Japanese is the national language of Japanese society. And was born through a very lengthy process in the ancient times of China, it can be seen from the letters that are similar to the letter china.
Japanese letters there are 3 kinds: hiragana, katakana and kanji.The letters are in use in Japanese society daily.
Basically, hiragana and katakana characters sound the same butdifferent from his writings, while the kanji, the writing is verycomplex and the sound was quite a lot of letters from a series ofhiragana.
Hiragana letters are letters that have one word or two words inroman letters such as: a, i, u, e, o
ka, ki, ku, to, ko
sa, shi, su, se, so,
and so on ...
And most importantly, hiragana letters in use when kanji can notbe read, then write your letter will hiragananya. Surviving lettersinto a word and can be written by kanji.
Letter katakana, hiragana sounds similar to but different writing.This letter word used in the absorption of foreign language, or towrite the name of a stranger.
Kanji, the characters are complex, need special skills to be able to write or even read it. In my experience, Japanese people werethere who can not read kanji at a certain level, because the levels of education that teaches the letter was based on a certain level.
Katakana
Katakana is a Japanese syallabary, and one of components of the Japanese writing system. The word katakana means "fragmentary kana," as the katakana scripts are derived from components of more complex kanji. Each kana represents one mora. Like hiragana, eachkana in katakana is either a vowels as "i"; a consonant followed by a vowel such as "ki"; or a nasal sonorant, "n." Although katakana is similar in structure to hiragana, they have very different uses. The hiragana system is only used for Japanese language words for which kanji does not cover, while the katakana syllabary is primarily used for the transcription of foriegn language words into Japanese and the writing of loan words. Katakana can also be used to express imphasis of a Japanese word as well as having many other written uses.Writing System
The Katakana writing system is very similar to the Hirgana one. See if you can notice the relationship between the two below. There are 48 katakana characters.- 39 distinct consonant-vowel combinations
- 5 singular vowels
- 1 singular consonant
- 1 particle that is pronounced as a vowel in contemporary Japanese
- 2 consonant-vowel combinations that are pronounced as vowels and are obsolete in contemporary Japanese
Yoon
As in Hiragana, Yoon can aslo be represented in Katakana by using akana ending in "i" plus a smaller than normal version of one of the three y kana,"ya", "yu" or "yo". By adding a small y kana to a syllable, it can change the meaning of a word. To the left is a chart depicting all of the possible Katakana-yoon combinations. *Dakuten and Handakuten also apply to Katakana.Katakana Origins
Katakana was developed in the early Heian Period from parts of Chinese characters as a form of shorthand. The table below shows the origins of each katakana: the red markings of the original Chinese character eventually became each corresponding symbol. Recent findings by a scholar suggest the possibility that the kana system may have been originated in the eighth century on the Korean Peninsula and introduced to Japan through Buddhist monks and texts. However this hypothesis is questioned by many scholars. Look at this chart and see if you can notice the resemblence between the original Chinese characters and their Katakana counterparts.
Links
[Homepage][Hiragana][Katakana][Kanji][References and Links]Brian Kirk 4/21/2011
