Hiragana (平仮名 1=Hiragana<span class=t nihongo icon style='color:) are a Japanese Syllabary, one of the three main Japanese writing systems, along with Katakana and Kanji. Hiragana and katakana are both Kana systems, in which each symbol represents one mora. Each kana is either a vowel (such as a あ), a consonant followed by a vowel (such as ka か), or ん, a consonant which sounds like English "m" or "n".
Hiragana are used for words for which there are no kanji, for example particles such as kara から and suffixes such as ~san さん. Hiragana are also used for words for which the kanji form is not known to the writer, is not expected to be known to the readers, or is too formal for the writing purpose. Verb and adjective inflections, for example in tabemashita (食べました 1=tabemashita<span class=t nihongo icon style='color:), are written in hiragana. Hiragana are also used to give the pronunciation of kanji in a reading aid called Furigana. The article Japanese writing system discusses in detail when the various systems of writing are used.
There are two main systems of ordering hiragana, the old-fashioned Iroha ordering, and the more prevalent gojūon ordering.
In informal writing small versions of the five vowel kana are sometimes used to represent trailing off sounds (はぁ, ねぇ).
There are a few hiragana which are rarely used. Wi ゐ and we ゑ are obsolete. Vu ゔ is a relatively modern addition and is pronounced as bwu or [βu] to approximate the "v" sound in foreign languages such as English. It is rarely seen because transliterated words are usually written in Katakana.
| vowels | yōon | ||||||
| あ a | い i | う u | え e | お o | (ya) | (yu) | (yo) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| か ka | き ki | く ku | け ke | こ ko | きゃ kya | きゅ kyu | きょ kyo |
| さ sa | し shi | す su | せ se | そ so | しゃ sha | しゅ shu | しょ sho |
| た ta | ち chi | つ tsu | て te | と to | ちゃ cha | ちゅ chu | ちょ cho |
| な na | に ni | ぬ nu | ね ne | の no | にゃ nya | にゅ nyu | にょ nyo |
| は ha | ひ hi | ふ fu | へ he | ほ ho | ひゃ hya | ひゅ hyu | ひょ hyo |
| ま ma | み mi | む mu | め me | も mo | みゃ mya | みゅ myu | みょ myo |
| や ya | ゆ yu | よ yo | |||||
| ら ra | り ri | る ru | れ re | ろ ro | りゃ rya | りゅ ryu | りょ ryo |
| わ wa | ゐ wi | ゑ we | を o/wo | ||||
| ん n | |||||||
| が ga | ぎ gi | ぐ gu | げ ge | ご go | ぎゃ gya | ぎゅ gyu | ぎょ gyo |
| ざ za | じ ji | ず zu | ぜ ze | ぞ zo | じゃ ja | じゅ ju | じょ jo |
| だ da | ぢ (ji) | づ (zu) | で de | ど do | ぢゃ (ja) | ぢゅ (ju) | ぢょ (jo) |
| ば ba | び bi | ぶ bu | べ be | ぼ bo | びゃ bya | びゅ byu | びょ byo |
| ぱ pa | ぴ pi | ぷ pu | ぺ pe | ぽ po | ぴゃ pya | ぴゅ pyu | ぴょ pyo |
There are two hiragana pronounced ji (じ and ぢ) and two hiragana pronounced zu (ず and づ). These pairs are not interchangeable. Usually, ji is written as じ and zu is written as ず. There are some exceptions. If the first two syllables of a word consist of one syllable without a dakuten and the same syllable with a dakuten, the same hiragana is used to write the sounds. For example chijimeru (‘to boil down’ or ‘to shrink’) is spelled ちぢめる. For compound words where the dakuten reflects Rendaku voicing, the original hiragana is used. For example, chi (血 "blood") is spelled ち in plain hiragana. When 鼻 hana (“nose”) and 血 combine to make hanaji 鼻血 "nose bleed"), the sound of 血changes from chi to ji. So hanaji is spelled はなぢ according to ち: the basic hiragana used to transcribe 血. Similarly, Tsukau (使う; "to use") is spelled つかう in hiragana, so kanazukai (かな使い; "kana use" .. or .. "kana orthography") is spelled かなづかい in hiragana.
