History UsefulNotes / JapaneseWritingSystem

* '''Kana''' (仮名) refers to syllabaries capable of writing all sixty-odd phonetic sounds in the Japanese language. (Technically kana represent not syllables but morae; the difference probably won't matter to most readers.) Each of the two syllabaries used today has 46 (formerly 48, and originally 49) basic characters representing five vowels (equivalent to A, I, U, E, O in roman-derived alphabets) either singularly or in combination with the consonants K, S, T, N, H, M, Y, R, W [[note]]''yi'' and ''wu'' are unused; these sounds merged into ''i'' and ''u'' in Proto-Japonic and most likely never existed in Japanese. The kana representing ''ye'', ''wi'', and ''we'' (sounds all present in at least Old Japanese, but since lost through sound mergers; ''ye'' merged with ''e'' in the 10th century, while ''wi'' and ''we'' gradually lost their distinction from ''i'' and ''e'' between the 13th and 19th centuries) are obsolete in modern Japanese; those for ''ye'' fell out of use centuries ago (except for its katakana, which became the modern katakana ''e'', having displaced the katakana originally used for ''e'') and are virtually unknown except by professional linguists, while those for ''wi'' and ''we'' remained in use up until the script reform of 1946 and are still occasionally seen. One other sound, ''wo'', has also been lost from modern Japanese, having merged into ''o'' at around the same time as the ''ye''-''e'' merger; however, the ''kana'' for ''wo'' is still used as a [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_particles grammatical particle]].[[/note]], plus the vowel-less ''n''. Some of these base characters can be modified by diacritics: a pair of short strokes (''dakuten'', 濁点 "muddy mark") changes the initial consonants K, S, T, H into the voiced consonants G, Z, D, B, and a small circle (''handakuten'', 半濁点) changes H into P. [[note]] If you've read ''[[Fanfic/SOSchip The Giggling Horseshoe]]'', the ''dakuten'' are flies, and the ''handakuten'' are dust mites. They constantly get people's names wrong. [[/note]] In modern Japanese, the small ''tsu'' (''sokuon'', 促音) represents a glottal stop, doubling the following syllable's consonant, and small versions of ''ya'', ''yu'' and ''yo'' change the ''i'' vowel sound of the previous syllable into a glide. [[note]] This is why, in the aforementioned ''Giggling Horseshoe'' story, the second hook (representing ''tsu'') can shrink at will and has a typing quirk where all consonants are doubled. It's also why Yammers the giraffe, Yusuke the fish, and Yorick the kangaroo can shrink at will. [[/note]] (The symbol resembling a small katakana ''ke'', however, is actually shorthand for a counter word pronounced either ''ka'' or ''ga''.)

* '''Kanji''' (漢字, literally "Han characters"; the original pinyin reading is "hànzì") are logographic characters borrowed from Chinese, together with a few characters that were coined or simplified in Japan, to represent words according to their meanings. The ''jōyō kanji'' are the '''2,136 characters''' (as of 2010) that are taught in Japanese schools and are most commonly used in words, and ''983 more kanji'' are approved for use in personal names, but thousands more are known to exist. Kanji often have several different pronunciations in Japanese depending on context, and [[AlternateCharacterReading variant pronunciations]] are often exploited for wordplay (see e.g. GoroawaseNumber). The various phonetic readings of kanji, which must be memorized individually, are classed either as ''on'yomi'' (音読み, "sound" reading) or as ''kun'yomi'' (訓読み, "practice/memorisation" reading); a given character could have more than one reading of each kind, or only one of either. Kanji may also have ''nanori'' (名乗り) readings used only in personal names, though people are hardly expected to memorize most of these.

