Hiragana

Hiragana
平仮名
ひらがな
Hiragana; 平仮名; ひらがな
Bansa Urup	Syllabary
Timpuh maya	c. 800 – kemaya tu
Direction	Vertical right-to-left, left-to-right
Jaku-jaku	Japanese, Hachijō enggau Jaku-jaku Ryukyu
Related scripts
Parent systems	Oracle bone script Seal script Clerical script Regular script (kanji) Man'yōgana Hiragana; ; ; ; ;
Sister systems	Katakana, Hentaigana
ISO 15924
ISO 15924	Hira (410), Hiragana
Unicode
Unicode alias	Hiragana
Unicode range	Hiragana: U+3040–U+309F; Kana Extended-B: U+1AFF0–U+1AFFF; Kana Supplement: U+1B000–U+1B0FF; Kana Extended-A: U+1B100–U+1B12F; Small Kana Extension: U+1B130–U+1B16F;
	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.

Hiragana (平仮名, ひらがな, IPA: [çiɾaɡaꜜna, çiɾaɡana(ꜜ)]) tu silabari jaku Jipun, bagi ari sistem urup Jipun, beserimbai enggau katakana pia mega kanji (karakter China).

Tu sistem urup fonetik. Leka jaku hiragana mai reti kana "selama" (asal iya mega mai reti "lantang", enda baka kanji).^[1]^[2]^[3]

Ari sukut sejarah, hiragana mansang ari Kanji tukuh berangkai (sōsho (草書)) nengah man'yōgana (万葉仮名), enggau tiap iti tanda ti bepun ari salin berangkai ti muntang ari seluruh kanji—chunto, あ (a) ari 安 (an).^[4]^[5]^[6]

Hiragana enggau katakana nya sistem kana. Enggau sekeda pengelimpah, tiap mora dalam jaku Jipun diarika karakter (tauka digraf) dalam tiap sistem. Tu tau nyadi urup vokal baka /a/ (hiragana あ); urup konsonan ditangkanka urup vokal baka /ka/ (か); tauka sonoran nasal /N/ (ん). Laban urup kana enda ngayanka konsonan tunggal (kelimpah ari kes ti disebut tadi ん), bala kana disebut nyadi simbol silabik ukai urup alfabet.^[7]

Hiragana dikena nulis okurigana (penambah kana ti nitihka urat jaku kanji, ambika chunto dikena infleks jaku pengawa enggau jaku adjektif), mayuh macham leka jaku gramatis enggau fungsyen nyengkaum partikel, enggau mayuh macham leka jaku asal bukai ti nadai kanji tauka ti tukuh kanji iya enda terang tauka kelalu formal ke tuju nulis.^[8] Words that do have common kanji renditions may also sometimes be written instead in hiragana, according to an individual author's preference, for example to impart an informal feel. Hiragana is also used to write furigana, a reading aid that shows the pronunciation of kanji characters.

Bisi dua iti sistem besai dikena nusun hiragana: nusun iroha ke lama enggau nusun gojūon ke suah agi nyadi.