However, this does not apply when kanji are used to make words which do not relate directly to their elemental meaning. The Japanese word for ‘lightning’, for example, is inazuma (稲妻). The ‘稲’ component means ‘rice plant’, is written いな in hiragana and is pronounced: ina. The 妻 component means ’wife’ and is pronounced tsuma (つま) when written in isolation or frequently as zuma (ずま) when it features after another syllable. Neither of these components have anything to do with ‘lightning’, but together they do when they compose the word for ‘lightning’. In this case, the default spelling in hiragana いなずま rather than いなづま is used.
Hiragana usually spells long vowels with the addition of a second vowel kana. The chōon (vowel extender mark) (ー) used in katakana is also sometimes used in hiragana, for example in the word らーめん, Ramen.
A word cannot begin with the kana ん (n). This is at the basis of the word game Shiritori. However, n is sometimes directly followed by a vowel. For example, ren'ai 恋愛 ("emotion") is written in hiragana as れんあい rather than れない.
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When they were first created, hiragana were not accepted by everyone. Many felt that the language of the educated was still Chinese. Historically, in Japan, the kaisho form of the characters was used by men, so-called onode (男手 1=onode<span class=t nihongo icon style='color:), "men's writing", and the sōsho form of the kanji was used by women. Thus hiragana first gained popularity among women, who were not allowed access to higher education. From this comes the alternative name of onnade (女手 1=onnade<span class=t nihongo icon style='color:) "women's writing". For example, The Tale of Genji and other early novels by female authors used hiragana extensively or exclusively.
Male authors also wrote literature using hiragana. Hiragana with its flowing style came to be used for unofficial writing such as personal letters while katakana and Chinese were used for official documents. In modern times, hiragana has become preferred over Katakana, which is now relegated to special uses such as borrowed words and names in Transliteration.
Originally, most sounds had more than one hiragana. In 1900, the system was simplified so each sound had only one hiragana. Other hiragana are known as
The poem Iroha-uta ("Song of colours") dating from the 10th century uses every hiragana once:
| いろはにほへと | Iro ha (wa) niho(o)he(e) to(do) | Even if colours have sweet perfume |
| ちりぬるを | chirinuru wo | eventually they fade away |
| わかよたれそ | waka(ga)yo tare so(zo) | What in this world |
| つねならむ | tsune nara mu(n) | is eternal ? |
| うゐのおくやま | u wi(i) no okuyama | The deep mountains of vanity |
| けふこえて | kefu(kyou) koete | I cross them today |
| あさきゆめみし | asaki yume mishi | renouncing the superficial dreams |
| えひもせす | wehi(yoi) mo sesu(zu) | not giving in to their madness any more |
| Hiragana Unicode.org chart (PDF) | ||||||||||||||||
| 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | A | B | C | D | E | F | |
| U+304x | | ぁ | あ | ぃ | い | ぅ | う | ぇ | え | ぉ | お | か | が | き | ぎ | く |
| U+305x | ぐ | け | げ | こ | ご | さ | ざ | し | じ | す | ず | せ | ぜ | そ | ぞ | た |
| U+306x | だ | ち | ぢ | っ | つ | づ | て | で | と | ど | な | に | ぬ | ね | の | は |
| U+307x | ば | ぱ | ひ | び | ぴ | ふ | ぶ | ぷ | へ | べ | ぺ | ほ | ぼ | ぽ | ま | み |
| U+308x | む | め | も | ゃ | や | ゅ | ゆ | ょ | よ | ら | り | る | れ | ろ | ゎ | わ |
| U+309x | ゐ | ゑ | を | ん | ゔ | ゕ | ゖ | | | ゙ | ゚ | ゛ | ゜ | ゝ | ゞ | ゟ |
The Unicode hiragana block contains precomposed characters for all hiragana in the modern set, including small vowels and yōon kana for compound syllables, plus the archaic wi and we and the rare vu. All combinations of hiragana with dakuten and handakuten used in modern Japanese are available as precomposed characters, and can also be produced by using a base hiragana followed by the combining dakuten and handakuten characters (U+3099 and U+309A, respectively). This method is used to add the diacritics to kana that are not normally used with them, for example applying the dakuten to a pure vowel or the handakuten to a kana not in the h-group.
Characters U+3095 and U+3096 are small か (ka) and small け (ke), repectively. U+309F is a digraph of より (yori) occasionally used in vertical text. U+309B and U+309C are spacing (non-combining) equivalents to the combining dakuten and handakuten characters, respectively.
There are no characters at code points U+3040, U+3097, or U+3098.