Hiragana

Hiragana is a Japanese phonetic syllabary and one of the three main writing systems used in Japanese, alongside katakana and kanji.

Hiragana is a Japanese phonetic syllabary and one of the three main writing systems used in Japanese, alongside katakana and kanji. It is used for grammatical elements, native Japanese words, and furigana readings, and is usually the first script taught to children learning Japanese. It consists of 46 basic characters in standard modern usage.

History

Hiragana developed in Japan from simplified and cursive forms of Chinese characters. It became established as part of the kana system, alongside katakana, by around the 9th century.

Usage in Japanese writing

Hiragana is used for grammatical particles, verb and adjective endings, and other function words. It also appears in furigana, where it indicates the reading of kanji, and in children’s books and beginner materials.

Relation to other scripts

Japanese writing commonly combines hiragana, katakana, and kanji. Hiragana is the most cursive of the kana scripts, while katakana is more angular and is often used for loanwords and technical terms.

Learning and literacy

Hiragana is typically the first script taught to Japanese children and to beginning learners of Japanese. Because it can represent the sound structure of Japanese, it is a basic tool for reading and writing.