Hiragana

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Hiragana
平仮名
ひらがな
ひ 教科書体.svg
Type
Syllabary
Languages Japanese and Okinawan
Time period
~800 AD to the present
Parent systems
Oracle Bone Script
Seal Script
Clerical Script
Regular script (Kanji)
Man'yōgana
Hiragana
平仮名
ひらがな
Sister systems
Katakana, Hentaigana
Direction Left-to-right
ISO 15924 Hira, 410
Unicode alias
Hiragana
Unicode range
Hiragana:
U+3040–U+309F
Kana Supplement:
U+1B000–U+1B0FF
Kana Extended-A:
U+1B100–U+1B12F
Small Kana Extension:
U+1B130–U+1B16F
This article contains IPA phonetic symbols. Without proper rendering support, you
may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Unicode characters. For
an introductory guide on IPA symbols, see Help:IPA.
Japanese writing
Japanese writing
Components
Kanji[show]
Kana[show]
Typographic
symbols[show]
Uses
Syllabograms[show]
Romanization
Rōmaji[show]
vte
Hiragana (平仮名, Japanese pronunciation: [çiɾaɡaꜜna][note 1]) is a Japanese
syllabary, one component of the Japanese writing system, along with katakana,
kanji, and in some cases rōmaji (Latin script). It is a phonetic lettering system.
The word hiragana literally means "ordinary" or "simple" kana ("simple" originally
as contrasted with kanji).[1][2]

Hiragana and katakana are both kana systems. With one or two minor exceptions, each
sound in the Japanese language (strictly, each mora) is represented by one
character (or one digraph) in each system. This may be either a vowel such as "a"
(hiragana 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 ([ŋ]), or like the nasal vowels of French. Because the characters of the kana do
not represent single consonants (except in the case of ん "n"), the kana are
referred to as syllabaries and not alphabets.[3]

Hiragana is used to write okurigana (kana suffixes following a kanji root, for
example to inflect verbs and adjectives), various grammatical and function words
including particles, as well as miscellaneous other native words for which there
are no kanji or whose kanji form is obscure or too formal for the writing purpose.
[4] Words that do have common kanji renditions may also sometimes be written
instead in hiragana, according to an individual author's preference, for example to
impart an informal feel. Hiragana is also used to write furigana, a reading aid
that shows the pronunciation of kanji characters.

There are two main systems of ordering hiragana: the old-fashioned iroha ordering
and the more prevalent gojūon ordering.

Contents
1 Writing system
2 Table of hiragana
2.1 Spelling–phonology correspondence
3 Obsolete Kana
3.1 Ye
3.2 Yi
3.3 Wu
4 Spelling rules
5 History
6 Stroke order and direction
7 Unicode
8 See also
9 Notes
10 References
11 External links
Writing system
Hiragana characters
a i u e o
∅ あ い う え お
k か き く け こ
g が ぎ ぐ げ ご
s さ し す せ そ
z ざ じ ず ぜ ぞ
t た ち つ て と
d だ ぢ づ で ど
n な に ぬ ね の
h は ひ ふ へ ほ
b ば び ぶ べ ぼ
p ぱ ぴ ぷ ぺ ぽ
m ま み む め も
y や ゆ よ
r ら り る れ ろ
w わ ゐ ゑ を
ん (n)
Functional marks
and diacritics
っ ゝ ゛ ゜
unused/obsolete
The modern hiragana syllabary consists of 46 base characters:

5 singular vowels
40 consonant–vowel unions
1 singular consonant
These are conceived as a 5×10 grid (gojūon, 五十音, "Fifty Sounds"), as illustrated
in the adjacent table, read あ (a), い (i), う (u), え (e), お (o), か (ka), き (ki),
く (ku), け (ke), こ (ko) and so forth, with the singular consonant ん (n) appended
to the end. Of the 50 theoretically possible combinations, yi and wu do not exist
in the language, and ye, wi and we are obsolete (or virtually obsolete) in modern
Japanese. wo is usually pronounced as a vowel (o) in modern Japanese, and is
preserved in only one use, as a particle.

Romanization of the kana does not always strictly follow the consonant-vowel scheme
laid out in the table. For example, ち, nominally ti, is very often romanised as
chi in an attempt to better represent the actual sound in Japanese.

