Hiragana is one of the main parts of the Japanese writing system. This lesson introduces its purpose, its relationship to other scripts, and its historical origins.
Japanese uses three principal writing systems: hiragana, katakana, and kanji. Hiragana and katakana are both kana systems: their characters represent Japanese sound units rather than whole meanings in the way many kanji do. Hiragana is a phonetic lettering system, and its name means roughly common or plain kana.
All flashcards
What is hiragana?
Hiragana is a phonetic kana system in Japanese. Its characters generally represent morae rather than isolated consonants or whole meanings.
What is a mora?
A mora is a unit of sound timing in Japanese. It can be a vowel, a consonant-vowel combination, or the standalone nasal ん.
What does okurigana do?
Okurigana is hiragana written after a kanji root, often to show grammatical endings such as verb or adjective inflection.
What is the purpose of furigana?
Furigana provides a reading aid by showing the pronunciation of kanji, commonly using small kana alongside or above the kanji.
Where did hiragana come from?
Hiragana developed as simplified cursive forms of man'yōgana, Chinese characters that had been used to represent sounds.
Quiz questions
Which three scripts are principal parts of the Japanese writing system?Answer: Hiragana, katakana, and kanji.
What did the 1900 script reform do to standard hiragana forms?Answer: It selected one standard hiragana form for each sound.
What does dakuten do when added to certain kana?Answer: It changes an unvoiced consonant to a voiced consonant.
How is yōon formed in hiragana?Answer: A small ゃ, ゅ, or ょ follows a kana ending in i to form a glide sound.
How are the particles は, へ, and を pronounced?Answer: は is wa, へ is e, and を is o.
Based on the Wikipedia article Hiragana, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Adapted into a summary, flashcards and quizzes.