Kereban sanding

↑ Dual 大辞林
「平」とは平凡な、やさしいという意で、当時普通に使用する文字体系であったことを意味する。漢字は書簡文や重要な文章などを書く場合に用いる公的な文字であるのに対して、平仮名は漢字の知識に乏しい人々などが用いる私的な性格のものであった。
Translation: 平 [the "hira" part of "hiragana"] means "ordinary, common" or "easy, simple" since at that time [the time that the name was given] it was a writing system for everyday use. While kanji was the official system used for letter-writing and important texts, hiragana was for personal use by people who had limited knowledge of kanji.
↑ "Japanese calligraphy". Encyclopedia Britannica (in Inggeris). Retrieved 2017-06-22.
↑ 山田健三 (Yamada Kenzō). "平安期神楽歌謡文献からみる「平仮名」の位置" [The Position of "Hiragana" As Seen from Kagura Song References of the Heian Period] (PDF) (in Japanese). p. 239. Retrieved 2022-04-18.
「かたかな」の「かた」は単に「片方」という意味ではなく、本来あるべきものが欠落しているという評価形容語と解すべきことはよく知られているが（亀井孝1941）、(7)としてまとめた対立関係から考えると、「ひらがな」も同様に「かな」の「ひら」という評価位置に存在するものと考えられる。
本国語大辞典「ひらがな」の説明は「ひら」を「角のない、通俗平易の意」とし、また「ひら」を前部要素とする複合語の形態素説明で、多くの辞書は「ひら」に「たいら」という意味を認める。
しかし、辞書の意味説明が必ずしも原義説明を欲してはいないことを知りつつも、野暮を承知でいうならば、これは「ひら」の原義（中核的意味）説明としては適当ではない。「ひら」は、「枚」や擬態語「ひらひら」などと同根の情態言とでもいうべき形態素／ pira ／であり、その中核的意味は、物理的／精神的な「薄さ」を示し、「たいら」はそこからの派生義と思われる。となると、「ひらがな」に物理的「薄さ」（thinness）は当然求められないので、「ひら」とはより精神的な表現に傾き、「かたかな」同様、「かな」から見て、ワンランク下であることを示す、いささか差別的・蔑視的ニュアンスを含む表現であったということになる。
[
The "kata" in "katakana" does not mean just "one side", and it is well known (Takashi Kamei 1941) that it should be interpreted as a valuation epithet stating that something that should be there is missing, and considering the oppositional relationship summarized in figure (7), the word "hiragana" can be thought of in a valuation position as the "hira" kind of "kana".
The explanation of the term hiragana in the Nihon Kokugo Daijiten dictionary states that hira means "unangular, easy for common people", and descriptions of hira as a prefixing element in compounds as given in many dictionaries explain this hira as meaning "flat" (taira).
However, knowing that dictionary explanations of meaning do not always drive for the original senses, if we are to be brash, we might point out that this is not a fitting explanation of the original sense (core meaning) of hira. Hira is morpheme /pira/, cognate with words like 枚 (hira, "slip of paper, cloth, or something else flat") or ひらひら (hirahira, "flutteringly"), and the core meaning indicates physical or emotional "thinness", and taira ("flat") appears to be a derived meaning therefrom. As such, we naturally cannot get physical "thinness" from hiragana, so the hira leans more towards an emotional expression, and much like for katakana, from the perspective of kana, it indicates a lower relative ranking [relative to the kanji], and the expression contains a slight nuance of discrimination or contempt.
]{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: unrecognized language (link)
↑ "Kana". Encyclopaedia Britannica (in Inggeris). Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc. Retrieved 2025-09-22. Hiragana, a cursive, graceful writing system, is composed of symbols derived by modifying portions of kanji.
↑ "Hiragana (Japanese, 'plain kana')". Oxford Reference (in Inggeris). Oxford University Press. Retrieved 2025-09-22. A Japanese system of syllabic writing based on Chinese cursive ideograms.
↑ "Introduction to kuzushiji (cursive Japanese calligraphy)" (PDF). National Institute for Japanese Language and Linguistics (in Inggeris). 2017-02-17. Retrieved 2025-09-22. For example, the hiragana character a あ is derived from an abbreviated version of the bottom part of the kanji 安.
↑ Richard Bowring; Haruko Uryu Laurie (2004). An Introduction to Modern Japanese: Book 1. United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press. p. 9. ISBN 978-0521548878.
↑ Liu, Xuexin (2009). "Japanese Simplification of Chinese Characters in Perspective". Southeast Review of Asian Studies. 31.

[1] Dual 大辞林
「平」とは平凡な、やさしいという意で、当時普通に使用する文字体系であったことを意味する。漢字は書簡文や重要な文章などを書く場合に用いる公的な文字であるのに対して、平仮名は漢字の知識に乏しい人々などが用いる私的な性格のものであった。
Translation: 平 [the "hira" part of "hiragana"] means "ordinary, common" or "easy, simple" since at that time [the time that the name was given] it was a writing system for everyday use. While kanji was the official system used for letter-writing and important texts, hiragana was for personal use by people who had limited knowledge of kanji.

