Hiragana ひらがな
Type	syllabary
Spoken languages	Japanese and Okinawan
Time period	~800 A. A syllabary is a set of written symbols that represent (or approximate Syllables which make up Words A symbol in a syllabary typically represents an optional is a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities Okinawan (Uchināguchi 沖縄口 Japanese ja ウチナーグチ, ʔucināguci) is a Ryukyuan language spoken in Japan on the southern island of D. to the present
Parent systems	kanji  → Man'yōgana   → Hiragana ひらがな
Sister systems	katakana, hentaigana
Unicode range	U+3040-U+309F
ISO 15924	Hira
Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. are the Chinese characters that are used in the modern Japanese logographic writing system along with Hiragana (ひらがな 平仮名 Katakana is an ancient Writing system which employs Chinese characters to represent the Japanese language. is a Japanese Syllabary, one component of the Japanese writing system along with Hiragana, Kanji, and in some cases the Latin alphabet are alternative Kana letterforms equivalent to standard kana characters Unicode ’s ISO 15924, Codes for the representation of names of scripts, defines two sets of codes for a number of Writing systems (scripts In Computing, Unicode is an Industry standard allowing Computers to consistently represent and manipulate text expressed in most of the world's

Hiragana (平仮名 or ひらがな, Hiragana^?) is a Japanese syllabary, one component of the Japanese writing system, along with katakana and kanji; the Latin alphabet is also used in some cases. is a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities A syllabary is a set of written symbols that represent (or approximate Syllables which make up Words A symbol in a syllabary typically represents an optional The modern Japanese writing system uses three main scripts Kanji, characters of Chinese origin, Hiragana is a Japanese Syllabary, one component of the Japanese writing system along with Hiragana, Kanji, and in some cases the Latin alphabet are the Chinese characters that are used in the modern Japanese logographic writing system along with Hiragana (ひらがな 平仮名 Katakana The romanization of Japanese or ( is the use of the Latin alphabet to write the Japanese language. Hiragana and katakana are both kana systems, in which each symbol represents one mora. Kana is a general term for the syllabic Japanese scripts Hiragana (ひらがな and Katakana (カタカナ as well as the old system Mora (plural moras or morae) is a unit of sound used in Phonology that determines Syllable weight (which in turn determines stress Each kana is either a vowel (such as a あ); a consonant followed by a vowel (such as ka か); or n ん, a nasal sonorant which, depending on the context, sounds either like English m, n, or ng (IPA: [ŋ]), or like the nasal vowels of French. A nasal consonant (also called nasal stop or nasal continuant) is produced with a lowered velum in the mouth allowing air to escape freely through the In Phonetics and Phonology, a sonorant is a Speech sound that is produced without turbulent airflow in the Vocal tract. A nasal vowel is a Vowel that is produced with a lowering of the velum so that air escapes both through Nose as well as the Mouth. French ( français,) is a Romance language spoken around the world by 118 million people as a native language and by about 180 to 260 million people

Hiragana are used for words for which there are no kanji, including particles such as kara から "from," and suffixes such as ~san さん "Mr. are the Chinese characters that are used in the modern Japanese logographic writing system along with Hiragana (ひらがな 平仮名 Katakana Japanese particles, or, are suffixes or short words in Japanese grammar that immediately follow the modified noun verb adjective or sentence , Mrs. , Miss, Ms. " Hiragana are also used in words for which the kanji form is not known to the writer nor the readers or is too formal for the writing purpose. Verb and adjective inflections, as, for example, BE MA SHI TA (べました) in tabemashita (食べました, tabemashita^? "ate"), are written in hiragana. are Kana suffixes following Kanji stems in Japanese written words In this case, part of the root is also written in hiragana. Hiragana are also used to give the pronunciation of kanji in a reading aid called furigana. is a Japanese reading aid consisting of smaller Kana printed next to a Kanji or other character to indicate its Pronunciation. The article Japanese writing system discusses in detail when the various systems of writing are used. The modern Japanese writing system uses three main scripts Kanji, characters of Chinese origin, Hiragana

There are two main systems of ordering hiragana, the old-fashioned iroha ordering, and the more prevalent gojūon ordering. Kana is a general term for the syllabic Japanese scripts Hiragana (ひらがな and Katakana (カタカナ as well as the old system This article refers to the Japanese poem For the video game character see Iroha (Samurai Shodown. The gojūon (五十音 is a Japanese ordering of Kana. Gojū (五十 means "fifty" and on (音 as in on'yomi

