is an ancient

writing system A writing system is a method of visually representing verbal communication, based on a script and a set of rules regulating its use. While both writing and speech are useful in conveying messages, writing differs in also being a reliable form ...

that uses

Chinese characters Chinese characters () are logograms developed for the writing of Chinese. In addition, they have been adapted to write other East Asian languages, and remain a key component of the Japanese writing system where they are known as ''kanji' ...

to represent 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 ...

. It was the first known

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 ...

system to be developed as a means to represent the Japanese language phonetically. The date of the earliest usage of this type of kana is not clear, but it was in use since at least the mid-7th century. The name "man'yōgana" derives from the '' Man'yōshū'', a Japanese poetry anthology from the

Nara period The of the history of Japan covers the years from CE 710 to 794. Empress Genmei established the capital of Heijō-kyō (present-day Nara). Except for a five-year period (740–745), when the capital was briefly moved again, it remained the cap ...

written with ''man'yōgana.'' Texts using the system also often use Chinese characters for their meaning, but ''man'yōgana'' refers to such characters only when used to represent a phonetic value. The values were derived from the contemporary Chinese pronunciation, but native Japanese readings of the character were also sometimes used. For example, (whose character means 'tree') could represent either (based on

Middle Chinese Middle Chinese (formerly known as Ancient Chinese) or the Qieyun system (QYS) is the historical variety of Chinese recorded in the '' Qieyun'', a rime dictionary first published in 601 and followed by several revised and expanded editions. The ...

) or or (meaning 'tree' in

Old Japanese is the oldest attested stage of the Japanese language, recorded in documents from the Nara period (8th century). It became Early Middle Japanese in the succeeding Heian period, but the precise delimitation of the stages is controversial. Old Jap ...

). Simplified versions of ''man'yōgana'' eventually gave rise to both the

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 f ...

scripts, which are used in Modern Japanese.

Origin

A possible oldest example of Man'yōgana is the iron

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 ...

that was excavated at the Inariyama Kofun in 1968. In 1978,

X-ray An X-ray, or, much less commonly, X-radiation, is a penetrating form of high-energy electromagnetic radiation. Most X-rays have a wavelength ranging from 10 picometers to 10 nanometers, corresponding to frequencies in the range 30&nb ...

analysis revealed a gold-inlaid inscription consisting of at least 115 Chinese characters and this text, written in Chinese, included Japanese personal names which were supposedly phonetically written. This sword is thought to have been made in the year (471 A.D. in commonly accepted theory). There is a possibility that the inscription of the Inariyama sword may be written in a version of the Chinese language used in the Korean-peninsula kingdom of

Baekje Baekje or Paekche (, ) was a Korean kingdom located in southwestern Korea from 18 BC to 660 AD. It was one of the Three Kingdoms of Korea, together with Goguryeo and Silla. Baekje was founded by Onjo, the third son of Goguryeo's founder Jum ...

Principles

''Man'yōgana'' uses

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 ...

characters for their phonetic rather than semantic qualities—in other words, they are used for their sounds and not their meanings. There was no standard system for choice of kanji; different kanji could be used to represent the same sound, the choice being made on the whims of the writer. By the end of the 8th century, 970 kanji were in use to represent the 90

morae A mora (plural ''morae'' or ''moras''; often symbolized μ) is a basic timing unit in the phonology of some spoken languages, equal to or shorter than a syllable. For example, a short syllable such as ''ba'' consists of one mora (''monomoraic'') ...

of Japanese. For example, the ''Man'yōshū'' poem 17/4025 was written as follows: In the poem, the sounds ''mo'' () and ''shi'' () are written with multiple, different characters. While all particles and most words are represented phonetically (e.g., ''tada'', ''asa''), the words ''ji'' (), ''umi'' () and ''funekaji'' () are rendered semantically. In some cases, specific syllables in particular words are consistently represented by specific characters. This usage is known as

Jōdai Tokushu Kanazukai is an archaic kana orthography system used to write Japanese during the Nara period. Its primary feature is to distinguish between two groups of syllables that later merged. The existence and meaning of this system is a critical point of schol ...

