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is a Japanese [[syllabary]], part of the Japanese writing system, along with ''[[katakana]]'' as well as ''[[kanji]]'' (Chinese characters).
It is a phonetic lettering system. The word hiragana means "common" or "plain" kana (originally also "easy", as contrasted with kanji). Dual 大辞林
「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 means "ordinary, common" or "easy, simple" since at that time the 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.
Historically, hiragana developed from cursive forms of Kanji (草書) via 万葉仮名, with each sign originating as a simplified cursive rendering of a whole kanji—for example, a from an.
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. This may be a vowel such as /a/ (hiragana ); a consonant followed by a vowel such as /ka/ (); or /N/ (), a nasal stop sonorant which, depending on the context and dialect, sounds either like English m, n or ng () when syllable-final or like the of French language, Portuguese or Polish language. Because the characters of the kana do not represent single consonants (except in the case of the aforementioned ん), the kana are referred to as syllabic symbols and not alphabetic letters.
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, and miscellaneous other native words for which there are no kanji or whose kanji form is obscure or too formal for the writing purpose. 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.
| { class="wikitable" style="vertical-align:top; text-align:center;" | + Basic hiragana characters | ||||
| ん ( n) | |||||
| dakuten | |||||
After the 1900 script reform, which deemed hundreds of characters hentaigana, the hiragana syllabary consists of 48 base characters, of which two (ゐ and ゑ) are only used in some proper names:
These are conceived as a 5×10 grid ( gojūon, , "Fifty Sounds"), as illustrated in the adjacent table, read and so forth (but si→ shi, ti→ chi, tu→ tsu, hu→ fu, wi→ i, we→ e, wo→ o). Of the 50 theoretically possible combinations, yi, ye, and wu are completely unused. On the w row, ゐ and ゑ, pronounced and respectively, are uncommon in modern Japanese, while を, pronounced , is common as a particle but otherwise rare. Strictly speaking, the singular consonant is considered to be outside the gojūon.
These basic characters can be modified in various ways. By adding a dakuten marker ( ゛), a Obstruent is turned into a sonorant: k→ g, ts/s→ z, t→ d, h/f→ b and ch/ sh→ j (also u→ v(u)). For example, か ( ka) becomes が ( ga). Hiragana beginning with an h (or f) sound can also add a handakuten marker ( ゜) changing the h ( f) 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 ( 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 , saka, "hill" with , sakka, "author". However, it cannot be used to double an n – for this purpose, the singular n (ん) is added in front of the syllable, as in みんな ( minna, "all"). The sokuon also sometimes appears at the end of utterances, where it denotes a glottal stop, as in (, "Ouch!").
Two hiragana have pronunciations that depend on the context:
Hiragana usually spells 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 , rāmen, but this usage is considered non-standard in Japanese. However, 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 (, haa, , nee). Plain (clear) and voiced iteration marks are written in hiragana as ゝ and ゞ, respectively. These marks are rarely used nowadays.
| +Hiragana syllabograms | ||||||||
| ん n | kashiko | koto | / sama | nari | / mairasesoro | ゟ yori |
| ゙ goto | ||||||
| っ (indicates a geminate consonant) | ー (indicates a long vowel) | ゝ (reduplicates and unvoices syllable) | 〱 (reduplicates and unvoices syllable) |
| ゞ (reduplicates and voices syllable) | 〱゙ (reduplicates and voices syllable) | ||
| ゝ゚ (reduplicates and moves a h- or b-row syllable to the p-row) | 〱゚ (reduplicates and moves a h- or b-row syllable to the p-row) |
In many accents, the j and z sounds are pronounced as ( and , respectively) at the beginning of utterances and fricatives in the middle of words. For example, sūji 'number', zasshi 'magazine'.
The singular n is pronounced before m, b and p, before t, ch, ts, n, r, z, j and d, before k and g, at the end of utterances, and some kind of Close vowel nasal vowel before vowels, palatal approximants ( y), and fricative consonants ( s, sh, h, f and w).
