Hiragana ひらがな

Hiragana (平仮名, lit. "smooth kana") are a Japanese syllabary, one of four Japanese writing systems (the others are katakana, kanji and rōmaji).

Hiragana are used for:

• Japanese words for which there are no kanji, for example particles such as kara から and suffixes such as ~san さん.
• Japanese words for which the kanji form is not known to the writer, not expected to be known to the readers, or too formal for the writing purpose.
• Verb and adjective inflections, for example in tabemashita 食べました (used like this, hiragana are called okurigana 送り仮名).
• Giving the pronunciation of kanji for readers who may not know them (used like this, hiragana are called furigana).

Each hiragana represents one syllable (technically, one mora), and is either a vowel on its own (such as aあ), a consonant followed by a vowel (such as ka か), or ん, which sounds like the English "m" or "n".

The presence of hiragana among Chinese characters is usually sufficient to identify a text as Japanese.

History

Both hiragana and katakana were derived from kanji. The first kana system called man'yōgana was invented in the Heian period (9th century), reportedly by the Buddhist priest Kūkai who brought the Siddham script to Japan on his return from China in 806. He believed that Japanese would be better represented by a phonetic alphabet than by the kanji.

Hiragana was often used by female writers, who were denied the education in Chinese classics afforded to men and, as a result, hiragana came to be known as onnade (女手, "women's hand"). Interestingly, this development resulted in an explosion of literature authored by Japanese women reaching its zenith with Genji Monogatari (The Tale of Genji) by Lady Murasaki.

Originally, all syllables had more than one hiragana. In 1900, the system was simplified so each syllable had only one hiragana.

The hiragana writing system

The hiragana consist of a basic set of characters, the gojūon (五十音, literally "fifty sounds", but only 45 are in common use today), which can be modified as follows:

• Adding a dakuten (濁点) marker ゛ turns an unvoiced consonant into a voiced consonant, in particular it changes k→g, t→d, s→z, and h→b.
• Adding a handakuten (半濁点) marker ゜ changes h→p.
• Adding a small version of the hiragana for ya, yu or yo (ゃ, ゅ or ょ respectively) changes a preceding i vowel sound to a glide palatalization.
• A small tsu っ indicates a glottal stop. Typically this only appears before consonants that are fricatives or stops. This is represented in romaji by doubling the following consonant. Occasionally this will follow the last vowel in a word to indicate surprise.

There are ways to represent other sounds with hiragana, using minuscule versions of the five vowel kana. This is not generally used in formal writing, but is occasionally used with loanwords in katakana in an attempt to approximate more closly the source word's pronunciation.

There are a few hiragana which are not in the standard modern set. wi ゐ and we ゑ are obsolete. vu ゔ is modern and is pronounced as bwu to approximate the "v" sound in foreign languages such as English (it is rarely seen because transliterated words are usually written in katakana).

If you have a font including Japanese characters, you can view the following chart of hiragana together with their Hepburn romanization. Obsolete kana are shown in red.

Hepburn Romanization of Hiragana

あ a	い i	う u	え e	お o	(ya)	(yu)	(yo)
か ka	き ki	く ku	け ke	こ ko	きゃ kya	きゅ kyu	きょ kyo
さ sa	し shi	す su	せ se	そ so	しゃ sha	しゅ shu	しょ sho
た ta	ち chi	つ tsu	て te	と to	ちゃ cha	ちゅ chu	ちょ cho
な na	に ni	ぬ nu	ね ne	の no	にゃ nya	にゅ nyu	にょ nyo
は ha	ひ hi	ふ fu	へ he	ほ ho	ひゃ hya	ひゅ hyu	ひょ hyo
ま ma	み mi	む mu	め me	も mo	みゃ mya	みゅ myu	みょ myo
や ya		ゆ yu		よ yo
ら ra	り ri	る ru	れ re	ろ ro	りゃ rya	りゅ ryu	りょ ryo
わ wa	ゐ wi		ゑ we	を wo
				ん n
が ga	ぎ gi	ぐ gu	げ ge	ご go	ぎゃ gya	ぎゅ gyu	ぎょ gyo
ざ za	じ ji	ず zu	ぜ ze	ぞ zo	じゃ ja	じゅ ju	じょ jo
だ da	ぢ ji	づ zu	で de	ど do
ば ba	び bi	ぶ bu	べ be	ぼ bo	びゃ bya	びゅ byu	びょ byo
ぱ pa	ぴ pi	ぷ pu	ぺ pe	ぽ po	ぴゃ pya	ぴゅ pyu	ぴょ pyo

Spelling rules

With a few exceptions for sentence particles は, を, and へ 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 arbitrary spelling rules; the exceptions in modern usage are the legacy of that system.

Note that there are two hiragana pronounced ji (じ and ぢ) and two hiragana pronounced zu (ず and づ). These pairs are not interchangeable. The exact spelling rules are referred to as kanazukai (かな使い, "kana use"). In general, the rules are:

• If the first two hiragana of a word are the same, but the second one has a dakuten, use the same hiragana as the first one, for example chijimeru is spelled ちぢめる.
• For compound words where the dakuten has added due to compounding, use the original hiragana. For example, chi (血 "blood") is spelled ち, so hanaji (鼻血, "bloody nose") is spelled はなぢ, and tsukau (使う; "to use") is spelled つかう, so kanazukai (かな使い; "kana use", "kana orthography") is spelled かなづかい. (However, this does not apply when the second element is not considered to be a meaningful, separable element: in these cases, use the default spelling given below. Thus, even though inazuma (稲妻, "lightning") is written using the kanji tsuma 妻 ("wife"), that is not considered a separable suffix and so inazuma is spelled いなずま and not *いなづま.)
• ji (痔, "hemorrhoids") is written ぢ. (Actually, according to dictionaries it should be written じ, but a commercial for hemorrhoid medicine popularized the incorrect version.)
• Otherwise, use the default: write ji as じ and zu as ず.

n ん can never be at the beginning of a Japanese word. This fact is at the basis of the word game shiritori. However, n is sometimes directly followed by a vowel. For example, ren'ai 恋愛 is spelled れんあい and den'atsu 電圧 is spelled でんあつ.

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Links:

• Hiragana Etymology (from the Japan Forum)
• Hiragana Quiz

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