Japanese Kana

Twin syllabaries — cursive hiragana and angular katakana — born from simplified Chinese characters.

Core Principles & Analysis

• Hiragana grew from cursive man’yōgana; Heian court women made it a literary instrument.
• Katakana began as monks’ shorthand fragments of characters and now marks foreign words.
• Each set covers the language in about forty-six base signs, mixed freely with kanji in one sentence.

Specifications & Metrics

• TYPE: Syllabaries (two)