Hiragana ひらがな
Type	syllabary
Spoken languages	Japanese and Okinawan
Time period	~800 A.D. to the present
Parent systems	kanji  → Man'yōgana   → Hiragana ひらがな
Sister systems	katakana, hentaigana
Unicode range	U+3040-U+309F
ISO 15924	Hira
Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode.

Hiragana (平仮名 or ひらがな, Hiragana^?) is a Japanese syllabary, one component of the Japanese writing system, along with katakana and kanji; the Latin alphabet is also used in some cases. Hiragana and katakana are both kana systems, in which each symbol represents one mora. Each kana is either a vowel (such as a あ); a consonant followed by a vowel (such as ka か); or n ん, a nasal sonorant which, depending on the context, sounds either like English m, n, or ng (IPA: [ŋ]), or like the nasal vowels of French. A syllabary is a set of written symbols that represent (or approximate) syllables, which make up words. ... Okinawan (Okinawan: Ê”ucināguci) is a Ryukyuan language spoken in Japan on the southern island of Okinawa, as well as the surrounding islands of Kerama, Kume-jima, Tonaki, Aguni, and a number of smaller islands located to the east of the main island of Okinawa. ... Japanese writing Kanji Kana Hiragana Katakana Hentaigana Manyōgana Uses Furigana Okurigana Rōmaji   ) are the Chinese characters that are used in the modern Japanese logographic writing system along with hiragana (平仮名), katakana (片仮名), and the Arabic numerals. ... It has been suggested that Shakukun be merged into this article or section. ... Katakana ) is a Japanese syllabary, one component of the Japanese writing system along with hiragana, kanji, and in some cases the Latin alphabet. ... Japanese writing Kanji 漢字 Kana 仮名 Hiragana 平仮名 Katakana 片仮名 Uses Furigana 振り仮名 Okurigana 送り仮名 Romaji ローマ字 Hentaigana (変体仮名) are alternative kana letterforms equivalent to standard kana characters. ... Unicode’s Universal Character Set potentially supports over 1 million (1,114,112 = 220 + 216 or 17 × 216, hexadecimal 110000) code points. ... ISO 15924, Codes for the representation of names of scripts, defines two sets of codes for a number of writing systems (scripts). ... Image File history File links ひ_教科書体.svg‎ Designed to replace Image:ひ 教科書体.png; vector copy of a raster image Source User:Squilibob Date 07:42, 27 May 2007 (UTC) Author User:Squilibob Permission Public Domain-ineligible Other versions Image:ひ 教科書体.png File historyClick on a date/time to view the file as... The Unicode Standard, Version 5. ... A syllabary is a set of written symbols that represent (or approximate) syllables, which make up words. ... This article describes the modern writing system and its history. ... Katakana ) is a Japanese syllabary, one component of the Japanese writing system along with hiragana, kanji, and in some cases the Latin alphabet. ... Japanese writing Kanji Kana Hiragana Katakana Hentaigana Manyōgana Uses Furigana Okurigana Rōmaji   ) are the Chinese characters that are used in the modern Japanese logographic writing system along with hiragana (平仮名), katakana (片仮名), and the Arabic numerals. ... Japanese writing Kanji Kana Hiragana Katakana Hentaigana Manyōgana Uses Furigana Okurigana Rōmaji The romanization of Japanese is the use of the Latin alphabet (called rōmaji )   in Japanese) to write the Japanese language, which is normally written in logographic characters borrowed from Chinese (kanji) and syllabic scripts... Japanese writing Kanji 漢字 Kana 仮名 Hiragana 平仮名 Katakana 片仮名 Manyogana 万葉仮名 Uses Furigana 振り仮名 Okurigana 送り仮名 Rōmaji ローマ字 For other meanings of Kana, see Kana (disambiguation). ... Mora (plural moras or morae) is a unit of sound used in phonology that determines syllable weight (which in turn determines stress or timing) in some languages. ... A nasal consonant is produced when the velum—that fleshy part of the palate near the back—is lowered, allowing air to escape freely through the nose. ... In phonetics and phonology, a sonorant is a speech sound that is produced without turbulent airflow in the vocal tract. ... A nasal vowel is a vowel that is produced with a lowering of the velum so that air escapes both through nose as well as the mouth. ...