These basic characters can be modified in various ways. By adding a dakuten marker
( ゛), a voiceless consonant is turned into a voiced consonant: k→g, ts/s→z, t→d,
h→b and ch/sh→j. For example, か (ka) becomes が (ga). Hiragana beginning with an h
can also add a handakuten marker ( ゜) changing the h to a p. For example, は (ha)
becomes ぱ (pa).

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) to a, u or o. For example, き (ki) plus ゃ (small ya) becomes きゃ
(kya). Addition of the small y kana is called yōon.

A small tsu っ, called a sokuon, indicates that the following consonant is

geminated (doubled). In Japanese this is an important distinction in pronunciation;
for example, compare さか saka "hill" with さっか sakka "author". The sokuon also
sometimes appears at the end of utterances, where it denotes a glottal stop, as in
いてっ! ([iteʔ] Ouch!). However, it cannot be used to double the na, ni, nu, ne, no
syllables' consonants – to double these, the singular n (ん) is added in front of
the syllable, as in みんな (minna, "all").

Hiragana usually spells long vowels with the addition of a second vowel kana; for
example, おかあさん (o-ka-a-sa-n, "mother"). The chōonpu (long vowel mark) (ー) used
in katakana is rarely used with hiragana, for example in the word らーめん, rāmen,
but this usage is considered non-standard in Japanese; the Okinawan language uses
chōonpu with hiragana. In informal writing, small versions of the five vowel kana
are sometimes used to represent trailing off sounds (はぁ haa, ねぇ nee). Standard
and voiced iteration marks are written in hiragana as ゝ and ゞ respectively.

Table of hiragana
The following table shows the complete hiragana together with the Hepburn
romanization and IPA transcription in the gojūon order.[5] Hiragana with dakuten or
handakuten follow the gojūon kana without them, with the yōon kana following.
Obsolete and normally unused kana are shown in brackets and gray . Those in bold
do not use the initial sound for that row. For all syllables besides ん, the
pronunciation indicated is for word-initial syllables, for mid-word pronunciations
see below.

Hiragana syllabograms
Monographs (gojūon) Digraphs (yōon)
a i u e o ya yu yo
∅ あ
a [a] い
i [i] う
u [ɯ] え
e [e] お
o [o]
K か
ka [ka] き
ki [ki] く
ku [kɯ] け
ke [ke] こ
ko [ko] きゃ
kya [kʲa] きゅ
kyu [kʲɯ] きょ
kyo [kʲo]
S さ
sa [sa] し
shi [ɕi] す
su [sɯ] せ
se [se] そ
so [so] しゃ
sha [ɕa] しゅ
shu [ɕɯ] しょ
sho [ɕo]
T た
ta [ta] ち
chi [tɕi] つ
tsu [tsɯ] て
te [te] と
to [to] ちゃ
cha [tɕa] ちゅ
chu [tɕɯ] ちょ
cho [tɕo]
N な
na [na] に
ni [ɲi] ぬ
nu [nɯ] ね
ne [ne] の
no [no] にゃ
nya [ɲa] にゅ
nyu [ɲɯ] にょ
nyo [ɲo]
H は
ha [ha]
([ɰa] as particle) ひ
hi [çi] ふ
fu [ɸɯ] へ
he [he]
([e] as particle) ほ
ho [ho] ひゃ
hya [ça] ひゅ
hyu [çɯ] ひょ
hyo [ço]
M ま
ma [ma] み
mi [mi] む
mu [mɯ] め
me [me] も
mo [mo] みゃ
mya [mʲa] みゅ
myu [mʲɯ] みょ
myo [mʲo]
Y や
ya [ja] [6] ゆ
yu [jɯ] [6] よ
yo [jo]
R ら
ra [ɾa] り
ri [ɾi] る
ru [ɾɯ] れ
re [ɾe] ろ
ro [ɾo] りゃ
rya [ɾʲa] りゅ
ryu [ɾʲɯ] りょ
ryo [ɾʲo]
W わ
wa [ɰa] ( ゐ )
wi [i] [6] ( ゑ )
we [e] を
wo [o]
* ん
n
[ɴ m n ɲ ŋ ɰɰ] っ
(indicates a geminate consonant) ゝ
(reduplicates and
unvoices syllable) ゞ
(reduplicates and
voices syllable)
Diacritics (gojūon with (han)dakuten) Digraphs with diacritics (yōon with
(han)dakuten)
a i u e o ya yu yo
G が
ga [ɡa] ぎ
gi [ɡi] ぐ
gu [ɡɯ] げ
ge [ɡe] ご
go [ɡo] ぎゃ
gya [ɡʲa] ぎゅ
gyu [ɡʲɯ] ぎょ
gyo [ɡʲo]
Z ざ
za [(d)za] じ
ji [(d)ʑi] ず
zu [(d)zɯ] ぜ
ze [(d)ze] ぞ
zo [(d)zo] じゃ
ja [(d)ʑa] じゅ
ju [(d)ʑɯ] じょ
jo [(d)ʑo]
D だ
da [da] ぢ
ji, dji, jyi[7] [(d)ʑi] づ
dzu, zu [(d)zɯ] で
de [de] ど
do [do] ( ぢゃ )
ja [(d)ʑa] ( ぢゅ )
ju [(d)ʑɯ] ( ぢょ )
jo [(d)ʑo]
B ば
ba [ba] び
bi [bi] ぶ
bu [bɯ] べ
be [be] ぼ
bo [bo] びゃ
bya [bʲa] びゅ
byu [bʲɯ] びょ
byo [bʲo]
P ぱ
pa [pa] ぴ
pi [pi] ぷ
pu [pɯ] ぺ
pe [pe] ぽ
po [po] ぴゃ
pya [pʲa] ぴゅ
pyu [pʲɯ] ぴょ
pyo [pʲo]
Spelling–phonology correspondence
In the middle of words, the g sound (normally [ɡ]) may turn into a velar nasal [ŋ]
or velar fricative [ɣ]. An exception to this is numerals; 15 jūgo is considered to
be one word, but is pronounced as if it was jū and go stacked end to end: [d
d ʑɯːɡo].