In kanji readings, the diphthongs ou and ei are usually pronounced (long o) and (long e) respectively. For example, (lit. toukyou) is pronounced 'Tokyo', and sensei is 'teacher'. However, tou is pronounced 'to inquire', because the o and u are considered distinct, u being the verb ending in the dictionary form. Similarly, shite iru is pronounced , present progressive form of ( suru, "to do").
In archaic forms of Japanese, there existed the kwa (くゎ ) and gwa (ぐゎ ) digraphs. In modern Japanese, these phonemes have been phased out of usage.
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 .
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 . Similarly, tsukau (使う/遣う; 'to use') is spelled in hiragana, so kanazukai (仮名遣い; 'kana use', or 'kana orthography') is spelled in hiragana. However, there are cases where ぢ and づ are not used, such as the word for 'lightning', inazuma (稲妻). The first component, 稲, meaning 'rice plant', is written いな ( ina). The second component, 妻 (etymologically 夫), meaning 'spouse', is pronounced ( tsuma) when standalone or often as づま (zuma) when following another syllable, such in 人妻 ( hitozuma, 'married woman'). Even though these components of 稲妻 are etymologically linked to 'lightning', it is generally arduous for a contemporary speaker to consciously perceive inazuma as separable into two discrete words. Thus, the default spelling is used instead of . Other examples include kizuna () and sakazuki (). Although these rules were officially established by a Cabinet Notice in 1986 revising the modern kana usage, they have sometimes faced criticism due to their perceived arbitrariness.
Officially, ぢ and づ do not occur word-initially pursuant to modern spelling rules. There were words such as 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 . However, zura 'wig' (from katsura) and zuke (a sushi term for lean tuna soaked in soy sauce) are examples of word-initial づ today.
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.).
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 such as kin'en 'smoking forbidden', kinen 'commemoration', 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 Jun'ichirō pronounced
There are a few hiragana that are rarely used. Outside of Okinawan orthography, ゐ wi and ゑ we are only used in some proper names. 𛀁 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 and Transliteration words are usually written in katakana, where the corresponding character would be written as ヴ. The digraphs , , for ja/ ju/ jo are theoretically possible in rendaku, but are nearly never used in modern kana usage; for example, the word 夫婦茶碗, meoto-jawan (couple bowls), spelled , where 茶碗 alone is spelled ( chawan).
The myu kana is extremely rare in originally Japanese words; linguist Haruhiko Kindaichi raises the example of the Japanese family name Omamyūda and claims it is the only occurrence amongst pure Japanese words. Its katakana counterpart is used in many loanwords, however.
| Hiragana | え | 𛀁 |
| Katakana | 𛀀 | エ |
While hiragana and katakana letters for "ye" were used for a short period after the advent of kana, the distinction between /ye/ and /e/ disappeared before glyphs could become established.
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 , "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, thus hiragana was first widely used among court women in the writing of personal communications and literature. From this comes the alternative name of "women's writing". For example, The Tale of Genji and other early novels by female authors used hiragana extensively or exclusively. Even today, hiragana is felt to have a feminine quality.p. 108. Kataoka, Kuniyoshi. 1997. "Affect and letter writing: unconventional conventions in casual writing by young Japanese women". Language in Society 26:103–136.
Male authors came to write literature using hiragana. Hiragana was used for unofficial writing such as personal letters, while katakana and kanji 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 .
The pangram poem Iroha-uta ("ABC song/poem"), which dates to the 10th century, uses every hiragana once (except n ん, which was a variant of む before the Muromachi era).
The Unicode block for Hiragana is U+3040–U+309F:
The Unicode hiragana block contains precomposed characters for all hiragana in the modern set, including small vowels and yōon kana for compound syllables as well as the rare ゐ wi and ゑ we; the archaic 𛀁 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 (including the rare ゔ vu), 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):
The Unicode block for Kana Extended-B is U+1AFF0–U+1AFFF:
The Unicode block for Small Kana Extension is U+1B130–U+1B16F:
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 . As of Unicode , these character combinations are explicitly called out as Named Sequences:
| +Hiragana named sequences Unicode Named Character Sequences Database |
| か゚ |
| き゚ |
| く゚ |
| け゚ |
| こ゚ |
|
|