Hiragana are used for words for which there are no kanji, including particles such as kara から "from," and suffixes such as ~san さん "Mr., Mrs., Miss, Ms." Hiragana are also used in words for which the kanji form is not known to the writer nor the readers or is too formal for the writing purpose. Verb and adjective inflections, as, for example, BE MA SHI TA (べました) in tabemashita (食べました, tabemashita^? "ate"), are written in hiragana. In this case, part of the root is also written in hiragana. Hiragana are also used to give the pronunciation of kanji in a reading aid called furigana. The article Japanese writing system discusses in detail when the various systems of writing are used. Japanese writing Kanji Kana Hiragana Katakana Hentaigana Manyōgana Uses Furigana Okurigana Rōmaji   ) are the Chinese characters that are used in the modern Japanese logographic writing system along with hiragana (平仮名), katakana (片仮名), and the Arabic numerals. ... Japanese particles, joshi ) or teniwoha ), are suffixes or short words in Japanese grammar that immediately follow the modified noun, verb, adjective, or sentence. ... Japanese writing Kanji Kana Hiragana Katakana Hentaigana Manyōgana Uses Furigana Okurigana Rōmaji Okurigana (送り仮名, literally accompanying letters) are kana suffixes following kanji stems in Japanese written words. ... Look up pronunciation in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Japanese writing Kanji 漢字 Kana 仮名 Hiragana 平仮名 Katakana 片仮名 Uses Furigana 振り仮名 Okurigana 送り仮名 Rōmaji ローマ字 Category Furigana (Japanese: ふりがな), are a Japanese reading aid. ... This article describes the modern writing system and its history. ...

There are two main systems of ordering hiragana, the old-fashioned iroha ordering, and the more prevalent gojūon ordering. Japanese writing Kanji 漢字 Kana 仮名 Hiragana 平仮名 Katakana 片仮名 Manyogana 万葉仮名 Uses Furigana 振り仮名 Okurigana 送り仮名 Rōmaji ローマ字 For other meanings of Kana, see Kana (disambiguation). ... The iroha (Japanese: , いろは) is a Japanese poem most likely written sometime during the Heian era (AD 794–1179). ... The gojÅ«on (五十音) is a Japanese ordering of kana. ...

Writing system

The hiragana consist of a basic set of characters, the gojūon, which can be modified in various ways. By adding a dakuten marker ( ゛), an unvoiced consonant such as k or t is turned into a voiced consonant such as g or d: k→g, t→d, s→z, and h→b. The gojÅ«on (五十音) is a Japanese ordering of kana. ... Dakuten ), colloquially ten-ten (dot dot), is a diacritic sign most often used in the Japanese kana syllabaries to indicate that the consonant of a syllable should be pronounced voiced. ...

Hiragana beginning with an h can also add a handakuten marker ( ゜) changing the h to a p. 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. Addition of the small y kana is called yōon. A small tsu っ called a sokuon indicates a geminate (doubled) consonant. It appears before fricatives and stops, and sometimes at the end of sentences. This is represented in rōmaji by doubling the following consonant. Dakuten (濁点), colloquially ten-ten (dot dot), is a diacritic sign most often used in the Japanese kana syllabaries to indicate that the consonant of a syllable should be pronounced voiced. ... Palatalization means pronouncing a sound nearer to the hard palate, making it more like a palatal consonant; this is towards the front of the mouth for a velar or uvular consonant, but towards the back of the mouth for a front (e. ... Yōon (拗音) is a feature of the Japanese language in which a mora is formed with an added y sound. ... Japanese writing Kanji Kana Hiragana Katakana Hentaigana Manyogana Uses Furigana Okurigana Rōmaji The sokuon (Japanese: ) is a Japanese symbol consisting of a small hiragana or katakana tsu. ... In phonetics, gemination is when a spoken consonant is doubled, so that it is pronounced for an audibly longer period of time than a single consonant. ... Note: This page contains phonetic information presented in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) using Unicode. ... Japanese writing Kanji 漢字 Kana 仮名 Hiragana 平仮名 Katakana 片仮名 Uses Furigana 振り仮名 Okurigana 送り仮名 Romaji ローマ字 The title given to this article lacks diacritics because of certain technical limitations. ...

