Hiragana

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Kanji, katakana….Can Japanese really have a need for one more alphabet? Indeed. And it’s called hiragana. So what is hiragana exactly? Hiragana is a Japanese alphabet where each symbol represents a sound, not a word. It differs from katakana, though, in that it is used for words of Japanese origin (not foreign words, as katakana is used for), and for which there are no kanji symbols.

Even if there is a kanji character for a particular Japanese word, if the writer himself doesn’t know the kanji symbol, he will simply sound out the word using the hiragana alphabet. This is also done if the writer assumes his audience wouldn’t recognize a particular kanji symbol. Since there is a degree of formality when using the Chinese symbols, the hiragana alphabet helps to make the writing less formal.

As with katakana, there are two ways of ordering the 46 letters. (Yes, gulp…there are 46 letters in this alphabet.) The old system is called the iroha, and the new way is called the gojuon order. These are the same terms used for the old and new orderings of the katakana letters.

Hiragana first started being used by women, due to their lower levels of education at the time. Entire novels written by women were done with only hiragana. Soon, male authors began writing this way as well. Hiragana was also used for people’s letters, whereas katakana and kanji were used for important, official documents and such. Nowadays, hiragana and katakana will be mixed, depending on what needs to be sounded out (a Japanese word or a foreign word.)

All this might seem overwhelming at first. Four alphabets? Two orders for each? Borrowed words, multiple meanings? Maybe I should just learn Spanish! No. Don’t think that way. It’s really not as complicated a system as it seems. Again, in summary (if you haven’t read the other articles on my site):

* Kanji are the fancy Chinese characters.

* Katakana are the angular letters used for non-Japanese words.

* Hiragana are used for Japanese words that either don’t have kanji characters, or when no one can remember the darn Chinese character.

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