Hiragana

Introduction

Hiragana is one of the Japanese alphabets, and learning it is the basis for writing and reading Japanese, as many words and grammatical syntaxes use it.

They are also known as Japanese syllabaries because they do not represent letters (as we know from the English alphabet) but syllables.

Their shapes were inspired by Kanji, but unlike Kanji, they allow the Japanese language to be transcribed without ambiguity.
Each hiragana represents a syllable, which can be a single vowel (such as あ = a) or a consonant followed by a vowel (such as か = ka).
Whereas a Kanji can have several different readings and meanings (see the list of Kanji).

Usage

In theory, it would be possible to write only in Hiragana. In practice, however, this is not the case, because the text produced would be virtually illegible, and it would be difficult to distinguish between words and between different grammatical particles.

Hiragana are used to write:

• Japanese words not written in Kanji, for example particles such as から (kara) and suffixes such as さん (-san)
• grammatical particles: は (wa), を (wo), が (ga) etc ...
• Japanese words written in Kanji that are either unknown to the author or part of the readership, or considered too formal
• Okurigana, i.e. the end of a word or verb
• Furigana, i.e. the pronunciation of a Kanji

Classification

Basically, Hiragana consists of a set of fundamental characters: the Gojūon (literally ‘fifty sounds’, although only 46 remain today).
In addition, some Hiragana can be modified or combined to form other sounds, these sets are: the Dakuon, the Handakuon and the Yōon.

Gojūon

See the list of Gojūon.

Dakuon & Handakuon

The dakuten ゛(also called tenten) is put at the top right of a Hiragana (like a superscript).
The Hiragana on which the dakuten can be added are : か (ka), き (ki), く (ku), け (ke), こ (ko), さ (sa), し (shi), す (su), せ (se), そ (so), た (ta), ち (chi), つ (tsu), て (te), と (to), は (ha), ひ (hi), ふ (fu), へ (he), ほ (ho).

For example, adding a dakuten to the Hiragana は (ha) will give ば (ba).

The handakuten ゜(also called maru) is like the dakuten, it looks like the degree symbol and is also placed at the top right of a hiragana.
Hiragana on which the handakuten can be added are: は (ha), ひ (hi), ふ (fu), へ (he), ほ (ho).

For example, adding a handakuten to the Hiragana は (ha) will give ぱ (pa).

See the list of Dakuon & Handakuon.

Yōon

The Hiragana combination will always include 2 characters.
The first Hiragana will be among: き (ki), ぎ (gi), し (shi), じ (ji), ち (chi), に (ni), ひ (hi), び (bi), ぴ (pi), み (mi), り (ri).
The second Hiragana that forms the composition will be among: や (ya), ゆ (yu), よ (yo). It will be written smaller.

For example, the combination of Hiragana き (ki) and や (ya) will give きゃ (kya).

See the list of Yōon.