Hiragana

Japanese writing is divided into 4 styles: two syllabaries, Hiragana (平仮名) and Katakana, the chinese characters known as kanji and the roman characters known as romaji.

Hiragana is phonetic and it is used mainly for representing words native to Japanese (such as "ねこ" ("neko"), which means cat) or borrowed centuries ago from Chinese (such as "めん" ("men"), which means noodles). It is also used for particles and verb endings. To write foreign or onomatopaeic words, katakana is used. However, to give a "cute" appearance, or for text for very young children, hiragana is very often used in place of katakana. It is made of 46 characters, which consist mostly of vowels and vowel-consonant combinations such as "ka" or "hi", but include one symbol for a lone consonant, which sounds like the English "m" or "n"*. Two diacritics plus the use of digraphs greatly increase the number of possible sounds.

Hiragana formed from the practice which developed in the 8th century CE of using Chinese characters exclusively for their phonetic meanings. Literature was transcribed using a reduced set of characters. Eventually, the symbols were simplified, and the set reduced. The result was Hiragana. Hiragana was not accepted by everyone. Many felt that the language of the educated was still Chinese. However it gained in popularity among women as they were not allowed higher education. Eventually, it became used by everyone.

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

If you have a font including Japanese characters, you can view the following hiragana chart:

(Vowels are pronounced as in Spanish, except that 'u' is not rounded.)

base Kana

extended with diacritics

a:

あ

i:

い

u:

う

e:

え

o:

お

ka:

か

ki:

き

ku:

く

ke:

け

ko:

こ

ga:

が

gi:

ぎ

gu:

ぐ

ge:

げ

go:

ご

sa:

さ

shi/si:

し

su:

す

se:

せ

so:

そ

za:

ざ

ji**/zi:

じ

zu**:

ず

ze:

ぜ

zo:

ぞ

ta:

た

chi/ti:

ち

tsu/tu:

つ

te:

て

to:

と

da:

だ

ji/di:

ぢ

zu/du:

づ

de:

で

do:

ど

na:

な

ni:

に

nu:

ぬ

ne:

ね

no:

の

ha:

は

hi:

ひ

fu/hu:

ふ

he:

へ

ho:

ほ

ba:

ば

bi:

び

bu:

ぶ

be:

べ

bo:

ぼ

pa:

ぱ

pi:

ぴ

pu:

ぷ

pe:

ぺ

po:

ぽ

ma:

ま

mi:

み

mu:

む

me:

め

mo:

も

ya:

や

yu:

ゆ

yo:

よ

ra:

ら

ri:

り

ru:

る

re:

れ

ro:

ろ

wa:

わ

wo:

を

n*:

ん

In the table above, if there are two romanizations given for a kana, the former is the Hepburn, and the latter is the Kunrei. If there is only one romanization for a kana, the romanization is the same in both systems.

The Unicode standard also includes a few characters which are not in the standard modern set. These characters: WE (ゐ), WI (ゑ), VU (ゔ) may not be displayable in some web browsers. The "WE" and "WI" kana are obsolete, and the "VU" kana is relatively modern.

^* This "n" is the nasal syllable of Japanese.

^** There are two symbols for "ji" and two symbols for "zu". Since the author is a terrible speller in Japanese, he cannot help you further here. But suffice it to say that the two are generally NOT interchangeable. The more common variants are じ for "ji"; and ず for "zu".

If you want to get more sounds out of these kana, try this: These three kana, ゃ, ゅ, and ょ, are respectively, small "ya", small "yu", and small "yo". Combine them with any of the kana ki, shi, chi, ni, etc., to get special sounds. Examples: ki + small ya = kya (きゃ), shi + small yo = sho (しょ)

The "small tsu" (っ) is used to double a following consonant (but never the consonant "n"). For instance, the city of Sapporo would have its name written in hiragana as さっぽろ.

There are ways to get even more sounds out of hiragana, using "small" versions of the five vowel kana. However, this is not really "proper" Japanese, and it is used mainly to make katakana words look cute.

NOTE: If trying to write a Japanese name into kana, remember that you need the original Japanese writing or pronunciation, not an anglicization. English romanization of names are often technically incorrect. For instance, a man may be named Keiichiro (anglicized version), but in kana it is けいいちろう (ke-i-i-chi-ro-u). (Note the final "u" kana.) This problem also goes with names of places: Tokyo is とうきょう.

BTW: IN Kunrei style, if something like "o" is elongated, you simply add a ^ on top of the "o" to notify of it's elongation. This is sometimes also done in Hepburn style.