Japanese writing system

The modern Japanese writing system uses a special mix of symbols to write words and ideas. It combines logographic kanji characters from Chinese characters with two types of syllabic symbols called kana.

One type of kana is hiragana, used for everyday Japanese words and grammar. The other is katakana, used for foreign words, names, sounds that mimic actions, and scientific terms. Almost every written Japanese sentence includes both kanji and kana.

There are several thousand kanji characters that people use regularly. Many come from old Chinese writing, but some were created in Japan. Schoolchildren in Japan must learn important kanji characters. In total, there are many kanji, though many are very old and rarely used now.

Hiragana and katakana each have basic symbols, and each symbol stands for a specific sound in Japanese. Unlike kanji, these symbols only show sounds and do not mean anything by themselves. They also came from Chinese characters but have been simplified.

Books for young children often leave out kanji because kids usually learn them later. Early computers, phones, and video games also sometimes avoided kanji because they were hard to display. In some cases, Japanese uses letters from the Latin alphabet, like in words such as "BC/AD" or "CD". Romanized Japanese is used mostly by people learning the language or for typing on computers.

Use of scripts

Kanji are characters taken from Chinese writing used in Japanese. They help write common words, like nouns such as 川 (kawa, "river") and 学校 (gakkō, "school").

Kana are syllabic scripts split into two types: hiragana and katakana. Hiragana is mainly used for native Japanese words and grammar, while katakana is used for foreign words, names, and onomatopoeia. Both hiragana and katakana came from simplified Chinese characters.

The Latin alphabet and Arabic numerals are also used in Japanese writing, mainly for foreign words, acronyms, and numbers.

Collation

Collation, or word ordering, in Japanese uses kana to show how words sound, not the kanji. There are two common ways to order kana: the gojūon (fifty-sound) order and the older iroha order. Kanji dictionaries are often arranged using the radical system, but there are other systems like SKIP as well.

Direction of writing

Main article: Horizontal and vertical writing in East Asian scripts

Japanese can be written in two ways. The old way is called tategaki. In this way, words are written up and down in columns, and the columns go from right to left. When you finish a column, you move to the next column on the left.

Today, Japanese also uses a way called yokogaki. This is like English, where words go from left to right across the page. Books in tategaki open with the spine on the right, while books in yokogaki open with the spine on the left.

Spacing and punctuation

See also: Japanese punctuation

Japanese is usually written without spaces between words. The text can move to the next line without breaking at word edges. This style started from Chinese writing, where each symbol stands for a word. In Japanese, readers need to decide where one word ends and another begins by thinking about what makes sense.

Words from other languages, written in katakana, might use a special mark called 中黒 (nakaguro; "middle dot") to help readers. Japanese uses a full stop (。) and a comma (、) much like in English. Question marks (？) are used in informal writing or dialogue, while exclamation marks (！) are for informal use only.

History of the Japanese script

Importation of kanji

Main article: Kanji § History

Japan first saw Chinese characters around the 1st century AD, maybe with a special gold seal. But Japanese people didn’t learn to read Chinese until about the 4th century AD.

At first, Chinese characters weren’t used to write Japanese. They were used like a special system called kanbun, which looked like Classical Chinese but had small marks to show Japanese meaning. Old wooden tablets from the 7th and 8th centuries show both Chinese and early Japanese writing. Japan’s first history book, the Kojiki, used this kanbun style. Some schools still teach kanbun today.

The development of man'yōgana

Japan didn’t have its own writing system until man'yōgana was created. This system used Chinese characters for their sounds, not their meanings. It was first used for poetry, like in the Man'yōshū collection. The modern Japanese sounds hiragana and katakana came from simplifying man'yōgana.

Because many new words came from China, Japanese used Chinese characters for these words. Each character could be read in different ways depending on the word, called on'yomi (Chinese reading) and kun'yomi (Japanese reading).

Script reforms

Main article: Japanese script reform

Meiji period

Big changes in the 1800s didn’t change Japanese writing at first. But as more people learned to read, the writing system began to change. In 1900, Japan made changes to help teach writing: making hiragana consistent, limiting Chinese characters taught in schools, and fixing some sound rules. People argued about these changes, and one part was stopped in 1908.

Pre–World War II

Even with some changes, like making hiragana simpler, big changes didn’t happen before World War II. Some newspapers used fewer Chinese characters and added reading help called furigana, but this wasn’t official.

Post–World War II

After World War II, many changes happened to Japanese writing. Rules were made to match sounds better, and lists of Chinese characters for schools were created. Some complicated characters were made simpler. Writing also changed from right-to-left to left-to-right.

These changes mostly stayed, but some rules were relaxed later. In 2004, more characters were allowed for use in names. In 2010, the list of recommended characters grew to 2,136.

Romanization

Main article: Romanization of Japanese

Japanese can be written with regular English letters in different ways. The Hepburn method is the most common and is used in Japan and around the world. Another system, called Kunrei-shiki, matches the sounds of Japanese a little closer. For example, Kunrei-shiki writes "ち" as "ti" while Hepburn writes it as "chi". There are also other systems like Nihon-shiki, JSL, and Wāpuro rōmaji.

Lettering styles

• East Asian sans-serif typeface
• Edomoji
• Shodō
• Minchō

Variant writing systems

• Gyaru-moji
• Hentaigana
• Man'yōgana