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Japanese writing nihongoHiragana平仮名 are a Japanese language Japanese syllabary, one of the three main Japanese writing systems, along with katakana and kanji. Hiragana and katakana are both kana systems, in which each symbol represents one mora (linguistics)mora. Each ''kana'' is either a vowel (such as ''a'' あ), a consonant followed by a vowel (such as ''ka'' か), or ん, a consonant which sounds like English "m" or "n".Hiragana are used for words for which there are no kanji, for example Japanese particlesparticles such as ''kara'' から and suffixes such as ''~san'' さん. Hiragana are also used for words for which the kanji form is not known to the writer, is not expected to be known to the readers, or is too formal for the writing purpose. OkuriganaVerb and adjective inflections, for example in nihongo''tabemashita''食べました , are written in hiragana. Hiragana are also used to give the pronunciation of kanji in a reading aid called ''furigana''. The article Japanese writing system discusses in detail when the various systems of writing are used.There are two main systems of Kana#Collationordering hiragana, the old-fashioned iroha ordering, and the more prevalent gojūon ordering.
The hiragana writing system - The hiragana consist of a basic set of characters, the ''gojūon'' , which can be modified in various ways. By adding a ''dakuten'' marker ゛ an unvoiced consonant such as ''k'' or ''t'' is turned into a voiced consonant such as ''g'' or ''d'': ''k''→''g'', ''t''→''d'', ''s''→''z'', and ''h''→''b''.Hiragana beginning with an ''h'' can also add a ''handakuten'' marker ゜ changing the ''h'' to a ''p''. A small version of the hiragana for ''ya'', ''yu'' or ''yo'' (ゃ, ゅ or ょ respectively) may be added to hiragana ending in ''i''. This changes the ''i'' vowel sound to a glide palatalization. Addition of the small ''y'' kana is called yōon. A small ''tsu'' っ called a ''sokuon'' indicates a geminate (doubled) consonant. It appears before fricatives and stops, and sometimes at the end of sentences. This is represented in romajirōmaji by doubling the following consonant. In informal writing small versions of the five vowel kana are sometimes used to represent trailing off sounds (はぁ, ねぇ).There are a few hiragana which are rarely used. ''Wi'' ゐ and ''we'' ゑ are obsolete. ''Vu'' ゔ is a relatively modern addition and is pronounced as ''bwu'' or "βu">βu to approximate the "v" sound in foreign languages such as English. It is rarely seen because Transliterationtransliterated words are usually written in katakana.
Table of hiragana - The following table shows hiragana together with their Hepburn romanization. The obsolete kana are shown in red.
Spelling rules - With a few exceptions for sentence particles は, を, and へ and a few other arbitrary rules, Japanese is spelled as it sounds. This has not always been the case: a previous system of spelling, now referred to as historical kana usage had many spelling rules; the exceptions in modern usage are the legacy of that system. The exact spelling rules are referred to as nihongo''kanazukai''仮名遣い , "kana use".There are two hiragana pronounced ''ji'' (じ and ぢ) and two hiragana pronounced ''zu'' (ず and づ). These pairs are not interchangeable. Usually, ''ji'' is written as じ and ''zu'' is written as ず. There are some exceptions. If the first two syllables of a word consist of one syllable without a ''dakuten'' and the same syllable with a ''dakuten'', the same hiragana is used to write the sounds. For example ''chijimeru'' (‘to boil down’ or ‘to shrink’) is spelled !ちぢめӚ 7;.? For compound words where the dakuten reflects ''rendaku'' voicing, the original hiragana is used. For example, ''chi'' (血 "blood") is spelled ち in plain hiragana. When 鼻 hana (“nose”) and 血 combine to make ''hanaji'' 鼻血 "nose bleed"), the sound of 血changes from ''chi'' to ''ji''. So ''hanaji'' is spelled はなぢ according to ち: the basic hiragana used to transcribe 血. Similarly, ''Tsukau'' (使う; "to use") is spelled つかう in hiragana, so ''kanazukai'' !(かな使{ 56;;? "kana use" .. or .. "kana orthography") is spelled !かなづӔ 3;い? in hiragana. However, this does not apply when kanji are used to make words which do not relate directly to their elemental meaning. The Japanese word for ‘lightning’, for example, is ''inazuma'' (稲妻). The ‘稲’ component means ‘rice plant’, is written いな in hiragana and is pronounced: ''ina''. The 妻 component means ’wife’ and is pronounced ''tsuma'' (つま) when written in isolation or frequently as ''zuma'' (ずま) when it features after another syllable. Neither of these components have anything to do with ‘lightning’, but together they do when they compose the word for ‘lightning’. In this case, the default spelling in hiragana !いなずә 4;? rather than !いなづә 4;? is used. Hiragana usually spells long vowels with the addition of a second vowel kana. The chōon (vowel extender mark) (ー) used in katakana is also sometimes used in hiragana, for example in the word らーめん, ramen.A word cannot begin with the kana ん (''n''). This is at the basis of the word game shiritori. However, ''n'' is sometimes directly followed by a vowel. For example, ''ren'ai'' 恋愛 ("emotion") is written in hiragana as !れんあӓ 6;? rather than れない.
