Editing Hiragana (section)

==History==
{{See also|Man'yōgana|Old Japanese#Sources and dating}}
[[File:Hiragana origin new.svg|thumb|right|Hiragana originated as simplified forms of similar-sounding Chinese characters.]]
[[File:Treatise on calligraphy 1.png|alt=|thumb|Hiragana character shapes were derived from Chinese [[Cursive script (East Asia)|cursive script]] (''sōsho''). Shown here is a sample of cursive script by 7th century calligrapher [[Sun Guoting]]. Note the character 為 (''wei''), indicated by the red arrow, closely resembles the hiragana character ゐ (''wi''). ]]
Hiragana developed from ''[[man'yōgana]]'', [[Chinese language|Chinese]] characters used for their pronunciations, a practice that started in the 5th century.<ref>''Yookoso! An Invitation to Contemporary Japanese'' 1st edition McGraw-Hill, page 13 "Linguistic Note: The Origins of Hiragana and Katakana"</ref> The oldest examples of Man'yōgana include the [[Inariyama Sword]], an iron sword excavated<!-- in 1968 --> at the Inariyama Kofun. This sword is thought to be made in the year {{nowrap|{{lang|ja|辛亥年}}}} (most commonly taken to be C.E. 471).<ref>Seeley (2000:19–23)</ref>
The forms of the hiragana originate from the [[cursive script (East Asia)|cursive script]] style of [[Chinese calligraphy]]. The table to the right shows the derivation of hiragana from manyōgana via cursive script. The upper part shows the character in the [[regular script]] form, the center character in red shows the cursive script form of the character, and the bottom shows the equivalent hiragana. The cursive script forms are not strictly confined to those in the illustration.

When it was first developed, hiragana was not accepted by everyone. The educated or elites preferred to use only the kanji system. Historically, in Japan, the regular script (''kaisho'') form of the characters was used by men and called {{nihongo|''otokode''|[[wikt:男手|男手]]|}}, "men's writing", while the cursive script (''sōsho'') form of the kanji was used by women. Hence hiragana first gained popularity among women, who were generally not allowed access to the same levels of education as men, thus hiragana was first widely used among court women in the writing of personal communications and literature.<ref>{{cite book|title=An Introduction to Modern Japanese: Book 1|url=https://archive.org/details/introductiontomo01bowr|url-access=limited|year=2004|publisher=Cambridge University Press|location=United Kingdom|isbn=978-0521548878|author=Richard Bowring|author2=Haruko Uryu Laurie|page=[https://archive.org/details/introductiontomo01bowr/page/n26 8]}}</ref> From this comes the alternative name of {{nihongo|''onnade''|[[wikt:女手|女手]]|}} "women's writing".<ref>{{cite book|last=Hatasa|first=Yukiko Abe|title=Nakama 1: Introductory Japanese: Communication, Culture, Context 2nd ed.|year=2010|publisher=Heinle|isbn=978-0495798187|page=2|author2=Kazumi Hatasa |author3=Seiichi Makino }}</ref> For example, ''[[The Tale of Genji]]'' and other early novels by female authors used hiragana extensively or exclusively. Even today, hiragana is felt to have a feminine quality.<ref>p. 108. Kataoka, Kuniyoshi. 1997. "Affect and letter writing: unconventional conventions in casual writing by young Japanese women". ''Language in Society'' 26:103–136.</ref>

Male authors came to write literature using hiragana. Hiragana was used for unofficial writing such as personal letters, while katakana and kanji were used for official documents. In modern times, the usage of hiragana has become mixed with [[katakana]] writing. Katakana is now relegated to special uses such as recently borrowed words (i.e., since the 19th century), names in [[transliteration]], the names of animals, in telegrams, and for emphasis.

Originally, for all syllables there was more than one possible hiragana. In 1900, the system was simplified so each syllable had only one hiragana. The deprecated hiragana are now known as {{nihongo|[[hentaigana]]|変体仮名|}}.

The [[pangram]] poem ''[[Iroha]]-uta'' ("ABC song/poem"), which dates to the 10th century, uses every hiragana once (except ''n'' ん, which was a variant of む before the [[Muromachi era]]).