In many accents, the j and z sounds are pronounced as affricates ([dd ʑ] and [d
d z],
respectively) at the beginning of utterances and fricatives [ʑ, z] in the middle of
words. For example, すうじ sūji [sɯːʑi] 'number', ざっし zasshi [d d zaɕɕi] 'magazine'.

In archaic forms of Japanese, there existed the kwa (くゎ [kʷa]) and gwa (ぐゎ
[ɡʷa]) digraphs. In modern Japanese, these phonemes have been phased out of usage
and only exist in the extended katakana digraphs for approximating foreign language
words.

The singular n is pronounced [n] before t, ch, ts, n, r, z, j and d, [m] before m,
b and p, [ŋ] before k and g, [ɴ] at the end of utterances, and some kind of high
nasal vowel [ɰɰ] before vowels, palatal approximants (y), fricative consonants s,
sh, h, f and w.

In kanji readings, the diphthongs ou and ei are today usually pronounced [oː] (long
o) and [eː] (long e) respectively. For example, とうきょう (lit. toukyou) is
pronounced [toːkʲoː] 'Tokyo', and せんせい sensei is [seɯɰseː] 'teacher'. However, と
う tou is pronounced [toɯ] 'to inquire', because the o and u are considered
distinct, u being the verb ending in the dictionary form. Similarly, している shite
iru is pronounced [ɕiteiɾɯ] 'is doing'.

For a more thorough discussion on the sounds of Japanese, please refer to Japanese
phonology.

Obsolete Kana
Ye
An early, now obsolete, hiragana-esque form
pre-Classical Japanese (prior to the advent
for purposes of reconstruction by the kanji
present in any known orthography. In modern
いぇ (イェ in katakana).
of ye may have existed (� [je][8]) in
of kana), but is generally represented
江, and its hiragana form is not
orthography, ye can also be written as

It's true that in early periods of kana, hiragana and katakana letters for "ye"
were used, but soon after the distinction between /ye/ and /e/ went away, and
letters and glyphs were not established.

衣 江
Hiragana え �
Katakana � エ
Yi
Though ye did appear in some textbooks during the Meiji period along with another
kana for yi in the form of cursive 以. Today it is considered a Hentaigana by
(scholars and was encoded in Unicode 10[9] ().[10][11]

Wu
Hiragana wu also appeared in different Meiji textbooks (Hiragana WU 2.png)
utilizing the cursive form of 汙.[12][13] It was never commonly used.[14]

Spelling rules
See also: Kanazukai
With a few exceptions for sentence particles は, を, and へ (normally ha, wo, and
he, but instead pronounced as wa, o, and e, respectively), and a few other
arbitrary rules, Japanese, when written in kana, is phonemically orthographic, i.e.
there is a one-to-one correspondence between kana characters and sounds, leaving
only words' pitch accent unrepresented. This has not always been the case: a
previous system of spelling, now referred to as historical kana usage, differed
substantially from pronunciation; the three above-mentioned exceptions in modern
usage are the legacy of that system.

