Man'yōgana
System of writing Japanese based solely on Chinese characters / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Man'yōgana (万葉仮名, Japanese pronunciation: [maɰ̃joꜜːɡana] or [maɰ̃joːɡana]) is an ancient writing system that uses Chinese characters to represent the Japanese language. It was the first known kana system to be developed as a means to represent the Japanese language phonetically. The date of the earliest usage of this type of kana is not clear, but it was in use since at least the mid-7th century. The name "man'yōgana" derives from the Man'yōshū, a Japanese poetry anthology from the Nara period written with man'yōgana.
Man'yōgana 万葉仮名 | |
---|---|
Script type | |
Time period | c. 650 CE to Meiji era |
Direction | Top-to-bottom |
Languages | Japanese and Okinawan |
Related scripts | |
Parent systems | |
Child systems | Hiragana, Katakana |
Sister systems | Contemporary kanji |
This article contains phonetic transcriptions in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, see Help:IPA. For the distinction between [ ], / / and ⟨ ⟩, see IPA § Brackets and transcription delimiters. |
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Texts using the system also often use Chinese characters for their meaning, but man'yōgana refers to such characters only when they are used to represent a phonetic value. The values were derived from the contemporary Chinese pronunciation, but native Japanese readings of the character were also sometimes used. For example, 木 (whose character means 'tree') could represent /mo/ (based on Middle Chinese [məwk]), /ko/, or /kwi/ (meaning 'tree' in Old Japanese).[1]
Simplified versions of man'yōgana eventually gave rise to both the hiragana and katakana scripts, which are used in Modern Japanese.[2]