hiragana
Sign in to saveis a Japanese syllabary, part of the Japanese writing system, along with katakana as well as kanji (Chinese characters).
AI overview
Hiragana is a Japanese alphabet made up of syllables (rather than individual letters) and is one of three main writing systems used in Japanese, alongside katakana and kanji. It matters because it's essential for reading and writing Japanese, as it's used to write native Japanese words and grammatical elements that kanji alone cannot express.
AI-generated from the Wikipedia summary — may contain errors.
Key facts
- Writing system.name
- Hiragana
- Writing system.type
- Syllabary
- Writing system.languages
- Japanese, Hachijō and the Ryukyuan languages
- Writing system.time
- present
- Writing system.fam1
- Oracle bone script
- Writing system.fam2
- Seal script
- Writing system.fam3
- Clerical script
- Writing system.fam4
- Regular script (kanji)
- Writing system.fam5
- Man'yōgana
- Writing system.sisters
- Katakana, Hentaigana
- Writing system.iso15924
- Hira
- Writing system.sample
- ひ 教科書体.svg
Article
21 sectionsContents
- Writing system
- Table of hiragana
- Spelling–phonology correspondence
- Spelling rules
- Obsolete kana
- Hentaigana
- Polysyllabic kana
- ''e'' and ''i''
- ''yi'', ''ye'' and ''wu''
- ''yi''
- ''ye''
- ''wu''
- History
- Stroke order and direction
- Unicode
- See also
- References
- Citations
- Sources
- Notes
- External links
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).