* '''Kana''' (仮名) refers to syllabaries capable of writing all sixty-odd phonetic sounds in the Japanese language. (Technically kana represent not syllables but morae; the difference probably won't matter to most readers.) Each of the two syllabaries used today has 46 (formerly 48) basic characters representing five vowels (equivalent to A, I, U, E, O in roman-derived alphabets) either singularly or in combination with the consonants K, S, T, N, H, M, Y, R, W [[note]]''yi'', ''ye'' and ''wu'' are unused, while ''wi'' and ''we'' are obsolete in modern Japanese[[/note]], plus the vowel-less ''n''. Some of these base characters can be modified by diacritics: a pair of short strokes (''dakuten'', 濁点 "muddy mark") changes the initial consonants K, S, T, H into the voiced consonants G, Z, D, B, and a small circle (''handakuten'', 半濁点) changes H into P. [[note]] If you've read ''[[Fanfic/SOSchip The Giggling Horseshoe]]'', the ''dakuten'' are flies, and the ''handakuten'' are dust mites. They constantly get people's names wrong. [[/note]] In modern Japanese, the small ''tsu'' (''sokuon'', 促音) represents a glottal stop, doubling the following syllable's consonant, and small versions of ''ya'', ''yu'' and ''yo'' change the ''i'' vowel sound of the previous syllable into a glide. [[note]] This is why, in the aforementioned ''Giggling Horseshoe'' story, the second hook (representing ''tsu'') can shrink at will and has a typing quirk where all consonants are doubled. It's also why Yammers the giraffe, Yusuke the fish, and Yorick the kangaroo can shrink at will. [[/note]] (The symbol resembling a small katakana ''ke'', however, is actually shorthand for a counter word pronounced either ''ka'' or ''ga''.)

** '''Man'yōgana''' (万葉仮名)were the earliest, nonstandardized attempts at using Chinese characters to represent Japanese sounds. Named for the ''Man'yōshū'', the oldest surviving anthology of Japanese poetry dating from the Nara period, though earlier examples of ''man'yōgana'' have been found. The ''Iroha-uta'', a famous poem whose 47 characters formerly defined the phonetic ordering system for Japanese, was originally written in ''man'yōgana''.
** '''Hiragana''' (ひらがな) originated as a simplified version of Chinese cursive script, which in ancient Japan was practiced mainly by women; ''Literature/TheTaleOfGenji'' was written primarily in hiragana. Many variant hiragana characters existed until 1900, when a unique set was codified. In modern Japanese, hiragana is the "everyday" system for writing the particles that are essential to sentence structure, and the ''okurigana'' (送り仮名) suffixes used to inflect verbs and adjectives. Many everyday idiomatic expressions are more commonly written in hiragana rather than kanji. Hiragana is also often preferred by parents to write the names of their baby girls with, rather than kanji. The reason for this varies; some cite the inherent [[UsefulNotes/{{Kawaisa}} cuteness]] of the script, while others claim that by using hiragana, the names' meanings become ambiguous, preventing people from making a particular assumption or expectation of those girls. Vowel sounds are lengthened in hiragana by tacking on additional vowel characters, though straight or curved dashes may be used instead in informal writing, particularly when hiragana is used in place of katakana for the sake of cuteness. [[note]] According to the ''Giggling Horseshoe'' mnemonic, the word ''hiragana'' would be read as "horseshoe-five-alien with fly-quail." [[/note]]
** '''Katakana''' (カタカナ) is more angular than hiragana. It was probably invented sometime during the Heian period by Buddhist monks, who used it to insert Japanese particles into Chinese texts, and is still used in dictionaries for writing ''on'yomi''. Nowadays, however, katakana is the usual way of writing loanwords and foreign names in Japanese text, though this tends to distort their pronunciations in ways that UsefulNotes/JapaneseRomanization often attempts to correct for. Besides its use to represent foreign words, katakana is also used for onomatopoeia, for emphasizing words. Like Hiragana, Katakana is sometimes used to write girls' names, though the trend is much less common compared to its sister script. In katakana, long vowels are represented by a dash following a character. To reduce pronunciation distortions, "extended kakatana" adds several additional symbols that are sometimes used for representing sounds that are not part of the Japanese language, particularly "v" (「ヴ」).
** '''Furigana'''　(振り仮名), also known as "ruby" characters, are small hiragana or katakana written above kanji or rōmaji to show how they are intended to be pronounced. Furigana tends to be ubiquitous in works written for younger readers and learners of Japanese, who are not expected to know many kanji. Furigana is a conventional way of indicating how the kanji in people's names should be read, particularly on business cards and so that Chinese people can have their names pronounced closer to modern Chinese than the ''on'yomi'' reading. They can also be used for creative {{Alternate Character Reading}}s, or even indicate what an invented "foreign" term in katakana is meant to mean; some modern fiction can get ''extremely'' elaborate with this.

