In early Japan,the ancestors of the Japanese people,did
not have their own true written language or alphabet.
Historians believe that Buddhism was introduced into Japan in 538AD.
With the introduction of Buddhism came the CHINESE written characters called
Kanji .
kanji
Each Kanji has its own meaning and sound in Chinese,but Japanese people at first adopted only each meaning and pronounced according to theJapanese tongue.
The Man'yoshu,which was compiled in the mid-8th century,contains about 4,500 waka(short poems);yet most are written with Kanji which had randomly been assigned phonetic sounds.
The early Japanese used these CHINESE writing symbols "
Kanji ",to create their own language characters called "Kana".
The ancestral people of Japan,during the 10th and 11th
centuries wanted to develop their own identity, and so began the evolution
of the true Japanese Language using Japanese characters(Kana).
"Kana"characters,used in the Japanese Language,can be of two types," Hiragana "and" Katakana ".
"Hiragana"is a modification of CHINESE characters or "Kanji"
.
hiragana
"Katakana"is a fragment of CHINESE characters or "Kanji".
katakana
"Kana"characters is similar to the alphabet,where
each character has a sound,but by itself the character has no actual meaning.
"Kanji"are characters that have their own meaning
and sounds(similar to a word root in Greek or Latin)
So in effect,the Written Language of Japan,is a combination
of Kanji,Hiragana,and Katakana.
However,many Kanji are not necessarily used in daily life
today.
About 2,000 characters(Kanji)have been designated as JOYOKANJI(common used
Kanji) in common use.
Since each individual Kanji and Kana has its own meaning
and function,they could be arranged either vertically or horizontally without
losing their meaning.
Most books sold in stores are set in vertical text.
However as young pepole today find no difficulty reading or writing Japanese
in horizontal lines.
This horizontal style will become increasingly common in the future.
You can see under the diagram the process by which Kanji
are transformed into Hiragana and Katakana.
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