ひらがな

Hiragana

Around the 9th century, the Japanese developed their own writing system based on syllables: hiragana and katakana (together: kana). Of the two kana systems, hiragana is more cursive, while katakana characters are more angular.

Hiragana and katakana each consist of 46 signs which originally were kanji but were simplified over the centuries. Among the syllables are the five vowels (a i u e o). The rest are syllables combined by one of these vowels with a consonant (ka ki ku ke ko ra ri ru re ro...). One exception is the n. Even though one can theoretically write the whole language in hiragana.

Hiragana is the first of all the writing systems taught to Japanese children. Many books for young children are, therefore, written in hiragana only.