There are two hiragana pronounced ji (じ and ぢ) and two hiragana pronounced zu (ず
and づ), but to distinguish them, particularly when typing Japanese, sometimes ぢ
is written as di and づ is written as du. 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 ちぢめる and tsuzuku
('to continue') is つづく. 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 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/遣う; 'to use') is spelled つかう in hiragana, so kanazukai (仮名遣い; '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 that
do not relate directly to the meaning of the kanji (see also ateji). 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 いなずま rather
than いなづま is used.
Officially, ぢ and づ do not occur word-initially pursuant to modern spelling rules.
There were words such as ぢばん jiban 'ground' in the historical kana usage, but
they were unified under じ in the modern kana usage in 1946, so today it is spelled
exclusively じばん. However, づら zura 'wig' (from かつら katsura) and づけ zuke (a
sushi term for lean tuna soaked in soy sauce) are examples of word-initial づ
today. Some people write the word for hemorrhoids as ぢ (normally じ) for emphasis.

No standard Japanese words begin with the kana ん (n). This is the basis of the
word game shiritori. ん n is normally treated as its own syllable and is separate
from the other n-based kana (na, ni etc.). A notable exception to
this[clarification needed] is the colloquial negative verb conjugation; for example
わからない wakaranai meaning "[I] don't understand" is rendered as わからん wakaran.
It is however not a contraction of the former, but instead comes from the classic
negative verb conjugation ぬ nu (わからぬ wakaranu).

ん is sometimes directly followed by a vowel (a, i, u, e or o) or a palatal

approximant (ya, yu or yo). These are clearly distinct from the na, ni etc.
syllables, and there are minimal pairs such as きんえん kin'en 'smoking forbidden',
きねん kinen 'commemoration', きんねん kinnen 'recent years'. In Hepburn
romanization, they are distinguished with an apostrophe, but not all romanization
methods make the distinction. For example, past prime minister Junichiro Koizumi's
first name is actually じゅんいちろう Jun'ichirō pronounced [d d ʑuuũuit
d ɕiɾoː]

There are a few hiragana that are rarely used. ゐ wi and ゑ we are obsolete outside
of Okinawan orthography. � e was an alternate version of え e before spelling
reform, and was briefly reused for ye during initial spelling reforms, but is now
completely obsolete. ゔ vu 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. ぢゃ,
ぢゅ, ぢょ for ja/ju/jo are theoretically possible in rendaku, but are practically
never used. For example, 日本中 'throughout Japan' could be written にほんぢゅう, but
is practically always にほんじゅう.

The みゅ myu kana is extremely rare in originally Japanese words; linguist Haruhiko
Kindaichi raises the example of the Japanese family name Omamyūda (小豆生田) and
claims it is the only occurrence amongst pure Japanese words. Its katakana
counterpart is used in many loanwords, however.

History
See also: Man'yōgana and Old Japanese § Sources and dating

Hiragana characters' shapes were derived from the Chinese cursive script (sōsho).
Shown here is a sample of the cursive script by Chinese Tang Dynasty calligrapher
Sun Guoting, from the late 7th century. Note the character 為 (wei) that the red
arrow points to closely resembles the hiragana character ゐ (wi).
Hiragana developed from man'yōgana, Chinese characters used for their
pronunciations, a practice that started in the 5th century.[15] The oldest examples
of Man'yōgana include the Inariyama Sword, an iron sword excavated at the Inariyama
Kofun in 1968. This sword is thought to be made in year of 辛亥年 (which is A.D. 471
in commonly accepted theory).[16] The forms of the hiragana originate from the
cursive script style of Chinese calligraphy. 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. Note also that
the cursive script forms are not strictly confined to those in the illustration.
Hiragana origin.svg
When it was first developed, hiragana was not accepted by everyone. The educated or
elites preferred to use only the kanji system. Historically, in Japan, the regular
script (kaisho) form of the characters was used by men and called otokode (男手),
"men's writing", while the cursive script (sōsho) form of the kanji was used by
women. Hence hiragana first gained popularity among women, who were generally not
allowed access to the same levels of education as men. And thus hiragana was first
widely used among court women in the writing of personal communications and
literature.[17] From this comes the alternative name of onnade (女手) "women's
writing".[18] For example, The Tale of Genji and other early novels by female
authors used hiragana extensively or exclusively.