In informal writing, small versions of the five vowel kana are sometimes used to represent trailing off sounds (はぁ, ねぇ).

There are a few hiragana which are rarely used. Wi ゐ and we ゑ are obsolete. Vu ゔ 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 loanwords and transliterated words are usually written in katakana, where the corresponding character would be written as ヴ. A loanword (or loan word) is a word directly taken into one language from another with little or no translation. ... Transliteration is the practice of transcribing a word or text written in one writing system into another writing system. ... Katakana ) is a Japanese syllabary, one component of the Japanese writing system along with hiragana, kanji, and in some cases the Latin alphabet. ...

Table of hiragana-rōmaji

The following table shows hiragana together with their Hepburn romanization. Hiragana with dakuten or handakuten follow the gojūon kana without them. The obsolete kana are shown in red romanization. There are 131 cases. Japanese writing Kanji Kana Hiragana Katakana Hentaigana Manyōgana Uses Furigana Okurigana Rōmaji The romanization of Japanese is the use of the Latin alphabet (called rōmaji )   in Japanese) to write the Japanese language, which is normally written in logographic characters borrowed from Chinese (kanji) and syllabic scripts... Japanese writing Kanji Kana Hiragana Katakana Hentaigana Manyōgana Uses Furigana Okurigana Rōmaji The Hepburn romanization system ) is named after James Curtis Hepburn, who used it to transcribe the sounds of the Japanese language into the Latin alphabet in the third edition of his Japanese–English dictionary, published...