Writing system

The hiragana consist of a basic set of characters, the gojūon, which can be modified in various ways. The gojūon (五十音 is a Japanese ordering of Kana. Gojū (五十 means "fifty" and on (音 as in on'yomi 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. colloquially ten-ten ("dot dot" is a Diacritic sign most often used in the Japanese Kana syllabaries to indicate that the Consonant

Hiragana beginning with an h can also add a handakuten marker ( ゜) changing the h to a p. colloquially ten-ten ("dot dot" is a Diacritic sign most often used in the Japanese Kana syllabaries to indicate that the Consonant 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. Palatalization or palatalisation (ˌpælətəlɨˈzeɪʃən generally refers to two phenomena As a process or the result of a process Addition of the small y kana is called yōon. is a feature of the Japanese language in which a mora is formed with an added {{IPA|[j]}} sound A small tsu っ called a sokuon indicates a geminate (doubled) consonant. The is a Japanese symbol consisting of a small Hiragana or Katakana tsu. In Phonetics, gemination happens when a spoken Consonant is pronounced for an audibly longer period of time than a short Consonant. It appears before fricatives and stops, and sometimes at the end of sentences. Fricatives are Consonants produced by forcing air through a narrow channel made by placing two articulators close together This is represented in rōmaji by doubling the following consonant. The romanization of Japanese or ( is the use of the Latin alphabet to write the Japanese language.

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 modern addition used to represent the /v/ sound in foreign languages such as English, but since Japanese from a phonological standpoint does not have a /v/ sound, it is pronounced as /b/ and mostly serves as a more accurate indicator of a word's pronunciation in its original language. However, it is rarely seen because loanwords and transliterated words are usually written in katakana, where the corresponding character would be written as ヴ. A loanword (or loan word) is a word directly taken into one Language from another with little or no translation Transliteration is the practice of Transcribing a Word or text written in one Writing system into another writing system or system of rules for such practice is a Japanese Syllabary, one component of the Japanese writing system along with Hiragana, Kanji, and in some cases the Latin alphabet

Table of hiragana-rōmaji

The following table shows hiragana together with their Hepburn romanization. The romanization of Japanese or ( is the use of the Latin alphabet to write the Japanese language. The is named after James Curtis Hepburn, who used it to transcribe the sounds of the Japanese language into the Latin alphabet in the third edition of his Japanese–English Hiragana with dakuten or handakuten follow the gojūon kana without them. The obsolete kana are shown in red romanization. There are 131 cases.

