section_path: History/Early Middle Japanese
section_name: Early Middle Japanese
paragraph_text: Early Middle Japanese
  
  Early Middle Japanese is the Japanese of the Heian period, from 794 to 1185. It formed the basis for the literary standard of Classical Japanese, which remained in common use until the early 20th century.
  
  During this time, Japanese underwent numerous phonological developments, in many cases instigated by an influx of Chinese loanwords. These included phonemic length distinction for both consonants and vowels, palatal consonants (e.g. kya) and labial consonant clusters (e.g. kwa), and closed syllables. This had the effect of changing Japanese into a mora-timed language.