HiraganaHiragana (, ; IPA:) is a Japanesesyllabary, part of the Japanese writing system, along with katakana as well as kanji (Chinese characters). It is a phonetic lettering system. The word hiragana means "common" or "plain" kana (originally also "easy", as contrasted with kanji). Historically, hiragana developed from cursive forms of kanji via man'yōgana, with each sign originating as a simplified cursive rendering of a whole kanji—for example, あ (a) from 安 (an).
KatakanaJapanese syllabaryKatakana (片仮名, カタカナ; IPA:) 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 from components or fragments of more complex kanji. Katakana and hiragana are both kana systems.
KanaKana (; Japanese pronunciation:) are syllabaries used to write Japanese phonological units, morae. In current usage, kana most commonly refers to hiragana and katakana. It can also refer to their ancestor magana (真仮名; lit. 'true kana'), which were Chinese characters used phonetically to transcribe Japanese (e.g. man'yōgana); and hentaigana, which are historical variants of the now-standard hiragana. Katakana, with a few additions, are also used to write Ainu.
Japanese languageJaponic languageJapanese (日本語, Nihongo; ) is the principal language of the 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 diaspora worldwide. The Japonic family also includes the Ryukyuan languages and the variously classified Hachijō language.
Chinese charactersChinese characters are logographs used to write the Chinese languages and others from regions historically influenced by Chinese culture, including Japan, Korea, and Vietnam. Of the four independently invented writing systems accepted by scholars (cuneiform, Egyptian hieroglyphs, Chinese characters, and Maya script), they represent the only one that has remained in continuous use.
KanjiChinese characters used in Japanese writingKanji (; Japanese: 漢字, hiragana: かんじ, Katakana: カンジ, pronounced, 'Han characters') are logographicChinese characters, historically adapted from Chinese writing scripts, used in the writing of Japanese. They comprised a major part of the Japanese writing system during the time of Old Japanese and are still used today, along with the subsequently derived syllabic (phonographic) scripts of hiragana and katakana.
Cursive script (East Asia)Script style of Asian orthography Cursive script (simplified Chinese: 草书; traditional Chinese: 草書; pinyin: cǎoshū; Japanese: 草書体, sōshotai; Korean: 초서, choseo; Vietnamese: thảo thư), often referred to 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 script.Chinese character componentsIn written Chinese, components (Chinese: 部件; pinyin: bùjiàn) are building blocks of characters, composed of strokes. In most cases, a component consists of more than one stroke and is smaller than the whole of the character. For example, the character 件 consists of two components: 亻 and 牛. These can be further decomposed: 亻 can be analyzed as the sequence of strokes ㇓㇑, and 牛 as the sequence ㇓㇐㇐㇑.LogogramGrapheme which represents a word or a morpheme Egyptian hieroglyphs, including logograms such as the sun disk (⊙, visible several times here) In a written language, a logogram (from Ancient Greek logos 'word', and gramma 'that which is drawn or written'), also logograph or lexigraph, is a written character that represents a semantic component of a language, such as a word or morpheme.
Phonogram (linguistics)A phonogram or phonograph (from Ancient Greekphōnḗ'sound' + grắphō'writing') is a basic unit of writing (or grapheme) that represents a sound used when speaking a particular language, like a phoneme or syllable.SyllabaryIn the linguistic study of written languages, a syllabary is a set of written symbols that represent the syllables or (more frequently) morae which make up words.
NameA name is a term used for identification by an external observer. A name can identify a class or category of things, or a single thing, either uniquely, or within a given context. The entity identified by a name is called its referent. A personal name identifies, not necessarily uniquely, a specific individual human.*As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.