Japanese (Nihongo)

Before the 4th century AD, the Japanese had no writing system of their own. During the 4th century they began to import and adapt the Chinese script, along with many other aspects of Chinese culture, probably via Korea.

At first the Japanese wrote in Classical Chinese or in a Japanese-Chinese hybrid style. An example of the hybrid style is the kojiki (Records of Antiquity) written in 712 AD. They then started to use Chinese characters to write Japanese in a style known as man'yōgana, literarly "Ten Thousand leaf syllabic script", which used the characters for their phonetic values.

Over time a writing system emerged in which Chinese characters were used to write either words borrowed from Chinese or Japanese words with the same or similar meanings. Chinese characters were also used for their phonetic values to write grammatical elements and these characters were simplified and eventually became two syllabic scripts, hiragana and katakana.

Japanese literature reached a high point during the 11th century with the Genji Monogatari (Tale of Genji) by Lady Murasaki Shikibu. Many other Japanese literary works were also written by women.

Modern Japanese is written with a mixture of hiragana and katakana, plus kanji. Modern Japanese texts may also include rōmaji, (Roman letters), the standard way of writing Japanese with the Latin alphabet, eimoji (English script), non-Japanese words written in their own script and various symbols known as kigō.

Sample text in Japanese

Transliteration (rōmaji)
Subete no ningen wa, umare nagara ni shite jiyū de ari, katsu, songen to kenri to ni tsuite byōdō de aru. Ningen wa, risei to ryōshin o sazukerareteari, tagai ni dōhō no seishin o motte kōdōshinakerebanaranai.

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Translation

All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.
(Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights)

Japanese Translation

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Longer text sample (Tower of Babel)

Useful phrases in Japanese

Japanese language courses, dictionaries, etc.

Other sections

Origin of writing in Japan, Hiragana, Katakana, Kanji, Rōmaji, Japanese language, Useful Japanese phrases, Links

Other semanto-phonetic writing systems

Ancient Egyptian, Chinese, Chữ-nôm, Japanese, Jurchen, Khitan, Linear B, Mayan, Naxi, Tangut (Hsihsia)

Rocket Japanese

Learn to understand, speak, read and write real Japanese

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