. This usage has led historical linguists to conclude that certain disparate sounds in

, consistently represented by differing sets of ''man'yōgana'' characters, may have merged since then.

Types

In writing which utilizes ''man'yōgana,'' kanji are mapped to sounds in a number of different ways, some of which are straightforward and others which are less so. ''Shakuon kana'' () are based on a Sino-Japanese

on'yomi are the logographic Chinese characters taken from the Chinese script and used in the writing of Japanese. They were made a major part of the Japanese writing system during the time of Old Japanese and are still used, along with the subsequ ...

reading, in which one character represents either one

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 ...

or two morae. ''Shakkun kana'' () are based on a native

kun'yomi are the logographic Chinese characters taken from the Chinese script and used in the writing of Japanese. They were made a major part of the Japanese writing system during the time of Old Japanese and are still used, along with the subsequen ...

reading, one to three characters represent one to three morae.

Development

Due to the major differences between the Japanese language (which was

polysyllabic A syllable is a unit of organization for a sequence of speech sounds typically made up of a syllable nucleus (most often a vowel) with optional initial and final margins (typically, consonants). Syllables are often considered the phonological "b ...

) and the Chinese language (which was

monosyllabic In linguistics, a monosyllable is a word or utterance of only one syllable. It is most commonly studied in the fields of phonology and morphology and it has no semantic content. The word has originated from the Greek language. "Yes", "no", "jump", ...

) from which kanji came, ''man'yōgana'' proved to be very cumbersome to read and write. As stated earlier, since kanji has two different sets of pronunciation, one based on Sino-Japanese pronunciation and the other on native Japanese pronunciation, it was difficult to determine whether a certain character was used to represent its pronunciation or its meaning, i.e., whether it was ''man'yōgana'' or actual kanji, or both. On top of that, Buddhist monks found recording oral teachings time-consuming, since every syllable would need to be written using an entire kanji. To alleviate the confusion and to save time writing, kanji that were used as ''man'yōgana'' eventually gave rise to

, including the now-obsolete

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 ...

() alternatives, alongside a separate system that became

. Hiragana developed from ''man'yōgana'' written in the highly

cursive Cursive (also known as script, among other names) is any style of penmanship in which characters are written joined in a flowing manner, generally for the purpose of making writing faster, in contrast to block letters. It varies in functionalit ...

sōsho Cursive script (; , ''sōshotai''; , ''choseo''; ), often mistranslated as grass script, is a script style used in Chinese and East Asian calligraphy. It is an umbrella term for the cursive variants of the clerical script and the regular s ...

'' () style popularly used by women; meanwhile, katakana was developed by Buddhist monks as a form of shorthand, utilizing, in most cases, only fragments (for example, usually the first or last few strokes) of ''man'yōgana'' characters. In some cases, one ''man'yōgana'' character for a given syllable gave rise to a hentaigana that was simplified further to result in the current hiragana character, while a different ''man'yōgana'' character was the source for the current katakana equivalent. For example, the hiragana (ru) is derived from the ''man'yōgana'' , whereas the katakana (ru) is derived from the ''man'yōgana'' . The multiple alternative hiragana forms for a single syllable were ultimately standardized in 1900, and the rejected variants are now known as

. ''Man'yōgana'' continues to appear in some regional names of present-day Japan, especially in

Kyūshū is the third-largest island of Japan's five main islands and the most southerly of the four largest islands ( i.e. excluding Okinawa). In the past, it has been known as , and . The historical regional name referred to Kyushu and its surround ...

. A phenomenon similar to ''man'yōgana,'' called

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 ...

(), still occurs, where words (including

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) are spelled out using kanji for their phonetic value. Examples include (''kurabu'', club), (''Furansu'', France), (''Afurika'', Africa) and (''Amerika,'' America).

References

Citations

Works cited

* *

External links

An extensive list of man’yōgana arranged according to the characters, and not their readings
* Tomasz Majtczak:
How are we supposed to write with something like that? Early employment of the Chinese script to write Japanese as exemplified by the Man’yōshū
'. {{DEFAULTSORT:Man'yogana Manyogana Manyogana Man'yōshū Nara period Asuka period Archaic Japanese language Japanese writing system