Japanese writing

Kanji

Kana

• Hiragana
• Katakana
• Hentaigana
• Man'yōgana

Uses

• Furigana
• Okurigana

Rōmaji

The combinations にゃ, にゅ, and にょ are not to be confused with the sequences んや, んゆ, and んよ. is a feature of the Japanese language in which a mora is formed with an added {{IPA|[j]}} sound あ in Hiragana or ア in Katakana ( romanised a) is one of the Japanese Kana that each represent one mora い in hiragana or イ in katakana ( romanised i) is one of the Japanese Kana each of which represents one mora. う in Hiragana or ウ in Katakana ( romanised u) is one of the Japanese Kana, each of which represents one mora In Japanese writing, the Kana え ( Hiragana) and エ ( Katakana) ( romanised e) occupy the fourth place す, in Hiragana, or ス in Katakana is one of the Japanese Kana, each of which represents one mora. か, in Hiragana, or カ in Katakana, is one of the Japanese Kana, which each represent one mora. き, in Hiragana, キ in Katakana, is one of the Japanese Kana, which each represent one mora. く, in Hiragana, or ク in Katakana, is one of the Japanese Kana, which each represent one mora. け, in Hiragana, or ケ in Katakana, is one of the Japanese Kana, each of which represents one mora. こ, in Hiragana, or コ in Katakana, is one of the Japanese Kana, each of which represents one mora. さ, in Hiragana, or サ in Katakana, is one of the Japanese Kana, which each represent one mora. し, in Hiragana, or シ in Katakana, is one of the Japanese Kana, which each represent one mora. す, in Hiragana, or ス in Katakana is one of the Japanese Kana, each of which represents one mora. せ, in Hiragana, or セ in Katakana, is one of the Japanese Kana, each of which represents one mora. そ, in Hiragana, or ソ, in Katakana, is one of the Japanese Kana, each of which represents one mora. た, in Hiragana, or タ in Katakana, is one of the Japanese Kana, which each represent one mora. ち, in Hiragana, or チ in Katakana, is one of the Japanese Kana, which each represent one mora. つ, in Hiragana, or ツ in Katakana, is one of the Japanese Kana, each of which represents one mora. て, in Hiragana, or テ in Katakana, is one of the Japanese Kana, each of which represents one mora. と, in Hiragana, or ト in Katakana, is one of the Japanese Kana, each of which represents one mora. な, in Hiragana, or ナ in Katakana, is one of the Japanese Kana, which each represent one mora. に, in Hiragana, or ニ in Katakana, is one of the Japanese Kana, which each represent one mora. ぬ, in Hiragana, or ヌ in Katakana is one of the Japanese Kana, which each represent one mora. ね, in Hiragana, or ネ in Katakana, is one of the Japanese Kana, each of which represents one mora. の, in Hiragana, or ノ in Katakana, is one of the Japanese Kana, each of which represents one mora. は, in Hiragana, or ハ in Katakana, is one of the Japanese Kana, each of which represent one mora ひ, in Hiragana, or ヒ in Katakana, is one of the Japanese Kana, which each represent one mora. ふ, in Hiragana, or フ in Katakana, is one of the Japanese Kana, each of which represents one mora. へ, in Hiragana, or ヘ in Katakana, is one of the Japanese Kana, each of which represents one mora. ほ, in Hiragana, or ホ in Katakana, is one of the Japanese Kana, each of which represents one mora. ま, in Hiragana, or マ in Katakana, is one of the Japanese Kana, which each represent one mora. み, in Hiragana, or ミ in Katakana, is one of the Japanese Kana, each of which represents one mora. む, in Hiragana, or ム in Katakana, is one of the Japanese Kana, which each represent one mora. め, in Hiragana, or メ in Katakana, is one of the Japanese Kana, each of which represents one mora. も, in Hiragana, or モ in Katakana, is one of the Japanese Kana, each of which represents one mora. や, in Hiragana, or ヤ in Katakana, is one of the Japanese Kana, each of which represents one mora. ゆ, in Hiragana, or ユ in Katakana, is one of the Japanese Kana, which each represent one mora. よ, in Hiragana, or ヨ in Katakana, is one of the Japanese Kana, each of which represents one mora. ら, in Hiragana, or ラ in Katakana, is one of the Japanese Kana, which each represent one mora. り, in Hiragana, or リ in Katakana, is one of the Japanese Kana, each of which represent one mora. る, in Hiragana, or ル in Katakana, is one of the Japanese Kana, each of which represent one mora. colloquially ten-ten ("dot dot" is a Diacritic sign most often used in the Japanese Kana syllabaries to indicate that the Consonant ろ, in Hiragana, or ロ in Katakana, is one of the Japanese Kana, each of which represents one mora. わ, in Hiragana, or ワ in Katakana, is one of the Japanese Kana, which each represent one mora. ゐ, in Hiragana, or ヰ in Katakana, is an obsolete Japanese Kana, each of which represent one mora. ゑ, in Hiragana, or ヱ in Katakana, is an obsolete Japanese Kana, each of which represent one mora. ん, in Hiragana, or ン in Katakana, is one of the Japanese Kana, which each represent one mora. The modern Japanese writing system uses three main scripts Kanji, characters of Chinese origin, Hiragana are the Chinese characters that are used in the modern Japanese logographic writing system along with Hiragana (ひらがな 平仮名 Katakana Kana is a general term for the syllabic Japanese scripts Hiragana (ひらがな and Katakana (カタカナ as well as the old system is a Japanese Syllabary, one component of the Japanese writing system along with Hiragana, Kanji, and in some cases the Latin alphabet are alternative Kana letterforms equivalent to standard kana characters is an ancient Writing system which employs Chinese characters to represent the Japanese language. is a Japanese reading aid consisting of smaller Kana printed next to a Kanji or other character to indicate its Pronunciation. are Kana suffixes following Kanji stems in Japanese written words The romanization of Japanese or ( is the use of the Latin alphabet to write the Japanese language. The combinations of に with a small y kana each represent a single mora, while the sequences of ん followed by a large y kana represent two separate morae. The distinction can be illustrated with minimal pairs such as かにゅう ka-nyu-u, "joining", and かんゆう ka-n-yu-u, "persuasion", which are easily distinguished in speech, although in some romanization styles they might both be written kanyu. In Hepburn romanization, they are distinguished with an apostrophe: kanyū and kan'yū.