Male authors came to write literature using hiragana. Hiragana 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. 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.

Originally, for all syllables there was more than one possible hiragana. In 1900,
the system was simplified so each syllable had only one hiragana. The deprecated
hiragana are now known as hentaigana (変体仮名).

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 the
Muromachi era).

Stroke order and direction

The following table shows the method for writing each hiragana character. It is
arranged in the traditional way, beginning top right and reading columns down. The
numbers and arrows indicate the stroke order and direction respectively.
Table hiragana.svg
Unicode
Main articles: Hiragana (Unicode block), Kana Supplement (Unicode block), Kana
Extended-A (Unicode block), and Small Kana Extension (Unicode block)
Hiragana was added to the Unicode Standard in October, 1991 with the release of
version 1.0.

The Unicode block for Hiragana is U+3040–U+309F:

Hiragana[1][2]
Official Unicode Consortium code chart (PDF)
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 A B C
D E F
U+304x ぁ あ ぃ い ぅ う ぇ え ぉ お か
が き ぎ く
U+305x ぐ け げ こ ご さ ざ し じ す ず せ
ぜ そ ぞ た
U+306x だ ち ぢ っ つ づ て で と ど な に
ぬ ね の は
U+307x ば ぱ ひ び ぴ ふ ぶ ぷ へ べ ぺ ほ
ぼ ぽ ま み
U+308x む め も ゃ や ゅ ゆ ょ よ ら り る
れ ろ ゎ わ
U+309x ゐ ゑ を ん ゔ ゕ ゖ ゙ ゚ ゛
゜ ゝ ゞ ゟ
Notes
1.^ As of Unicode version 12.0
2.^ Grey areas indicate non-assigned code points
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 ゐ wi and ゑ we and the rare ゔ vu; the archaic � ye is included in plane 1
at U+1B001 (see below). 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 ligature 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.

Historic and variant forms of Japanese kana characters were first added to the
Unicode Standard in October, 2010 with the release of version 6.0, with
significantly more added in 2017 as part of Unicode 10.

The Unicode block for Kana Supplement is U+1B000–U+1B0FF, and is immediately

followed by the Kana Extended-A block (U+1B100–U+1B12F). These blocks include
mainly hentaigana (historic or variant hiragana):

Kana Supplement[1]
Official Unicode Consortium code chart (PDF)
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 A B C
D E F
U+1B00x � � � � � � � � � � � �
� � � �
U+1B01x � � � � � � � � � � � �
� � � �
U+1B02x � � � � � � � � � � � �
� � � �
U+1B03x � � � � � � � � � � � �
� � � �
U+1B04x � � � � � � � � � � � �
� � � �
U+1B05x � � � � � � � � � � � �
� � � �
U+1B06x � � � � � � � � � � � �
� � � �
U+1B07x � � � � � � � � � � � �
� � � �
U+1B08x � � � � � � � � � � � �
� � � �
U+1B09x � � � � � � � � � � � �
� � � �
U+1B0Ax � � � � � � � � � � � �
� � � �
U+1B0Bx � � � � � � � � � � � �
� � � �
U+1B0Cx � � � � � � � � � � � �
� � � �
U+1B0Dx � � � � � � � � � � � �
� � � �
U+1B0Ex � � � � � � � � � � � �
� � � �
U+1B0Fx � � � � � � � � � � � �
 � � � �
Notes
1.^ As of Unicode version 12.0
Kana Extended-A[1][2]
Official Unicode Consortium code chart (PDF)
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 A B C
D E F
U+1B10x � � � � � � � � � � � �
� � � �
U+1B11x � � � � � � � � � � � �
� � �
U+1B12x

Notes
1.^ As of Unicode version 12.0
2.^ Grey areas indicate non-assigned code points
The Unicode block for Small Kana Extension is U+1B130–U+1B16F:

Small Kana Extension[1][2]

Official Unicode Consortium code chart (PDF)
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 A B C
D E F
U+1B13x

U+1B14x

U+1B15x � � �

U+1B16x � � � �

Notes
1.^ As of Unicode version 12.0
2.^ Grey areas indicate non-assigned code points
In the following character sequences a kana from the /k/ row is modified by a
handakuten combining mark to indicate that a syllable starts with an initial nasal,
known as bidakuon. As of Unicode 12.0, these character combinations are explicitly
called out as Named Sequences.

