter 1998.] This kana could have a colloquial use, to convert the combo yui (ゆい) into yii (い), due to other Japanese words having a similar change.
''ye''
An early, now obsolete, hiragana-esque form of ''ye'' may have existed (
𛀁 ) in pre-Classical Japanese (prior to the advent of
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 p ...
), but is generally represented for purposes of reconstruction by the kanji 江, and its hiragana form is not present in any known orthography. In modern orthography, ''ye'' can also be written as いぇ (イェ in
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 f ...
).
It is true that in early periods of kana, hiragana and katakana letters for "ye" were used, but soon after the distinction between /ye/ and /e/ went away, and letters and glyphs were not established.
''wu''
Hiragana also appeared in different Meiji-era textbooks (
![Hiragana WU 2](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/04/Hiragana_WU_2.svg)
). Although there are several possible source kanji, it is likely to have been derived from a cursive form of the , although a related variant sometimes listed (
![紆 kana](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/21/%E7%B4%86_kana.svg)
) is from a cursive form of .
[Iannacone, Jake (2020)]
"Reply to The Origin of Hiragana /wu/ 平仮名のわ行うの字源に対する新たな発見"
/ref> However, it was never commonly used. This character is included in Unicode 14 as HIRAGANA LETTER ARCHAIC WU (𛄟).
Spelling rules
With a few exceptions, such as for the three particles
In the physical sciences, a particle (or corpuscule in older texts) is a small localized object which can be described by several physical or chemical properties, such as volume, density, or mass.
They vary greatly in size or quantity, from s ...
は (pronounced instead of ), へ (pronounced instead of ) and (written を instead of お), Japanese when written in kana is phonemically orthographic, i.e. there is a one-to-one correspondence between kana characters and sounds, leaving only words' pitch accent
A pitch-accent language, when spoken, has word accents in which one syllable in a word or morpheme is more prominent than the others, but the accentuated syllable is indicated by a contrasting pitch ( linguistic tone) rather than by loudness ( ...
unrepresented. This has not always been the case: a previous system of spelling, now referred to as historical kana usage
The , or , refers to the in general use until orthographic reforms after World War II; the current orthography was adopted by Cabinet order in 1946. By that point the historical orthography was no longer in accord with Japanese pronunciation ...
, differed substantially from pronunciation; the three above-mentioned exceptions in modern usage are the legacy of that system.
There are two hiragana pronounced ''ji'' (じ and ぢ) and two hiragana pronounced ''zu'' (ず and づ), but to distinguish them, particularly when typing Japanese, sometimes ''ぢ'' is written as ''di'' and ''づ'' is written as ''du''. These pairs are not interchangeable. Usually, ''ji'' is written as じ and ''zu'' is written as ず. There are some exceptions. If the first two syllables of a word consist of one syllable without a ''dakuten
The , colloquially , is a diacritic most often used in the Japanese kana syllabaries to indicate that the consonant of a syllable should be pronounced voiced, for instance, on sounds that have undergone rendaku (sequential voicing).
The , ...
'' and the same syllable with a ''dakuten'', the same hiragana is used to write the sounds. For example, ''chijimeru'' ('to boil down' or 'to shrink') is spelled ちぢめる and ''tsuzuku'' ('to continue') is . For compound words where the dakuten reflects ''rendaku
is a phenomenon in Japanese morphophonology that governs the voicing of the initial consonant of a non-initial portion of a compound or prefixed word. In modern Japanese, ''rendaku'' is common but at times unpredictable, with certain words un ...
'' voicing, the original hiragana is used. For example, ''chi'' ( 'blood') is spelled ち in plain hiragana. When ''hana'' ('nose') and ''chi'' ('blood') combine to make ''hanaji'' ( 'nose bleed'), the sound of changes from ''chi'' to ''ji''. So ''hanaji'' is spelled according to ち: the basic hiragana used to transcribe . Similarly, ''tsukau'' (; 'to use') is spelled in hiragana, so ''kanazukai'' (; 'kana use', or 'kana orthography') is spelled in hiragana.
However, this does not apply when kanji are used phonetically to write words that do not relate directly to the meaning of the kanji (see also ateji
In modern Japanese, principally refers to kanji used to phonetically represent native or borrowed words with less regard to the underlying meaning of the characters. This is similar to in Old Japanese. Conversely, also refers to kanji use ...