Japanese writing

Kanji Yōon (拗音) is a feature of the Japanese language in which a mora is formed with an added y sound. ... The hiragana あ. あ in hiragana, or ã‚¢ in katakana is one of the Japanese kana that each respresent one mora. ... The hiragana い. い in hiragana, or イ in katakana, is is one of the Japanese kana that each respresent one mora. ... In Japanese writing, the kana う (hiragana) and ウ (katakana) occupy the third place, between ã‚€ and ゐ, in the modern GojÅ«on (五十音) system of collating kana. ... In Japanese writing, the kana え (hiragana) and エ (katakana) occupy the fourth place, between う and お, in the modern GojÅ«on (五十音) system of collating kana. ... In Japanese writing, the kana お (hiragana) and オ (katakana) occupy the fifth place, between え and か, in the modern GojÅ«on (五十音) system of collating kana. ... か, in hiragana, or ã‚« in katakana, is one of the Japanese kana, which each represent one mora. ... き, in hiragana, or ã‚­ in katakana, is one of the Japanese kana, which each represent one mora. ... く, in hiragana, or ク in katakana, is one of the Japanese kana, which each represent one mora. ... け, in hiragana, or ケ in katakana, is one of the Japanese kana, which each represent one mora. ... こ, in hiragana, or コ in katakana, is one of the Japanese kana, which each represent one mora. ... さ, in hiragana, or サ in katakana, is one of the Japanese kana, which each represent one mora. ... し, in hiragana, or ã‚· in katakana, is one of the Japanese kana, which each represent one mora. ... す, in hiragana, or ス in katakana, is one of the Japanese kana, which each represent one mora. ... せ, in hiragana, or ã‚» in katakana, is one of the Japanese kana, which each represent one mora. ... そ, in hiragana, or ソ in katakana, is one of the Japanese kana, which each represent one mora. ... た, in hiragana, or ã‚¿ in katakana, is one of the Japanese kana, which each represent one mora. ... ち, in hiragana, or チ in katakana, is one of the Japanese kana, which each represent one mora. ... つ, in hiragana, or ツ in katakana, is one of the Japanese kana, which each represent one mora. ... て, in hiragana, or テ in katakana, is one of the Japanese kana, which each represent one mora. ... と, in hiragana, or ト in katakana, is one of the Japanese kana, which each represent one mora. ... な, in hiragana, or ナ in katakana, is one of the Japanese kana, which each represent one mora. ... に, in hiragana, or ニ in katakana, is one of the Japanese kana, which each represent one mora. ... ぬ, in hiragana, or ヌ in katakana, is one of the Japanese kana, which each represent one mora. ... ね, in hiragana, or ネ in katakana, is one of the Japanese kana, which each represent one mora. ... In order to write の, begin slightly above the center, stroke downward diagonally, then upward, and then curve around as indicated by the arrows. ... Ha as it appears in hiragana. ... ひ, in hiragana, or ヒ in katakana, is one of the Japanese kana, which each represent one mora. ... ふ, in hiragana, or フ in katakana, is one of the Japanese kana, which each represent one mora. ... へ, in hiragana, or ヘ in katakana, is one of the Japanese kana, which each represent one mora. ... ほ, in hiragana, or ホ in katakana, is one of the Japanese kana, which each represent one mora. ... ま, in hiragana, or マ in katakana, is one of the Japanese kana, which each represent one mora. ... み, in hiragana, or ミ in katakana, is one of the Japanese kana, which each represent one mora. ... ã‚€, in hiragana, or ム in katakana, is one of the Japanese kana, which each represent one mora. ... め, in hiragana, or メ in katakana, is one of the Japanese kana, which each represent one mora. ... ã‚‚, in hiragana, or モ in katakana, is one of the Japanese kana, which each represent one mora. ... ã‚„, in hiragana, or ヤ in katakana, is one of the Japanese kana, which each represent one mora. ... ゆ, in hiragana, or ユ in katakana, is one of the Japanese kana, which each represent one mora. ... よ, in hiragana, or ヨ in katakana, is one of the Japanese kana, which each represent one mora. ... ら, in hiragana, or ラ in katakana, is one of the Japanese kana, which each represent one mora. ... ã‚Š, in hiragana, or リ in katakana, is one of the Japanese kana, which each represent one mora. ... ã‚‹, in hiragana, or ル in katakana, is one of the Japanese kana, which each represent one mora. ... ã‚Œ, in hiragana, or レ in katakana, is one of the Japanese kana, which each represent one mora. ... ろ, in hiragana, or ロ in katakana, is one of the Japanese kana, which each represent one mora. ... わ, in hiragana, or ワ in katakana, is one of the Japanese kana, which each represent one mora. ... ゐ, in hiragana, or ヰ in katakana, is one of the Japanese kana, which each represent one mora. ... ã‚‘, in hiragana, or ヱ in katakana, is one of the Japanese kana, which each represent one mora. ... ã‚’, in hiragana, or ヲ in katakana, is one of the Japanese kana, which each represent one mora. ... ã‚“, in hiragana, or ン in katakana, is one of the Japanese kana, which each represent one mora. ... Image File history File links 書.svg‎ The Chinese character 書, in regular script. ... This article describes the modern writing system and its history. ... Japanese writing Kanji Kana Hiragana Katakana Hentaigana Manyōgana Uses Furigana Okurigana Rōmaji   ) are the Chinese characters that are used in the modern Japanese logographic writing system along with hiragana (平仮名), katakana (片仮名), and the Arabic numerals. ...

Kana Japanese writing Kanji 漢字 Kana 仮名 Hiragana 平仮名 Katakana 片仮名 Manyogana 万葉仮名 Uses Furigana 振り仮名 Okurigana 送り仮名 Rōmaji ローマ字 For other meanings of Kana, see Kana (disambiguation). ...

• Hiragana
• Katakana
• Hentaigana
• Man'yōgana

Uses Katakana ) is a Japanese syllabary, one component of the Japanese writing system along with hiragana, kanji, and in some cases the Latin alphabet. ... Japanese writing Kanji 漢字 Kana 仮名 Hiragana 平仮名 Katakana 片仮名 Uses Furigana 振り仮名 Okurigana 送り仮名 Romaji ローマ字 Hentaigana (変体仮名) are alternative kana letterforms equivalent to standard kana characters. ... It has been suggested that Shakukun be merged into this article or section. ...

