What is the history of Japanese hiragana symbols?
Japanese is believed to be related to the Ural-Altaic family of languages, that includes Turkish, Mongolian, Manchu and Korean. An early form of Japanese existed from about the 3rd century AD. However, it wasn't until later that the Japanese gained the ability to write. The writing system they began to use was Chinese, imported from China and Korea along with a variety of technologies, political systems and Buddhism. It remains in the form of kanji symbols. The difficulty of adapting the Chinese kanji symbols to represent the phonetic sounds of the Japanese language resulted in the two phonetic "alphabets" of simplified Japanese symbols called katakana and hiragana.
Both hiragana and katakana were derived from kanji. The first step in the development of hiragana was the appearance of manyougana (or kanji characters used to indicate pronunciation rather than meaning) in the 8th Century. Hiragana characters were created near the beginning of the Heian Period (794-1192) as simplified forms of whole kanji that conveyed sound rather than meaning. Hiragana was often used by women, who were denied the education in Chinese classics afforded to men and, as a result, Hiragana came to be known as onnade (or women's hand). Interestingly, this development resulted in the explosion of written expression among Japanese women that reached its zenith with Genji Monogatari (The Tale of Genji) by Lady Murasaki
Hiragana-ひらがな
The first step is to learn the alphabet. Or, at least, the sounds that exist in the Japanese language. There are absolutely no "tones" like in Chinese, Thai, etc. and there are only 2 exceptions within the alphabet which will be explained later. The characters listed below are called Hiragana. It is the main alphabet for Japanese. The Japanese language also consists of Chinese characters (Kanji), which we will get into later, and another alphabet, Katakana, which is mainly used for foreign words.
There are 5 vowels in the Japanese language. (a), pronounced "ahh", (i), pronounced like "e" in "eat", (u), pronounced like "oo" in "soon", (e), pronounced like "e" in "elk", and (o), pronounced "ohh". All Hiragana characters end with one of these vowels, with the exception of (n). The only "consonant" that does not resemble that of English is the Japanese "r". It is slightly "rolled" as if it were a combination of a "d", "r", and "l".
Both hiragana and katakana were derived from kanji. The first step in the development of hiragana was the appearance of manyougana (or kanji characters used to indicate pronunciation rather than meaning) in the 8th Century. Hiragana characters were created near the beginning of the Heian Period (794-1192) as simplified forms of whole kanji that conveyed sound rather than meaning. Hiragana was often used by women, who were denied the education in Chinese classics afforded to men and, as a result, Hiragana came to be known as onnade (or women's hand). Interestingly, this development resulted in the explosion of written expression among Japanese women that reached its zenith with Genji Monogatari (The Tale of Genji) by Lady Murasaki
Hiragana-ひらがな
The first step is to learn the alphabet. Or, at least, the sounds that exist in the Japanese language. There are absolutely no "tones" like in Chinese, Thai, etc. and there are only 2 exceptions within the alphabet which will be explained later. The characters listed below are called Hiragana. It is the main alphabet for Japanese. The Japanese language also consists of Chinese characters (Kanji), which we will get into later, and another alphabet, Katakana, which is mainly used for foreign words.
There are 5 vowels in the Japanese language. (a), pronounced "ahh", (i), pronounced like "e" in "eat", (u), pronounced like "oo" in "soon", (e), pronounced like "e" in "elk", and (o), pronounced "ohh". All Hiragana characters end with one of these vowels, with the exception of (n). The only "consonant" that does not resemble that of English is the Japanese "r". It is slightly "rolled" as if it were a combination of a "d", "r", and "l".
| か | き | く | け |
| ka | ki | ku | ke | ko |
あ い う え お
a i u e o
か き く け こ
ka ki ku ke ko
さ し す せ そ
sa shi su se so
た ち つ て と
ta chi tsu te to
な に ぬ ね の
na ni nu ne no
は ひ ふ へ ほ
ha hi fu he ho
ま み む め も
ma mi mu me mo
や ゆ よ
ya yu yo
ら り る れ ろ
ra ri ru re ro
わ を ん
wa wo n
