Japanese letters
| There are three kinds of
letters in Japanese: hiragana, katakana and kanji (Chinese characters). Both of Hiragana and Katakana has 46characters which are phonetic representations of sounds, and each letter basically corresponds to one mora (a unit of sounds.). Kanji convey meanings as well as sounds. The Japanese language is based on five vowel sounds; a, i, u, e and o. All spoken sounds are derived from these five vowels. They are used alone or are attached to either a consonant (ex k+a=ka) or a consonant plus the semi-vowel "y" (ex., k+y+a=kya). Hiragana are used to write particles, the inflectable, part of words, etc. Katakana are used to write foreign names and loan words.1945 kanji letters are fixed as essential for daily use. Other than these three types of letters, romaji (Roman letters) are sometimes used for the convenience of foreigners. If you go to Japan, you will see romaji at stations and on some signboards. |
Hiragana's history
| Hiragana
are the following characters. These
are made from Chinese character's "caoshuti" in Heian
era(794~1192), Japan. Firstly, only women used this one. So It
was called "onna de" which means "women's character". In this era, Murasaki Shikibu, who became the portrait of 2000 yen in Japan, also wrote Genji Monogarari, which is the one of the oldest long novel in the world, in hiragana. And there are many various forms of the letter. Afterward these unified into the character as Hiragana. |
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