• Furigana
• Okurigana

Rōmaji

The combinations にゃ, にゅ, and にょ are not to be confused with the sequences んや, んゆ, and んよ. The combinations of に with a small y kana each represent a single mora, while the sequences of ん followed by a large y kana represent two separate morae. The distinction can be illustrated with minimal pairs such as かにゅう ka-nyu-u, "joining", and かんゆう ka-n-yu-u, "persuasion", which are easily distinguished in speech, although in some romanization styles they might both be written kanyu. In Hepburn romanization, they are distinguished with an apostrophe: kanyū and kan'yū. Japanese writing Kanji 漢字 Kana 仮名 Hiragana 平仮名 Katakana 片仮名 Uses Furigana 振り仮名 Okurigana 送り仮名 Rōmaji ローマ字 Category Furigana (Japanese: ふりがな), are a Japanese reading aid. ... Japanese writing Kanji Kana Hiragana Katakana Hentaigana Manyōgana Uses Furigana Okurigana Rōmaji Okurigana (送り仮名, literally accompanying letters) are kana suffixes following kanji stems in Japanese written words. ... Japanese writing Kanji Kana Hiragana Katakana Hentaigana Manyōgana Uses Furigana Okurigana Rōmaji The romanization of Japanese is the use of the Latin alphabet (called rōmaji )   in Japanese) to write the Japanese language, which is normally written in logographic characters borrowed from Chinese (kanji) and syllabic scripts...

Spelling rules

With a few exceptions for sentence particles は, を, and へ (pronounced as wa, o, and e), and a few other arbitrary rules, Japanese is spelled as it sounds. This has not always been the case: a previous system of spelling, now referred to as historical kana usage, had many spelling rules; the exceptions in modern usage are the legacy of that system. The exact spelling rules are referred to as kanazukai (仮名遣, kanazukai^?). Japanese writing Kanji Kana Hiragana Katakana Hentaigana Manyōgana Uses Furigana Okurigana Rōmaji Historical kana usage ) refers to an older system of spelling Japanese in kana (the Japanese syllabary) that does not accord with modern Japanese pronunciation, in contrast to gendai kanazukai ), modern kana usage, which represents the... Kanazukai ) is an aspect of Japanese orthography that expresses a system of rules for writing Japanese in kana. ... Kanazukai ) is an aspect of Japanese orthography that expresses a system of rules for writing Japanese in kana. ...

There are two hiragana pronounced ji (じ and ぢ) and two hiragana pronounced zu (ず and づ). 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 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. For compound words where the dakuten reflects rendaku voicing, the original hiragana is used. For example, chi (血 "blood") is spelled ち in plain hiragana. When 鼻 hana (“nose”) and 血 chi ("blood") combine to make hanaji 鼻血 "nose bleed"), the sound of 血changes from chi to ji. So hanaji is spelled はなぢ according to ち: the basic hiragana used to transcribe 血. Similarly, Tsukau (使う; "to use") is spelled つかう in hiragana, so kanazukai (かな使い; "kana use", or "kana orthography") is spelled かなづかい in hiragana. Dakuten ), colloquially ten-ten (dot dot), is a diacritic sign most often used in the Japanese kana syllabaries to indicate that the consonant of a syllable should be pronounced voiced. ... Rendaku (連濁, lit. ...

However, this does not apply when kanji are used phonetically to write words which do not relate directly to the meaning of the kanji (see also ateji). The Japanese word for ‘lightning’, for example, is inazuma (稲妻). The 稲 component means ‘rice plant’, is written いな in hiragana and is pronounced: ina. The 妻 component means ‘wife’ and is pronounced tsuma (つま) when written in isolation ー or frequently as zuma (ずま) 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 いなずま rather than いなづま is used. Ateji (当て字 ) guessed characters are Kanji selected to write a borrowed non-Chinese or native Japanese word with the intent of implying an etymology, which is fanciful or false. ...