). The Japanese word for 'lightning', for example, is ''inazuma'' (). The component means 'rice plant', is written in hiragana and is pronounced: ''ina''. The component means 'wife' and is pronounced ''tsuma'' (つま) when written in isolation—or frequently as ''zuma'' when it features after another syllable. Neither of these components have anything to do with 'lightning', but together they do when they compose the word for 'lightning'. In this case, the default spelling in hiragana rather than is used.
Officially, ぢ and づ do not occur word-initially pursuant to modern spelling rules. There were words such as ''jiban'' 'ground' in the historical kana usage
The , or , refers to the in general use until orthographic reforms after World War II; the current orthography was adopted by Cabinet order in 1946. By that point the historical orthography was no longer in accord with Japanese pronunciation ...
, but they were unified under じ in the modern kana usage
is the present official ''kanazukai'' (system of spelling the Japanese syllabary). Also known as , it is derived from historical usage.
History
As long ago as the Meiji Restoration, there had been dissatisfaction regarding the growing discr ...
in 1946, so today it is spelled exclusively . However, ''zura'' 'wig' (from ''katsura'') and ''zuke'' (a sushi term for lean tuna soaked in soy sauce) are examples of word-initial づ today. Some people write the word for hemorrhoids as ぢ (normally じ) for emphasis.
No standard Japanese words begin with the kana ん (''n''). This is the basis of the word game shiritori
Shiritori (; ) is a Japanese word game in which the players are required to say a word which begins with the final ''kana'' of the previous word. No distinction is made between ''hiragana'', ''katakana'', and ''kanji''. "Shiritori" literally means ...
. ん ''n'' is normally treated as its own syllable and is separate from the other ''n''-based kana (''na'', ''ni'' etc.).
ん is sometimes directly followed by a vowel (''a'', ''i'', ''u'', ''e'' or ''o'') or a palatal approximant (''ya'', ''yu'' or ''yo''). These are clearly distinct from the ''na'', ''ni'' etc. syllables, and there are minimal pair
In phonology, minimal pairs are pairs of words or phrases in a particular language, spoken or signed, that differ in only one phonological element, such as a phoneme, toneme or chroneme, and have distinct meanings. They are used to demonstrate ...
s such as ''kin'en'' 'smoking forbidden', ''kinen'' 'commemoration', ''kinnen'' 'recent years'. In Hepburn romanization, they are distinguished with an apostrophe, but not all romanization methods make the distinction. For example, past prime minister Junichiro Koizumi
Junichiro Koizumi (; , ''Koizumi Jun'ichirō'' ; born 8 January 1942) is a former Japanese politician who was Prime Minister of Japan and President of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) from 2001 to 2006. He retired from politics in 2009. He is ...
's first name is actually ''Jun'ichirō'' pronounced
There are a few hiragana that are rarely used. Outside of Okinawan orthography, 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 ...
''wi'' and 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 ...
''we'' are only used in some proper names. 𛀁 ''e'' was an alternate version of え ''e'' before spelling reform, and was briefly reused for ''ye'' during initial spelling reforms, but is now completely obsolete. ゔ ''vu'' is a modern addition used to represent the /v/ sound in foreign languages such as English, but since Japanese from a phonological standpoint does not have a /v/ sound, it is pronounced as /b/ and mostly serves as a more accurate indicator of a word's pronunciation in its original language. However, it is rarely seen because loanword
A loanword (also loan word or loan-word) is a word at least partly assimilated from one language (the donor language) into another language. This is in contrast to cognates, which are words in two or more languages that are similar because th ...
s and transliterated
Transliteration is a type of conversion of a text from one script to another that involves swapping letters (thus '' trans-'' + '' liter-'') in predictable ways, such as Greek → , Cyrillic → , Greek → the digraph , Armenian → or ...
words are usually written in 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 f ...
, where the corresponding character would be written as ヴ. The digraphs , , for ''ja''/''ju''/''jo'' are theoretically possible in rendaku
is a phenomenon in Japanese morphophonology that governs the voicing of the initial consonant of a non-initial portion of a compound or prefixed word. In modern Japanese, ''rendaku'' is common but at times unpredictable, with certain words un ...
, but are practically never used. For example, 'throughout Japan' could be written , but is practically always
The ''myu'' kana is extremely rare in originally Japanese words; linguist Haruhiko Kindaichi raises the example of the Japanese family name Omamyūda and claims it is the only occurrence amongst pure Japanese words. Its 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 f ...
counterpart is used in many loanwords, however.
