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Hiragana (平仮名, ひらがな, IPA: [çiɾaɡaꜜna, çiɾaɡana(ꜜ)]) is a Japanese syllabary, part of the Japanese writing system, along with katakana as well as kanji. It is a phonetic lettering system. The word hiragana means "common" or "plain" kana (originally also "easy", as contrasted with kanji). [1] [2] [3]
In contrast to the hiragana syllabary, which is used for Japanese words not covered by kanji and for grammatical inflections, the katakana syllabary usage is comparable to italics in English; specifically, it is used for transcription of foreign-language words into Japanese and the writing of loan words (collectively gairaigo); for emphasis; to ...
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.
'Kana' is a compound of kari (仮, 'borrowed; assumed; false') and na (名, 'name'), which eventually collapsed into kanna and ultimately 'kana'. [2]Today it is generally assumed that 'kana' were considered "false" kanji due to their purely phonetic nature, as opposed to mana which were "true" kanji used for their meanings.
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.
Both hiragana and katakana are made in two strokes and represent [nɯ]. They are both derived from the Chinese character 奴. They are both derived from the Chinese character 奴. In the Ainu language , katakana ヌ can be written as small ㇴ to represent a final n, and is interchangeable with the standard katakana ン.
Ka (hiragana: か, katakana: カ) is one of the Japanese kana, which each represent one mora.Both represent [ka].The shapes of these kana both originate from 加. The character can be combined with a dakuten, to form が in hiragana, ガ in katakana and ga in Hepburn romanization.
Some scholars claim that Manyogana originated from Baekje, but this hypothesis is denied by mainstream Japanese scholars. [52] [53] Hiragana and katakana were first simplified from kanji, and hiragana, emerging somewhere around the 9th century, [54] was mainly used by women. Hiragana was seen as an informal language, whereas katakana and kanji ...