Spelling rules

With a few exceptions for sentence particles は, を, and へ (pronounced as wa, o, and e), 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 refers to a Kanazukai (system of spelling the Japanese syllabary) that is antiquated because it is no longer in accord with the Japanese pronunciation The exact spelling rules are referred to as kanazukai (仮名遣, kanazukai^?). are the orthographic rules for spelling Japanese in Kana. All Phonographic systems (of which kana is an example attempt to account accurately the are the orthographic rules for spelling Japanese in Kana. All Phonographic systems (of which kana is an example attempt to account accurately the

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. colloquially ten-ten ("dot dot" is a Diacritic sign most often used in the Japanese Kana syllabaries to indicate that the Consonant For example chijimeru (‘to boil down’ or ‘to shrink’) is spelled ちぢめる. For compound words where the dakuten reflects rendaku voicing, the original hiragana is used. is a phenomenon in Japanese Morphophonology which governs the voicing of the initial Consonant of the non-initial portion of a compound or prefixed word For example, chi (血 "blood") is spelled ち in plain hiragana. When 鼻 hana (“nose”) and 血 chi ("blood") 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 (かな使い; "kana use", or "kana orthography") is spelled かなづかい in hiragana.

However, this does not apply when kanji are used phonetically to write words which do not relate directly to the meaning of the kanji (see also ateji). In modern Japanese, are Kanji used phonetically to represent native or borrowed words 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 ー 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 いなずま rather than いなづま is used.

Hiragana usually spells long vowels with the addition of a second vowel kana. In Linguistics, vowel length is the perceived duration of a Vowel sound The chōon (vowel extender mark) (ー) used in katakana is rarely used with hiragana, for example in the word らーめん, ramen, but this usage is considered non-standard. The, also known as,, or Katakana-Hiragana Prolonged Sound Mark by the Unicode Consortium is a Japanese symbol which indicates a chōon is a Japanese Noodle dish that originated in China. It tends to be served in a meat-based broth and uses toppings such as,, Kamaboko, green onions

No standard Japanese words begin with the kana ん (n). This is the basis of the word game shiritori. Shiritori (しりとり is a Japanese word game in which the players are required to say a word which begins with the final Kana of the previous word ん is sometimes directly followed by a vowel, for example, ren'ai 恋愛 ("romantic love, emotion") is written in hiragana as れんあい rather than れない renai (a nonexistent word). ん n is normally treated as its own syllable and is separate from the other N based kana. A notable exception to this is some spoken usage; one such example is where ん n is used instead of ない nai in the negative conjugation of a word, such that わからない wakaranai meaning "[I] don't understand" is rendered as わからん wakaran.

A rule when writing kana is the size of the character with respect to other characters. In general, each normally sized hiragana symbol is pronounced individually, with smaller sized versions being used in conjunction with the preceding, such as when a normally sized に ni and a small や　ya combine to form the syllable にゃ nya. The singular exception to this is in the case of a small つ tsu (っ), representing a glottal stop, where the sound is used in conjunction with the succeeding syllable, rather than the preceding. This article is about the sound in spoken language For the letter see Glottal stop (letter.

Sokuon is a small tsu (っ) that shows a doubled consonant to the letters.

• kite (来て, come) - kʲite
• kitte (切手, postage stamp) - kʲitːe / kʲitte / kʲit̚te

History

Hiragana's character shape was derived from the Chinese cursive script (sōsho). Cursive script ( simplified草书 erroneously translated as Grass script is a style of Chinese calligraphy. Shown here is a sample of the cursive script by Chinese Tang Dynasty calligrapher Sun Guoting, from the late 7th century. The Tang Dynasty ( Middle Chinese: dhɑng (June 18 618&ndashJune 4 907 was an imperial dynasty of China preceded by the Sui Dynasty and followed by Sun Guoting ( 646–691 or Sun Qianli (孫虔禮was a Chinese calligrapher of the early Tang Dynasty, remembered for his cursive calligraphy The 7th century is the period from 601 to 700 in accordance with the Julian calendar in the Christian / Common Era.