History - Hiragana developed from ''manyoganaman'yōgana'', Chinese languageChinese characters used for their pronunciations, a practice which started in the 5th century. The forms of the hiragana originate from the ''grass scriptsōsho'' style of Chinese calligraphy. The figure below shows the derivation of hiragana from manyōgana via sōsho. The upper part shows the character in the Regular Scriptkaisho form, the centre character in red shows the sōsho form of the character, and the bottom shows the equivalent hiragana. When they were first created, hiragana were not accepted by everyone. Many felt that the language of the educated was still Chinese. Historically, in Japan, the ''kaisho'' form of the characters was used by men, so-called nihongo''onode''男手 , "men's writing", and the sōsho form of the kanji was used by women. Thus hiragana first gained popularity among women, who were not allowed access to higher education. From this comes the alternative name of nihongo''onnade''女手 "women's writing". For example, ''The Tale of Genji'' and other early novels by female authors used hiragana extensively or exclusively. Male authors also wrote literature using hiragana. Hiragana with its flowing style came to be used for unofficial writing such as personal letters while katakana and Chinese were used for official documents. In modern times, hiragana has become preferred over katakana, which is now relegated to special uses such as borrowed words and names in transliteration.Originally, most sounds had more than one hiragana. In 1900, the system was simplified so each sound had only one hiragana. Other hiragana are known as nihongohentaigana変体仮名 The poem ''Iroha-uta'' ("Song of colours") dating from the 10th century uses every hiragana once:
Hiragana in Unicode - In Unicode, Hiragana occupies code points U+3040 to U+309F:Unicode chart Hiragana The Unicode hiragana block contains precomposed characters for all hiragana in the modern set, including small vowels and yōon kana for compound syllables, plus the archaic ''wi'' and ''we'' and the rare ''vu''. All combinations of hiragana with ''dakuten'' and ''handakuten'' used in modern Japanese are available as precomposed characters, and can also be produced by using a base hiragana followed by the combining dakuten and handakuten characters (U+3099 and U+309A, respectively). This method is used to add the diacritics to kana that are not normally used with them, for example applying the dakuten to a pure vowel or the handakuten to a kana not in the h-group.Characters U+3095 and U+3096 are small か (''ka'') and small け (''ke''), repectively. U+309F is a digraph of より (''yori'') occasionally used in vertical text. U+309B and U+309C are spacing (non-combining) equivalents to the combining dakuten and handakuten characters, respectively.There are no characters at code points U+3040, U+3097, or U+3098.
See also - Shodo, Japanese calligraphy.Iteration mark explains the iteration marks used with hiragana.Japanese typographic symbols gives other non-kana, non-kanji symbols.Japanese phonology explains Japanese pronunciation in detail.
References - "The Art of Japanese Calligraphy", Yujiro Nakata, ISBN 0834810131, gives details of the development of ''onode'' and ''onnade''.
External links - commons< bara>Hiragana unicode.org - Hiragana code chart at Unicode.orgCategory:Japanese terms Category:KanaCategory:Japanese writing !systembr:Hiraganaca:Hiraganacs :Hiraganade:Japanisches? !Schriftsystem#Hiraganaes:Hirag anafr:Hiraganagl:Hiraganako: 라가나id:Hiraganais:Hiraga nait:Hiraganahe:היראגאנ הms:Hiragananl:Hiraganaja:平 仮名pl:Hiraganapt:Hiraganaro :Hiraganaru:Хираганаsk :Hiraganasl:Hiraganasr:Хир ганаfi:Hiraganasv:Hiragan ath:ฮิระงะนะzh :平假名
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Japanese-Name-Translation
We have over 2,000 names professionally translated into Japanese kanji symbols. And you don't need to worry about getting the wrong translation. All these kanji names were made in Japan with careful attention paid to the meaning and pronunciation.
http://www.japanese-name-translation.com/
Schauwecker's Guide to Japan
Large database of information on culture, life, tourism, news, photos, entertainment, and penpal introductions. (In English and German)
http://www.japan-guide.com/
The Unicode Consortium
The official Unicode web site provides extensive information and resources for programmers, implementers and others involved in computer globalization work.
http://www.unicode.org/
Japan Information Network
A fun approach to a guide. Lots of current information.
http://www.jinjapan.org/
Hiragana Times
A "Cross-Cultural Communication Magazine". Helpful for those learning Japanese reading and writing.
http://www.hiraganatimes.com/
Learn How to Wow in Japanese!
Learn interesting Japanese while having fun. Grammar, kanji, culture and a little bit of everything Japanese for free.
http://www.thejapanesepage.com/
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