Japanese writing system

is a Japanese syllabary, part of the Japanese writing system, along with katakana as well as kanji (Chinese characters).

Kanji (; , hiragana: かんじ, Katakana: カンジ, , ) are logographic Chinese characters, historically adapted from Chinese writing scripts, used in the writing of Japanese. They comprised a major part of the Japanese writing system during the time of Old Japanese and are still used today, along with the subsequently derived syllabic (phonographic) scripts of and . Most Kanji characters have two pronunciations: ''kun'yomi, based on the sounds of vernacular Japanese, where the Kanji is often phonetically transcribed with furigana; and on'yomi, based on the imitation of the original Middle Chinese sound

is a Japanese syllabary, one component of the Japanese writing system along with hiragana, kanji and in some cases the Latin script (known as rōmaji).

thumb|Each of the most popular emoji from the 9 major emoji categories according to the Unicode Emoji Frequency study from 2021, rendered in the Noto Color Emoji font

are syllabaries used to write Japanese phonological units, morae. In current usage, kana most commonly refers to hiragana and katakana. It can also refer to their ancestor , which were Chinese characters used phonetically to transcribe Japanese (e.g. ''man'yōgana); and hentaigana'', which are historical variants of the now-standard hiragana.

various writing systems used Japanese, using or mixing Hiragana, Katakana and Kanji characters, inherited or derived from Chinese ideographic characters

Japanese language written in Latin script

system of Japanese romanization

is an ancient writing system that uses Chinese characters to represent the Japanese language. It was the first known kana system to be developed as a means to represent the Japanese language phonetically. The date of the earliest usage of this type of kana is not clear, but it was in use since at least the mid-7th century. The name "man'yōgana" derives from the ''Man'yōshū, a Japanese poetry anthology from the Nara period written with man'yōgana.''

is a Japanese reading aid consisting of smaller kana (syllabic characters) printed either above or next to kanji (logographic characters) or other characters to indicate their pronunciation. It is one type of ruby text. Furigana is also known as and in Japanese. In modern Japanese, it is usually used to gloss rare kanji, to clarify rare, nonstandard or ambiguous kanji readings, or in children's or learners' materials. Before the post-World War II script reforms, it was more widespread.

set of common kanji taught in schools and allowed in government documents

The is a Japanese poem. Originally the poem was attributed to Kūkai, the founder of Shingon Buddhism, but more modern research has found the date of composition to be later in the Heian period (794–1179). The first record of its existence dates from 1079. It is famous because it is a perfect pangram, containing each character of the Japanese syllabary exactly once. Because of this, it is also used as an ordering for the syllabary, in the same way as the A, B, C, D... sequence of the Latin alphabet.

, also known as the Monbusho system (named after the endonym for the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology) or MEXT system, is a romanization system for transcribing the Japanese language into the Latin alphabet. Its name is rendered in the system itself. It is taught in the Monbushō-approved elementary school curriculum. The ISO has standardized under ISO 3602.

are kana suffixes following kanji stems in Japanese written words. They serve two purposes: to inflect adjectives and verbs, and to force a particular kanji to have a specific meaning and be read a certain way. For example, the plain verb form (miru, "see") inflects to past tense (mita, "saw"), where is the kanji stem, and る and た are okurigana, written in hiragana script. With very few exceptions, okurigana are used only with kun'yomi (native Japanese readings), not with on'yomi (Chinese readings), as Chinese morphemes do not inflect in Japanese, and their pronunciation is inferred from conte

In the Japanese writing system, are variant forms of hiragana.

small characters placed aside a Chinese or Japanese characters to precise their pronunciation or to transliterate them into another script

is a romanization system for transliterating the Japanese language into the Latin alphabet. Among the major romanization systems for Japanese, it is the most regular one and has an almost one-to-one relation to the kana writing system. Its name is rendered Nihonsiki in the system itself.

conventional order in which CJKV characters should be written

thumb|The kanji for Tasuki (sash)|tasuki, a kokuji, with [[furigana above.]] In Japanese, or are kanji created in Japan rather than borrowed from China. Like most Chinese characters, they are primarily formed by combining existing characters—though using combinations that are not used in Chinese.

Kanbun ( 'Han writing') is a system for writing Literary Chinese used in Japan from the Nara period until the 20th century. Much of Japanese literature was written in this style and it was the general writing style for official and intellectual works throughout the period. As a result, Sino-Japanese vocabulary makes up a large portion of the Japanese lexicon and much classical Chinese literature is accessible to Japanese readers in some resemblance of the original.

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system of transcription of the Japanese language into Russian Cyrillic script

writing conventions

Katakana letter small Ke (U+30F6); abbreviation for the Kanji character 箇 or 個, pronounced /ka/ as a counter, or /ga/ as a conjunction

typographic mark used in Chinese, Japanese, and Korean writing

set of pictograms once used in the Yaeyama Islands of southwestern Japan

“characters [moji] of the Age [dai] of the Gods [jin]”, scripts claimed to be from Japanese antiquity, but considered by epigraphic scholars to be mythological forgeries and beliefs

thumb|right|350px|Different regions distinguish different sets of sounds. Using [[Nihon-shiki romanization:

thumb|upright|Sign reading "umbrella stand" (, kasa-oki, standard form , showing ryakuji form of : ( + ), with inner omitted. Compare simplified Chinese . thumb|240px|Price tag reading ¥400, (bargain item), showing ryakuji form of , with bottom squares connected

loss of character memory in Chinese speakers

or is a style of obfuscated (cant) Japanese writing popular amongst urban Japanese youth. As the name suggests ( meaning "gal"), this writing system was created by and remains primarily employed by young women.

method used to input Japanese characters on a computer

is a form of Japanese Internet slang which first appeared around 2009.

ATOK (; ) is a Japanese input method editor (IME) produced by JustSystems, a Japanese software company.

(or '''''' are Japanese typefaces invented for advertising during the Edo period. The main styles of are , found on paper lanterns outside restaurants; , used to label and drinks like and ; , literally "cage letters"; , a thick and rectangular seal script; , often used on flyers for performances such as kabuki and ; and , a mix of and .

romanization of Japanese originally devised for entering Japanese into word processors (wāpuro)

non-alphanumeric marks in Japanese

application of the Cyrillic script to write the Japanese language

thumb|Chart showing various Japanese characters in their ''man'yōgana, sogana (red) and hiragana'' forms.

archaic kana orthography system used to write Japanese during the Nara period

Historical orthography of the Okinawan language

thumb|Ibus anthy on gedit Anthy () is a package for an input method editor backend for Unix-like systems for the Japanese language. It can convert Hiragana to Kanji as per the language rules. As a preconversion stage, Latin characters (Romaji) can be used to input Hiragana. Anthy is commonly used with an input method framework such as ibus, fcitx or SCIM.

Japanese written language

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thumb|right|250px|Example of warazan at the Museum of Science, Tokyo University of Science thumb|right|250px|Instruction to use warazan to record the level of tax assessed, in the Yaeyama-jima Kuramoto Kujichō (1873 copy of the 1857 original); the fourth to sixth characters in the fifth line from the right read「わら算」(University of the Ryukyus Library) was a system of record-keeping using knotted straw at the time of the Ryūkyū Kingdom. In the Southern Ryukyuan languages of the Sakishima Islands it was known as barazan and on Okinawa Island as warazani or warazai. Formerly used in particular in