History
Hiragana developed from ''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 thi ...
'', Chinese
Chinese can refer to:
* Something related to China
* Chinese people, people of Chinese nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity
**''Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic concept of the Chinese nation
** List of ethnic groups in China, people of ...
characters used for their pronunciations, a practice that started in the 5th century. The oldest examples of Man'yōgana include the Inariyama Sword
The iron or was excavated at the Inariyama Kofun in 1968. Inariyama Kofun is a megalithic tomb located in Saitama Prefecture. In 1978, X-ray analysis revealed a gold-inlaid inscription that comprises at least 115 Chinese characters. This sword ...
, an iron sword excavated at the Inariyama Kofun. This sword is thought to be made in the year (most commonly taken to be C.E. 471).
The forms of the hiragana originate from the cursive script style of Chinese calligraphy
Chinese calligraphy is the writing of Chinese characters as an art form, combining purely visual art and interpretation of the literary meaning. This type of expression has been widely practiced in China and has been generally held in high este ...
. The figure below shows the derivation of hiragana from manyōgana via cursive script. The upper part shows the character in the regular script
Regular script (; Hepburn: ''kaisho''), also called (), (''zhēnshū''), (''kǎitǐ'') and (''zhèngshū''), is the newest of the Chinese script styles (popularized from the Cao Wei dynasty c. 200 AD and maturing stylistically around the ...
form, the center character in red shows the cursive script form of the character, and the bottom shows the equivalent hiragana. The cursive script forms are not strictly confined to those in the illustration.
When it was first developed, hiragana was not accepted by everyone. The educated or elites preferred to use only the kanji system. Historically, in Japan, the regular script (''kaisho'') form of the characters was used by men and called , "men's writing", while the cursive script (''sōsho'') form of the kanji was used by women. Hence hiragana first gained popularity among women, who were generally not allowed access to the same levels of education as men, thus hiragana was first widely used among court women in the writing of personal communications and literature. From this comes the alternative name of "women's writing". For example, '' The Tale of Genji'' and other early novels by female authors used hiragana extensively or exclusively. Even today, hiragana is felt to have a feminine quality.[p. 108. Kataoka, Kuniyoshi. 1997. Affect and letter writing: unconventional conventions in casual writing by young Japanese women. Language in Society 26:103-136.]
Male authors came to write literature using hiragana. Hiragana was used for unofficial writing such as personal letters, while katakana and Chinese were used for official documents. In modern times, the usage of hiragana has become mixed with 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 f ...
writing. Katakana is now relegated to special uses such as recently borrowed words (i.e., since the 19th century), names in transliteration
Transliteration is a type of conversion of a text from one script to another that involves swapping letters (thus ''trans-'' + '' liter-'') in predictable ways, such as Greek → , Cyrillic → , Greek → the digraph , Armenian → or L ...
, the names of animals, in telegrams, and for emphasis.
Originally, for all syllables there was more than one possible hiragana. In 1900, the system was simplified so each syllable had only one hiragana. The deprecated hiragana are now known as .
The pangram
A pangram or holoalphabetic sentence is a sentence using every letter of a given alphabet at least once. Pangrams have been used to display typefaces, test equipment, and develop skills in handwriting, calligraphy, and keyboarding.
Origins
The ...
poem ''Iroha
The is a Japanese poem. Originally the poem was attributed to the founder of the Shingon Esoteric sect of Buddhism in Japan, Kūkai, but more modern research has found the date of composition to be later in the Heian period (794–1179). Th ...
-uta'' ("ABC song/poem"), which dates to the 10th century, uses every hiragana once (except ''n'' ん, which was just a variant of む before the Muromachi era
The is a division of Japanese history running from approximately 1336 to 1573. The period marks the governance of the Muromachi or Ashikaga shogunate (''Muromachi bakufu'' or ''Ashikaga bakufu''), which was officially established in 1338 by t ...
).
Stroke order and direction
The following table shows the method for writing each hiragana character. The table is arranged in a traditional manner, beginning top right and reading columns down. The numbers and arrows indicate the stroke order and direction respectively.
Unicode
Hiragana was added to the Unicode
Unicode, formally The Unicode Standard,The formal version reference is is an information technology standard for the consistent encoding, representation, and handling of text expressed in most of the world's writing systems. The standard, wh ...
