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It is a phonetic lettering system. The word hiragana means "common" or "plain" kana (originally also "easy", as contrasted with kanji). [1] [2] [3] Hiragana and katakana are both kana systems. With few exceptions, each mora in the Japanese language is represented by one character (or one digraph) in each system.
The word katakana means "fragmentary kana", as the katakana characters are derived from components or fragments of more complex kanji. Katakana and hiragana are both kana systems. With one or two minor exceptions, each syllable (strictly mora) in the Japanese language is represented by one character or kana in each system.
The modern Japanese writing system uses a combination of logographic kanji, which are adopted Chinese characters, and syllabic kana.Kana itself consists of a pair of syllabaries: hiragana, used primarily for native or naturalized Japanese words and grammatical elements; and katakana, used primarily for foreign words and names, loanwords, onomatopoeia, scientific names, and sometimes for emphasis.
Hiragana and katakana were first simplified from kanji, and hiragana, emerging somewhere around the 9th century, [50] was mainly used by women. Hiragana was seen as an informal language, whereas katakana and kanji were considered more formal and were typically used by men and in official settings.
The hiragana ゑ is made with one stroke. It resembles a hiragana る that continues with a double-humped ん shape underneath. The katakana ヱ is made with three strokes: A horizontal line that hooks down and to the left. A vertical line, just grazing the end of the first stroke. A long horizontal line across the bottom.
Alternatively, on some keyboards, pressing the muhenkan (無変換, "no conversion") button switches between katakana and hiragana. Operation of a typical IME Sophisticated kana to kanji converters (known collectively as input method editors , or IMEs), allow conversion of multiple kana words into kanji at once, freeing the user from having to ...
The difference in usage between hiragana and katakana is stylistic. Usually, hiragana is the default syllabary, and katakana is used in certain special cases. Hiragana is used to write native Japanese words with no kanji representation (or whose kanji is thought obscure or difficult), as well as grammatical elements such as particles and ...
In each entry, the top entry is the hiragana, the second entry is the corresponding katakana, the third entry is the Hepburn romanization of the kana, and the fourth entry is the pronunciation written in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). Please see Japanese phonology for more details on the individual sounds.
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