Hiragana usually spells long vowels with the addition of a second vowel kana. The chōon (vowel extender mark) (ー) used in katakana is rarely used with hiragana, for example in the word らーめん, ramen, but this usage is considered non-standard. In linguistics, vowel length is the duration of a vowel sound. ... Japanese writing Kanji 漢字 Kana 仮名 Hiragana 平仮名 Katakana 片仮名 Uses Furigana 振り仮名 Okurigana 送り仮名 Rōmaji ローマ字 Category The chōon ) or bōsen ) mark is a Japanese symbol which is used to indicate a... This article is about the traditional Japanese noodle soup. ...

No standard Japanese words begin with the kana ん (n). This is the basis of the word game shiritori. ん is sometimes directly followed by a vowel, for example, ren'ai 恋愛 ("romantic love, emotion") is written in hiragana as れんあい rather than れない renai (a nonexistent word). ん n is normally treated as its own syllable and is separate from the other N based kana. A notable exception to this is some spoken usage; one such example is where ん n is used instead of ない nai in the negative conjugation of a word, such that わからない wakaranai meaning "[I] don't understand" is rendered as わからん wakaran. Shiritori (しりとり) 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. ...

A rule when writing kana is the size of the character with respect to other characters. In general, each normally sized hiragana symbol is pronounced individually, with smaller sized versions being used in conjunction with the preceding, such as when a normally sized に ni and a small や ya combine to form the syllable にゃ nya. The singular exception to this is in the case of a small つ tsu (っ), representing a glottal stop, where the sound is used in conjunction with the succeeding syllable, rather than the preceding. This article does not cite any references or sources. ...

Sokuon is a small tsu (っ) that shows a doubled consonant to the letters.

• kite (来て, come) - kʲite
• kitte (切手, postage stamp) - kʲitːe / kʲitte / kʲit̚te

History

Hiragana's character shape was derived from the Chinese cursive script (sōsho). Shown here is a sample of the cursive script by Chinese Tang Dynasty calligrapher Sun Guoting, from the late 7th century.

Hiragana developed from man'yōgana, Chinese characters used for their pronunciations, a practice which started in the 5th century. The forms of the hiragana originate from the cursive script style of Chinese calligraphy. The figure below shows the derivation of hiragana from manyōgana via cursive script. The upper part shows the character in the regular script form, the center character in red shows the cursive script form of the character, and the bottom shows the equivalent hiragana. Image File history File links CaoshuShupu. ... Image File history File links CaoshuShupu. ... Chinese characters of Cursive Script in regular script (left) and cursive script (right). ... For the band, see Tang Dynasty (band). ... Part of the Treatise on Calligraphy Sun Guoting (Traditional Chinese: 孫過庭), or Sun Qianli (孫虔禮)[1]was a Chinese calligrapher of the early Tang Dynasty, remembered for his cursive calligraphy and his Treatise on Calligraphy (書譜). The work was the first important theoretical work on Chinese calligraphy, and has remained important ever since... The 7th century is the period from 601 - 700 in accordance with the Julian calendar in the Christian Era. ... It has been suggested that Shakukun be merged into this article or section. ... Europe in 450 The 5th century is the period from 401 to 500 in accordance with the Julian calendar in the Christian Era. ... Chinese characters of Cursive Script in regular script (left) and cursive script (right). ... Calligraphy is an art dating back to the earliest day of history, and widely practiced throughout China to this day. ... Sheng Jiao Xu by Chu Suiliang: calligraphy of the Kaishu style The Regular Script, or in Chinese Kaishu (楷書 Pinyin: kÇŽishÅ«) and Japanese Kaisho, also commonly known as Standard Regular (正楷), is the newest of the Chinese calligraphy styles (peaked at the 7th century), hence most common in modern writings and...

Image File history File links This is a lossless scalable vector image. ...