Japanese can be written in two directions: left-to-right, top-to-bottom (Western-style), or top-to-bottom, right-to-left (Chinese-style)[[note]]imagine a 90-degree turn clockwise from the Western-style[[/note]]. The former system is pervasive on the Internet, while the latter system is used in traditional Japanese literature and {{manga}}, with panels in the upper right read first and those in the lower left read last; this also tends to appear in JidaiGeki productions, where the OpeningScroll will move rightward rather than upward. Before the left-to-right writing was introduced to Japan, all horizontal writings (e.g. signs above doors) were done in the opposite direction, right-to-left. Even after the left-to-right writing started to be used in books, the public signs still continued to be written right-to-left until UsefulNotes/WorldWarTwo. [[note]]The same is true also for China. Remember that scene from ''Film/FistOfFury'' when the Japanese bring the sign [[http://www.flickr.com/photos/manropa/2399529133/ "Sick Man of Asia"]] to Bruce's martial arts school? That sign is written right-to-left![[/note]] There are still some old-style and legacy signs written right-to-left. ''Manga/KenichiTheMightiestDisciple'' plays with this when Boris Ivanov breaks into the Ryôzanpaku dojo. Since its horizontal sign is written in the old way (right-to-left), and Boris is unfamiliar with this legacy writing direction, [[http://www.mangafox.com/manga/history_s_strongest_disciple_kenichi/c177/7.html he misreads it as "Hakuzanryô"]].

** '''Hiragana''' (ひらがな) originated as a simplified version of Chinese cursive script, which in ancient Japan was practiced mainly by women; ''Literature/TheTaleOfGenji'' was written primarily in hiragana. Many variant hiragana characters existed until 1900, when a unique set was codified. In modern Japanese, hiragana is the "everyday" system for writing the particles that are essential to sentence structure, and the ''okurigana'' (送り仮名) suffixes used to inflect verbs and adjectives. Many everyday idiomatic expressions are more commonly written in hiragana rather than kanji. Vowel sounds are lengthened in hiragana by tacking on additional vowel characters, though straight or curved dashes may be used instead in informal writing, particularly when hiragana is used in place of katakana for the sake of [[UsefulNotes/{{Kawaisa}} cuteness]]. [[note]] According to the ''Giggling Horseshoe'' mnemonic, the word ''hiragana'' would be read as "horseshoe-five-alien with fly-quail." [[/note]]
** '''Katakana''' (カタカナ) is more angular than hiragana. It was probably invented sometime during the Heian period by Buddhist monks, who used it to insert Japanese particles into Chinese texts, and is still used in dictionaries for writing ''on'yomi''. Nowadays, however, katakana is the usual way of writing loanwords and foreign names in Japanese text, though this tends to distort their pronunciations in ways that UsefulNotes/JapaneseRomanization often attempts to correct for. Besides its use to represent foreign words, katakana is also used for onomatopoeia, for emphasizing words, and for some personal names. In katakana, long vowels are represented by a dash following a character. To reduce pronunciation distortions, "extended kakatana" adds several additional symbols that are sometimes used for representing sounds that are not part of the Japanese language, particularly "v" (「ヴ」).