Hiragana developed from man'yōgana, Chinese characters used for their pronunciations, a practice which started in the 5th century. is an ancient Writing system which employs Chinese characters to represent the Japanese language. The 5th century is the period from 401 to 500 in accordance with the Julian calendar in Anno Domini / Common Era. The forms of the hiragana originate from the cursive script style of Chinese calligraphy. Cursive script ( simplified草书 erroneously translated as Grass script is a style of Chinese calligraphy. The art of Calligraphy is widely practiced and revered in the East Asian Civilizations that use or used Chinese characters. The figure below shows the derivation of hiragana from manyōgana via cursive script. The upper part shows the character in the regular script form, the center character in red shows the cursive script form of the character, and the bottom shows the equivalent hiragana. The regular script or standard script, or in Chinese kaishu ( and Japanese kaisho, also commonly known as standard regular

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 regular script (kaisho) form of the characters, so-called onode (男手, onode^?), "men's writing", was used by men; the cursive script (sōsho) form of the kanji was used by women. Thus hiragana first gained popularity among women, who were not allowed access to the same levels of education as men. From this comes the alternative name of onnade (女手, onnade^?) "women's writing". For example, The Tale of Genji and other early novels by female authors used hiragana extensively or exclusively. is a classic work of Japanese literature attributed to the Japanese noblewoman Murasaki Shikibu in the early eleventh century around the peak of the Heian Period

Male authors came to write literature using hiragana. Hiragana, with its flowing style, was used for unofficial writing such as personal letters, while katakana and Chinese were used for official documents. In modern times, the usage of hiragana has become mixed with katakana writing. is a Japanese Syllabary, one component of the Japanese writing system along with Hiragana, Kanji, and in some cases the Latin alphabet Katakana is now relegated to special uses such as recently borrowed words (i. e. , since the 19th century), names in transliteration, the names of animals, in telegrams, and for emphasis. The 19th century of the Common Era began on January 1, 1801 and ended on December 31, 1900, according to the Gregorian calendar Transliteration is the practice of Transcribing a Word or text written in one Writing system into another writing system or system of rules for such practice

Originally, all sounds had more than one hiragana. In 1900, the system was simplified so each sound had only one hiragana. Other hiragana are known as hentaigana (変体仮名, hentaigana^?)

The pangram poem Iroha-uta ("ABC song/poem"), which dates to the 10th century, uses every hiragana once　(except n ん, which was just a variant of む before Muromachi era). are alternative Kana letterforms equivalent to standard kana characters are alternative Kana letterforms equivalent to standard kana characters A pangram ( Greek: pan gramma, "every letter" or holoalphabetic sentence, is a sentence using every letter of the Alphabet at least This article refers to the Japanese poem For the video game character see Iroha (Samurai Shodown. The Muromachi period ( Japanese: 室町時代 Muromachi-jidai, also known as the Muromachi era, the Muromachi bakufu, the Ashikaga era In the chart below, the romanization shows the hiragana; the reading in modern Japanese is in parentheses.

Note that the last line begins with an obsolete kana (we ゑ).

Hiragana in Unicode

Hiragana letters.

In Unicode, Hiragana occupies code points U+3040 to U+309F:

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. In Computing, Unicode is an Industry standard allowing Computers to consistently represent and manipulate text expressed in most of the world's 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), respectively. 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 currently no characters at code points U+3040, U+3097, or U+3098.

See also

• Shodo, Japanese calligraphy. is a form of Calligraphy, or artistic Writing, used for writing the Japanese language.
• Iteration mark explains the iteration marks used with hiragana. Iteration marks are characters or punctuation that represent a duplicated character or word
• Japanese typographic symbols gives other non-kana, non-kanji symbols. This page lists Japanese typographic symbols which are not included in Kana or Kanji.
• Japanese phonology explains Japanese pronunciation in detail. This article deals with the Phonology (ie the sound system of the Japanese language.
• Nü Shu, a syllabary writing system used by women in China's Hunan province
• Katakana

References

External links

• Hiragana unicode chart
• Hiragana derivation diagrams
• Real Kana Practice hiragana using different typefaces.
• Flash hiragana lesson