Standard in October, 1991 with the release of version 1.0.
The Unicode block for Hiragana is U+3040–U+309F:
The Unicode hiragana block contains precomposed characters for all hiragana in the modern set, including small vowels and yōon kana for compound syllables as well as the rare ゐ ''wi'' and ゑ ''we''; the archaic 𛀁 ''ye'' is included in plane 1 at U+1B001 (see below). All combinations of hiragana with ''dakuten'' and ''handakuten'' used in modern Japanese are available as precomposed characters (including the rare ゔ ''vu''), and can also be produced by using a base hiragana followed by the combining dakuten and handakuten characters (U+3099 and U+309A, respectively). This method is used to add the diacritics to kana that are not normally used with them, for example applying the dakuten to a pure vowel or the handakuten to a kana not in the h-group.
Characters U+3095 and U+3096 are small か (''ka'') and small け (''ke''), respectively. U+309F is a ligature of より (''yori'') occasionally used in vertical text. U+309B and U+309C are spacing (non-combining) equivalents to the combining dakuten and handakuten characters, respectively.
Historic and variant forms of Japanese kana characters were first added to the Unicode
Unicode, formally The Unicode Standard,The formal version reference is is an information technology standard for the consistent encoding, representation, and handling of text expressed in most of the world's writing systems. The standard, wh ...
Standard in October, 2010 with the release of version 6.0, with significantly more added in 2017 as part of Unicode 10.
The Unicode block for Kana Supplement is U+1B000–U+1B0FF, and is immediately followed by the Kana Extended-A block (U+1B100–U+1B12F). These blocks include mainly hentaigana
In the Japanese writing system, are variant forms of hiragana.
History
Today, with few exceptions, there is only one hiragana for each of the forty-five moras that are written without diacritics or digraphs. However, traditionally there ...
(historic or variant hiragana):
The Unicode block for Kana Extended-B is U+1AFF0–U+1AFFF:
The Unicode block for Small Kana Extension is U+1B130–U+1B16F:
In the following character sequences a kana from the /k/ row is modified by a ''handakuten'' combining mark to indicate that a syllable starts with an initial nasal, known as '' bidakuon''. As of Unicode 15.0, these character combinations are explicitly called out as Named Sequences:
See also
*Japanese writing system
The modern Japanese writing system uses a combination of logographic kanji, which are adopted Chinese characters, and syllabic kana. Kana itself consists of a pair of syllabaries: hiragana, used primarily for native or naturalised Japanese wo ...
* Bopomofo (Zhùyīn fúhào, "phonetic symbols"), a phonetic system of 37 characters for writing Chinese developed in the 1900s and is more common in Taiwan.
*Iteration mark
Iteration marks are characters or punctuation marks that represent a duplicated character or word. Chinese
In Chinese, (usually appearing as ) or is used in casual writing to represent a doubled character. However, it is not used in formal wri ...
explains the iteration marks used with hiragana.
*Japanese phonology
The phonology of Japanese features about 15 consonant phonemes, the cross-linguistically typical five-vowel system of , and a relatively simple phonotactic distribution of phonemes allowing few consonant clusters. It is traditionally described ...
explains Japanese pronunciation in detail.
*Japanese typographic symbols
This article lists Japanese typographic symbols that are not included in kana or kanji groupings. The usages of these symbols are unique and specific.
Repetition marks
Brackets and quotation marks
Phonetic marks
Punctuation marks
Other ...
gives other non-kana, non-kanji symbols.
*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 f ...
*Nüshu
Nüshu () is a syllabic script derived from Chinese characters that was used exclusively among women in Jiangyong County in Hunan province of southern China.Proposatext
Hunan
Hunan (, ; ) is a landlocked province of the People's Republic of China, part of the South Central China region. Located in the middle reaches of the Yangtze watershed, it borders the province-level divisions of Hubei to the north, Jiangxi to ...
province
*Shodō
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 ...
, Japanese calligraphy.
Notes
References
Citations
Sources
* "The Art of Japanese Calligraphy", Yujiro Nakata, , gives details of the development of ''onode'' and ''onnade''.
External links
Hiragana unicode chart
Hiragana table with strokes animations
{{Authority control
Japanese writing system terms
Kana
Japanese writing system
Syllabary writing systems
sv:Kana (skriftsystem)#Hiragana