is an ancient

writing system A writing system comprises a set of symbols, called a ''script'', as well as the rules by which the script represents a particular language. The earliest writing appeared during the late 4th millennium BC. Throughout history, each independen ...

that uses

Chinese characters Chinese characters are logographs used Written Chinese, to write the Chinese languages and others from regions historically influenced by Chinese culture. Of the four independently invented writing systems accepted by scholars, they represe ...

to represent the

Japanese language is the principal language of the Japonic languages, Japonic language family spoken by the Japanese people. It has around 123 million speakers, primarily in Japan, the only country where it is the national language, and within the Japanese dia ...

. 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 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 Japanese poetry is poetry typical of Japan, or written, spoken, or chanted in the Japanese language, which includes Old Japanese, Early Middle Japanese, Late Middle Japanese, and Modern Japanese, as well as poetry in Japan which was written in th ...

anthology from the

Nara period The of the history of Japan covers the years from 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 capita ...

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 they are 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 (based on

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

), , or (meaning 'tree' in Old Japanese). Simplified versions of ''man'yōgana'' eventually gave rise to both the

hiragana is a Japanese language, Japanese syllabary, part of the Japanese writing system, along with ''katakana'' as well as ''kanji''. It is a phonetic lettering system. The word ''hiragana'' means "common" or "plain" kana (originally also "easy", ...

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 ...

scripts, which are used in Modern Japanese.

Origin

Scholars from the Korean kingdom of

Baekje Baekje or Paekche (; ) was a Korean kingdom located in southwestern Korea from 18 BCE to 660 CE. It was one of the Three Kingdoms of Korea, together with Goguryeo and Silla. While the three kingdoms were in separate existence, Baekje had the h ...

are believed to have introduced the ''man'yōgana'' writing system to the

Japanese archipelago The is an archipelago of list of islands of Japan, 14,125 islands that form the country of Japan. It extends over from the Sea of Okhotsk in the northeast to the East China Sea, East China and Philippine Sea, Philippine seas in the southwest al ...

. The chronicles '' Kojiki'' and the '' Nihon Shoki'' both state so; though direct evidence is hard to come by, scholars tend to accept the idea. A possible oldest example of ''man'yōgana'' is the iron Inariyama Sword, which was excavated at the Inariyama Kofun in 1968. In 1978,

X-ray An X-ray (also known in many languages as Röntgen radiation) is a form of high-energy electromagnetic radiation with a wavelength shorter than those of ultraviolet rays and longer than those of gamma rays. Roughly, X-rays have a wavelength ran ...

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 written for names in a phonetic language. This sword is thought to have been made in the year (471 AD in the commonly-accepted theory). There is a strong possibility that the inscription of the Inariyama Sword may be written in a version of the Chinese language used in Baekje.

Principles

''Man'yōgana'' uses

kanji are logographic Chinese characters, adapted from Chinese family of scripts, Chinese script, 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 are ...

characters for their phonetic rather than semantic qualities. In other words, kanji are used for their sounds, not their meanings. There was no standard system for choice of kanji, and different ones could be used to represent the same sound, with the choice made on the whims of the writer. By the end of the 8th century, 970 kanji were in use to represent the 90 morae 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. All particles and most words are represented phonetically ( ''tada'', ''asa''), but the words ''ji'' (), ''umi'' () and ''funekaji'' () are rendered semantically. In some cases, specific syllables in particular words are consistently represented by specific characters. That usage is known as Jōdai Tokushu Kanazukai and usage has led historical linguists to conclude that certain disparate sounds in Old Japanese, 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 reading, in which one character represents either one mora or two morae. ''Shakkun kana'' () are based on a native kun'yomi reading, one to three characters represent one to three morae.

Development

Due to the major differences between the Japanese language (which was polysyllabic) and the Chinese language (which was monosyllabic) 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. To alleviate the confusion and to save time writing, kanji that were used as ''man'yōgana'' eventually gave rise to

, including the now-obsolete alternatives, alongside a separate system that became

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

cursive Cursive (also known as joined-up writing) 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 functionality and m ...

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 is derived from the ''man'yōgana'' , whereas the katakana 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 hentaigana. ''Man'yōgana'' continues to appear in some regional names of present-day Japan, especially in

Kyūshū is the third-largest island of Japan's four main islands and the most southerly of the four largest islands (i.e. excluding Okinawa and the other Ryukyu (''Nansei'') Islands). In the past, it has been known as , and . The historical regio ...

. A phenomenon similar to ''man'yōgana,'' called , still occurs, where words (including

loanword A loanword (also a loan word, loan-word) is a word at least partly assimilated from one language (the donor language) into another language (the recipient or target language), through the process of borrowing. Borrowing is a metaphorical term t ...

s) are spelled out using kanji for their phonetic value. Examples include , , and .

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 Archaic Japanese language Asuka period Japanese writing system Manyogana Manyogana Man'yōshū Nara period