Japanese Writing System

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Japanese Writing System There are three kinds of characters in Japanese: hiragana, katakana, and kanji. All three characters can be seen in a single sentence: わたしなまえ私 E A の AE名前 EA はエマです。(My name is Emma.) Kanji hiragana katakana Hiragana and katakana, are like the alphabet and represent sounds. Hiragana has a roundish shape and is used for conjugation endings, function words, and native Japanese words not covered by kanji characters. Katakana, which has rather straight lines, is normally used for writing loanwords and foreign names. For example, English name “Emma” in the above sentence is written in katakana as エマ (e-ma). Kanji, or Chinese characters, represent not just sounds but also meanings. Mostly kanji are used for nouns and the stem of verbs and adjectives. 1) hiragana （ひらがな） There are 46 basic hiragana syllables as you can see in the attached table. There are 5 vowels: あ(a),い(i),う(u),え(e) and お(o) (you can see them in a different colour). Each vertical line has its own consonant, and you can pronounce them with a combination of the consonant and vowels. For example, the second vertical line from the right starting with か has consonant ‘k’, therefore, it goes ‘ka’（か）, ‘ki’（き）, ‘ku’（く）, ‘ke’（け）, and ‘ko’（こ）. You can check each sound and stroke order using the following link: http://genki.japantimes.co.jp/site/self/site/hiragana/hiragana.html Once you are familiar with the sounds, please start writing them using the practice sheets provided. Use a pencil (ideally 2B) when practising. When you learn how to write them, make sure you follow their stroke orders. 2) katakana（カタカナ） It is useful to remember that hiragana and katakana represent the same set of sounds. You can learn and practise katakana using the following link: http://genki.japantimes.co.jp/site/self/site/gakusyu/katakana.html If you find learning hiragana & katakana difficult, you might find the following video links useful. Learn ALL Hiragana in 1 Hour: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6p9Il_j0zjc Learn ALL Katakana in 1 Hour: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s6DKRgtVLGA&t=54s .

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Man'yogana.Pdf (574.0Kb)
Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies http://journals.cambridge.org/BSO Additional services for Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies: Email alerts: Click here Subscriptions: Click here Commercial reprints: Click here Terms of use : Click here The origin of man'yogana John R. BENTLEY Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies / Volume 64 / Issue 01 / February 2001, pp 59 73 DOI: 10.1017/S0041977X01000040, Published online: 18 April 2001 Link to this article: http://journals.cambridge.org/abstract_S0041977X01000040 How to cite this article: John R. BENTLEY (2001). The origin of man'yogana. Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, 64, pp 5973 doi:10.1017/S0041977X01000040 Request Permissions : Click here Downloaded from http://journals.cambridge.org/BSO, IP address: 131.156.159.213 on 05 Mar 2013 The origin of man'yo:gana1 . Northern Illinois University 1. Introduction2 The origin of man'yo:gana, the phonetic writing system used by the Japanese who originally had no script, is shrouded in mystery and myth. There is even a tradition that prior to the importation of Chinese script, the Japanese had a native script of their own, known as jindai moji ( , age of the gods script). Christopher Seeley (1991: 3) suggests that by the late thirteenth century, Shoku nihongi, a compilation of various earlier commentaries on Nihon shoki (Japan's first official historical record, 720 ..), circulated the idea that Yamato3 had written script from the age of the gods, a mythical period when the deity Susanoo was believed by the Japanese court to have composed Japan's first poem, and the Sun goddess declared her son would rule the land below.
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