Hiragana named sequences

Unicode Named Character Sequences Database
Sequence name Codepoints Glyph
HIRAGANA LETTER BIDAKUON NGA U+304B U+309A か゚
HIRAGANA LETTER BIDAKUON NGI U+304D U+309A き゚
HIRAGANA LETTER BIDAKUON NGU U+304F U+309A く゚
HIRAGANA LETTER BIDAKUON NGE U+3051 U+309A け゚
HIRAGANA LETTER BIDAKUON NGO U+3053 U+309A こ゚
See also
Japanese writing system
Bopomofo (Zhùyīn fúhào, "phonetic symbols"), a phonetic system of 37 characters for
writing Chinese developed in the 1900s and common in Taiwan.
Iteration mark explains the iteration marks used with hiragana.
Japanese phonology explains Japanese pronunciation in detail.
Japanese typographic symbols gives other non-kana, non-kanji symbols.
Katakana
Nüshu, a syllabary writing system used by women in China's Hunan province
Shodō, Japanese calligraphy.
Notes
Also [çiɾaɡana], [çiɾaɡanaꜜ].
References
 http://daijirin.dual-d.net/extra/hiragana.html
「平」とは平凡な、やさしいという意で、当時普通に使用する文字体系であったことを意味する。 漢字は書簡
文や重要な文章などを書く場合に用いる公的な文字であるのに対して、 平仮名は漢字の知識に乏しい人々など
が用いる私的な性格のものであった。
Translation: 平 [the "hira" part of "hiragana"] means "ordinary" or "simple" since
at that time [the time that the name was given] it was a writing system for
everyday use. While kanji was the official system used for letter-writing and
important texts, hiragana was for personal use by people who had limited knowledge
of kanji.
"Japanese calligraphy". Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved 2017-06-22.
Richard Bowring; Haruko Uryu Laurie (2004). An Introduction to Modern Japanese:
Book 1. United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press. p. 9. ISBN 978-0521548878.
Liu, Xuexin (2009). "Japanese Simplification of Chinese Characters in
Perspective". Southeast Review of Asian Studies. 31.
NHK, WORLD. "The Japanese Syllabaries (Hiragana)" (PDF). www.nhk.or.jp.
See obsolete kana
"Romanization variants".
"Unicode Kana Supplement" (PDF). unicode.org.
"Unicode 10 Extended Kana Block" (PDF).
Walter & Walter 1998.
"(ja) 伊豆での収穫 : 日本国語学史上比類なき変体仮名". geocities.jp.
"Glyphwiki Hiraga Wu Reconstructed".
"仮名遣". 1891.
http://hvitumavar.blog.se/japanese-original-50-kana-yi-ye-wu/. Missing or empty |
title= (help)
Yookoso! An Invitation to Contemporary Japanese 1st edition McGraw-Hill, page 13
"Linguistic Note: The Origins of Hiragana and Katakana"
Seeley (2000:19-23)
Richard Bowring; Haruko Uryu Laurie (2004). An Introduction to Modern Japanese:
Book 1. United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press. p. 8. ISBN 978-0521548878.
Hatasa, Yukiko Abe; Kazumi Hatasa; Seiichi Makino (2010). Nakama 1: Introductory
Japanese: Communication, Culture, Context 2nd ed. Heinle. p. 2. ISBN 978-
0495798187.
"The Art of Japanese Calligraphy", Yujiro Nakata, ISBN 0-8348-1013-1, gives details
of the development of onode and onnade.
External links
Wikimedia Commons has media related to:
Hiragana (category)
Look up hiragana in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.
Practice pronunciation and stroke order of Hiragana
Hiragana unicode chart
Hiragana trace sheets
vte
Japanese language
vte
Types of writing systems
Authority control Edit this at Wikidata
GND: 4263790-9
Categories: Scripts with ISO 15924 four-letter codesJapanese writing system
termsKanaScripts encoded in Unicode 1.0Japanese writing system
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