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400px Hiragana and katakana (grouped vertically). Syllables in parenthesis are archaic.
Today katakana is used to write foreign names without Kanji and foreign words that have become a part of the Japanese language. For example, United States President George W. Bush can be expressed as ジョージ・W・ブッシュ (middle initials of Western names generally use the Roman alphabet.)
Hiragana is mostly used to indicate grammatical aspects of the language. It is also used to represent an entire word (usually of Japanese, rather than Chinese origin) in place of kanji.
Hiragana can be written in small form above or next to lesser-known kanji in order to show pronunciation; this is referred to as furigana. Furigana is used most widely in children's books; however, literature aimed for young children with little knowledge of kanji may dispense with it altogether and use hiragana combined with spaces instead.
Kana is traditionally said to have been invented by the Buddhist priest Kukai in the 9th century. Kukai certainly brought the Siddham script home on his return from China in 806; his interest in the sacred aspects of speech and writing led him to the conclusion that Japanese would be better represented by a phonetic alphabet than by the kanji which had been used up to that point.
The concept of phonetic characters existed before as Kanji phonetics known as Man'yoganaMan'yogana is an ancient form of Japanese kana based on kanji (Chinese characters). It was first used in Nara-period Japan. The name man'yogana is derived from the Man'yoshu (Anthology of Myriad Leaves), a Japanese poetry anthology from the Nara period wr. Man'yoshuMan'yoshu or Anthology of a Myriad Leaves is the first great Japanese poetry anthology, compiled by the poet Otomo no Yakamochi around 759. The most important poetic forms in the anthology are the choka (long poem), consisting of alternate lines of five a, a poetry anthology written in 759Events The Franks capture Narbonne; the Saracens are completely driven out of France. Japanese poet Otomo no Yakamochi compiled the first Japanese poetry anthology Man'yoshu. Saint Bregwin is appointed Archbishop of Canterbury. Births Alphonso II of Astur, is written in this early script.
Historical kana usage (歴史的仮名遣) refers to a system of spelling with kanaKana is a general term for two types of syllabic Japanese script: hiragana and katakana . These were developed as an alternative and adjunct to ideograph based characters of Chinese origin, or Kanji . Hiragana and katakana (grouped vertically). Syllables that does not accord with modern Japanese pronunciation. It differs from modern usage in the number of characters and the way those characters are used.
Firstly, there are two more kana in historical usage, ゐ/ヰ (wi) and ゑ/ヱ (we). Today, these are pronounced as i and e, and words that formerly contained those characters are written with い and え.
Secondly, words are spelled differently. Historical kana usage actually represents the way these words were pronounced during the Heian era, when the spellings were formalized, but because of the pronunciation differences between modern Japanese and the language of 1,000 years past, there are a great number of peculiarities about historical spelling to the modern eye. This is similar to the situation that the great vowel shift caused in English spelling. Because these peculiarities followed fairly regular patterns, they weren't very difficult to learn.
Following are some typical examples showing the historical spelling, modern spelling, and kanji representation.
The table at the bottom gives a more complete list of the changes in spelling patterns.
Historical kana usage can be used to look up words in larger dictionaries and dictionaries specializing in old vocabulary, which are in print in Japan. One occasionally encounters old kana in words such as うゐすきい (whiskey, in hiragana).
Readers of English occasionally encounter words romanized according to historical kana usage. Here are some examples, with modern romanizations in parentheses:
Because of the great discrepancy between the pronunciation and spelling and the widespread adoption of modern kana usage, historical kana usage is almost never seen, except in some special cases; one notable case is restaurants that specialize in どじょう ( loach, a sardine-like fish), which often show the word in its historical spelling of どぜおう on their signs. Again, companies, shrines and people occasionally use historical kana conventions such as ゑびす (Ebisu).
In addition, alternate kana letterforms, known as hentaigana (変体仮名), have nearly disappeared. A few uses remain, such as kisoba, often written using obsolete kana on the signs of soba shops.
The use of を (historically pronounced /wo/), へ, and は for sentence particles instead of お, え, and わ are remnants of historical kana usage.
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