What is the ancient human-made Japanese Kana script?(1)
Today we will explore the Japanese written kana scripts including hiragana and katakana.
(This is a 2 part article)
Japanese kana, including hiragana and katakana, are examples of derived scripts with a clear historical lineage. Here’s an overview:
- Created By: Japanese Buddhist monks and scribes.
- Date: ~8th–10th centuries AD.
Hiragana
- Origin: Derived from cursive forms of Chinese characters (specifically, a style called caoshu or “grass script”).*
- Purpose: Used primarily by women in early Japan for personal writing, poetry, and letters, as men traditionally used Chinese characters (kanji) for formal texts.
- Attestation: Early texts like The Tale of Genji (11th century AD), written by Murasaki Shikibu, showcase the use of hiragana.
Katakana
- Origin: Developed from fragments of Chinese characters, extracted by Buddhist monks to annotate Chinese sutras for pronunciation and grammatical guidance.
- Purpose: Initially a scholarly tool but later adopted for foreign words, technical terms, and emphasis in modern Japanese.
- Attestation: Found in Buddhist texts and annotations from the Heian period (~9th century AD).
*Cursive script (caoshu), sometimes known as “grass” script, developed around the end of the Han dynasty (220 CE). Although the basic elements of cursive script matured in the third and fourth centuries, important innovations continued until the middle of the Tang dynasty (618-907).
Explore the ancient Kana script of Japan (To be continued)
Continue reading here’s part 2!