[2] "Japanese calligraphy". Encyclopedia Britannica (in Inggeris). Retrieved 2017-06-22.

[3] 山田健三 (Yamada Kenzō). "平安期神楽歌謡文献からみる「平仮名」の位置" [The Position of "Hiragana" As Seen from Kagura Song References of the Heian Period] (PDF) (in Japanese). p. 239. Retrieved 2022-04-18.
「かたかな」の「かた」は単に「片方」という意味ではなく、本来あるべきものが欠落しているという評価形容語と解すべきことはよく知られているが（亀井孝1941）、(7)としてまとめた対立関係から考えると、「ひらがな」も同様に「かな」の「ひら」という評価位置に存在するものと考えられる。
本国語大辞典「ひらがな」の説明は「ひら」を「角のない、通俗平易の意」とし、また「ひら」を前部要素とする複合語の形態素説明で、多くの辞書は「ひら」に「たいら」という意味を認める。
しかし、辞書の意味説明が必ずしも原義説明を欲してはいないことを知りつつも、野暮を承知でいうならば、これは「ひら」の原義（中核的意味）説明としては適当ではない。「ひら」は、「枚」や擬態語「ひらひら」などと同根の情態言とでもいうべき形態素／ pira ／であり、その中核的意味は、物理的／精神的な「薄さ」を示し、「たいら」はそこからの派生義と思われる。となると、「ひらがな」に物理的「薄さ」（thinness）は当然求められないので、「ひら」とはより精神的な表現に傾き、「かたかな」同様、「かな」から見て、ワンランク下であることを示す、いささか差別的・蔑視的ニュアンスを含む表現であったということになる。
[
The "kata" in "katakana" does not mean just "one side", and it is well known (Takashi Kamei 1941) that it should be interpreted as a valuation epithet stating that something that should be there is missing, and considering the oppositional relationship summarized in figure (7), the word "hiragana" can be thought of in a valuation position as the "hira" kind of "kana".
The explanation of the term hiragana in the Nihon Kokugo Daijiten dictionary states that hira means "unangular, easy for common people", and descriptions of hira as a prefixing element in compounds as given in many dictionaries explain this hira as meaning "flat" (taira).
However, knowing that dictionary explanations of meaning do not always drive for the original senses, if we are to be brash, we might point out that this is not a fitting explanation of the original sense (core meaning) of hira. Hira is morpheme /pira/, cognate with words like 枚 (hira, "slip of paper, cloth, or something else flat") or ひらひら (hirahira, "flutteringly"), and the core meaning indicates physical or emotional "thinness", and taira ("flat") appears to be a derived meaning therefrom. As such, we naturally cannot get physical "thinness" from hiragana, so the hira leans more towards an emotional expression, and much like for katakana, from the perspective of kana, it indicates a lower relative ranking [relative to the kanji], and the expression contains a slight nuance of discrimination or contempt.
]{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: unrecognized language (link)

[BritannicaKana-4] "Kana". Encyclopaedia Britannica (in Inggeris). Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc. Retrieved 2025-09-22. Hiragana, a cursive, graceful writing system, is composed of symbols derived by modifying portions of kanji.

[OxfordHiragana-5] "Hiragana (Japanese, 'plain kana')". Oxford Reference (in Inggeris). Oxford University Press. Retrieved 2025-09-22. A Japanese system of syllabic writing based on Chinese cursive ideograms.

[NINJAL-6] "Introduction to kuzushiji (cursive Japanese calligraphy)" (PDF). National Institute for Japanese Language and Linguistics (in Inggeris). 2017-02-17. Retrieved 2025-09-22. For example, the hiragana character a あ is derived from an abbreviated version of the bottom part of the kanji 安.

[7] Richard Bowring; Haruko Uryu Laurie (2004). An Introduction to Modern Japanese: Book 1. United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press. p. 9. ISBN 978-0521548878.

[8] Liu, Xuexin (2009). "Japanese Simplification of Chinese Characters in Perspective". Southeast Review of Asian Studies. 31.

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