


  • 2
  • 1
  • @dotnetN00b The hiragana also came from the Kanji, you know. – Aeon Akechi Jul 31 '16 at 16:34


Hiragana (平仮名)


Katakana (片仮名)





As I understand the Japanese wikipedia articles:




As to other forms:






  • Found a different link for you – