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Japanese |
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| Japonic | Japanese |  Japan ,  Palau |
Kanji Hiragana Katakana |
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Contents |
History and Use of Kana
Up until the Heian Period in Japanese history (794 - 1185 AD), Japan exclusively used the traditional Chinese ideographs the Japanese called Kanji. However, in this period, the Japanese invented two phonetic scripts: Katakana, based off the Chinese ideographs and; Hiragana, an artistic form of the Katakana. Since then the three scripts have been used alongside each other.
Each Kana forms the basic CV pattern and phonetically is always pronounced the same way (with the exceptions of ん, へ and は. Most common words written in Hiragana can be replaced by Kanji, however, often the Hiragana is written above the Kanji to show the pronunciation. This is called furigana. Hiragana is mostly used for particles and other linguistical bits as well as the odd word not written in Kanji. Katakana however, is used mainly for use on loan words from other languages like German, Portuguese and English. It is also sometimes used in advertising for emphasis, similar to when we use CAPITALS IN ENGLISH.
Hiragana 平仮名
| Hiragana | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| A | I | U | E | O | |
| ~ | あ /a/ | い /i/ | う /ɯ/ | え /e/ | お /o/ |
| K | か /ka/ | き /ci/ | く /kɯ/ | け /ke/ | こ /ko/ |
| S | さ /sa/ | し /ɕi/ | す /sɯ/ | せ /se/ | そ /so/ |
| T | た /ta/ | ち /tɕi/ | つ /tsɯ/ | て /te/ | と /to/ |
| N | な /na/ | に /ni/ | ぬ /nɯ/ | ね /ne/ | の /no/ |
| H | は /ha/, /w͍a/ | ひ /çi/ | ふ /ɸɯ/ | へ /he/, /e/ | ほ /ho/ |
| M | ま /ma/ | み /mi/ | む /mɯ/ | め /me/ | も /mo/ |
| Y | や /ja/ | ゆ /jɯ/ | よ /jo/ | ||
| R | ら /ɽa/ | り /ɽi/ | る /ɽɯ/ | れ /ɽe/ | ろ /ɽo/ |
| W | わ /w͍a/ | を /o/ | |||
| n | ん /n/, /m/, /ɴ/ | ||||
Katakana 片仮名
| katakana syllabary | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| A | I | U | E | O | |
| ア | イ | ウ | エ | オ | |
| K | カ | キ | ク | ケ | コ |
| S | サ | シ | ス | セ | ソ |
| T | タ | チ | ツ | テ | ト |
| N | ナ | ニ | ヌ | ネ | ノ |
| H | ハ | ヒ | フ | ヘ | ホ |
| M | マ | ミ | ム | メ | モ |
| Y | ヤ | ユ | ヨ | ||
| R | ラ | リ | ル | レ | ロ |
| W | ワ | ヲ | |||
| n | ン | ||||
Evolution of Hiragana
The kana were originally written with a special set of kanji that were used for their phonetic values. These characters began to be written quickly and evolved in the hiragana used today.
| precursors to hiragana | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| A | I | U | E | O | |
| 安 | 以 | 宇 | 衣 | 於 | |
| K | 加 | 機 | 久 | 計 | 己 |
| S | 左 | 之 | 寸 | 世 | 曽 |
| T | 太 | 知 | 川 | 天 | 止 |
| N | 奈 | 仁 | 奴 | 祢 | 乃 |
| H | 波 | 比 | 不 | 部 | 保 |
| M | 末 | 美 | 武 | 女 | 毛 |
| Y | 也 | 由 | 与 | ||
| R | 良 | 利 | 留 | 礼 | 呂 |
| W | 和 | 爲 | 恵 | 遠 | |
| n | 无 | ||||
Evolution of Katakana
| precursors to katakana | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| A | I | U | E | O | |
| 阿 | 伊 | 宇 | 江 | 於 | |
| K | 加 | 機 | 久 | 介 | 己 |
| S | 散 | 之 | 須 | 世 | 曽 |
| T | 多 | 千 | 川 | 天 | 止 |
| N | 奈 | 仁 | 奴 | 祢 | 乃 |
| H | 八 | 比 | 不 | 部 | 保 |
| M | 末 | 三 | 牟 | 女 | 毛 |
| Y | 也 | 由 | 與 | ||
| R | 良 | 利 | 流 | 礼 | 呂 |
| W | 和 | 井 | 恵 | 乎 | |
| n | 尓 | ||||
| Japanese pages
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| Introduction · Adjectives （形容詞） · Auxiliaries （助辞） · Emphatics （語尾） · Euphony （音便） · Kana （仮名） · Kanji （漢字）: Comparisons (漢字の比べ） · Loanwords （伝来語） · Numbers （数詞） · Te Form （テ形） · Time (時間） · Particles （助詞） · Verbs （動詞）: Example （動詞の例） · Lexicon |