When they were first created, hiragana were not accepted by everyone. Many felt that the language of the educated was still Chinese. Historically, in Japan, the regular script (kaisho) form of the characters, so-called onode (男手, onode^?), "men's writing", was used by men; the cursive script (sōsho) form of the kanji was used by women. Thus hiragana first gained popularity among women, who were not allowed access to the same levels of education as men. From this comes the alternative name of onnade (女手, onnade^?) "women's writing". For example, The Tale of Genji and other early novels by female authors used hiragana extensively or exclusively. Ilustration of ch. ...

Male authors came to write literature using hiragana. Hiragana, with its flowing style, 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 writing. Katakana is now relegated to special uses such as recently borrowed words (i.e., since the 19th century), names in transliteration, the names of animals, in telegrams, and for emphasis. Katakana ) is a Japanese syllabary, one component of the Japanese writing system along with hiragana, kanji, and in some cases the Latin alphabet. ... Alternative meaning: Nineteenth Century (periodical) (18th century — 19th century — 20th century — more centuries) As a means of recording the passage of time, the 19th century was that century which lasted from 1801-1900 in the sense of the Gregorian calendar. ... Transliteration is the practice of transcribing a word or text written in one writing system into another writing system. ...

Originally, all sounds had more than one hiragana. In 1900, the system was simplified so each sound had only one hiragana. Other hiragana are known as hentaigana (変体仮名, hentaigana^?) Japanese writing Kanji 漢字 Kana 仮名 Hiragana 平仮名 Katakana 片仮名 Uses Furigana 振り仮名 Okurigana 送り仮名 Romaji ローマ字 Hentaigana (変体仮名) are alternative kana letterforms equivalent to standard kana characters. ... Japanese writing Kanji 漢字 Kana 仮名 Hiragana 平仮名 Katakana 片仮名 Uses Furigana 振り仮名 Okurigana 送り仮名 Romaji ローマ字 Hentaigana (変体仮名) are alternative kana letterforms equivalent to standard kana characters. ...

The pangram poem Iroha-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 Muromachi era). In the chart below, the romanization shows the hiragana; the reading in modern Japanese is in parentheses. Look up pangram in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... The iroha (Japanese: , いろは) is a Japanese poem most likely written sometime during the Heian era (AD 794–1179). ... History of Japan Paleolithic Jomon Yayoi Yamato period ---Kofun period ---Asuka period Nara period Heian period Kamakura period Muromachi period Azuchi-Momoyama period ---Nanban period Edo period Meiji period Taisho period Showa period ---Japanese expansionism ---Occupied Japan ---Post-Occupation Japan Heisei The Muromachi period (室町時代, also known as Muromachi era...

Note that the last line begins with an obsolete kana (we ゑ).

Hiragana in Unicode

In Unicode, Hiragana occupies code points U+3040 to U+309F: The Unicode Standard, Version 5. ...

The Unicode hiragana block contains precomposed characters for all hiragana in the modern set, including small vowels and yōon kana for compound syllables, plus the archaic wi and we and the rare vu. All combinations of hiragana with dakuten and handakuten used in modern Japanese are available as precomposed characters, 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 digraph 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.

There are currently no characters at code points U+3040, U+3097, or U+3098.

See also

• Shodo, Japanese calligraphy.
• Iteration mark explains the iteration marks used with hiragana.
• Japanese typographic symbols gives other non-kana, non-kanji symbols.
• Japanese phonology explains Japanese pronunciation in detail.
• Nü Shu, a syllabary writing system used by women in China's Hunan province
• Katakana

Shodō (書道 the way of writing) or Sho (書) is Japanese calligraphy. ... Iteration marks (Jp. ... This page lists Japanese typographic symbols which are not included in kana or kanji. ... Note: This page or section contains IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. ... Nü Shu written in Nü Shu (right to left). ... Not to be confused with the unrelated provinces of Hainan, Henan, and Yunnan. ... Katakana ) is a Japanese syllabary, one component of the Japanese writing system along with hiragana, kanji, and in some cases the Latin alphabet. ...

References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to:

Hiragana

Look up hiragana in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

• Hiragana unicode chart
• Hiragana derivation diagrams
• Real Kana Practice hiragana using different typefaces.
• Flash hiragana lesson

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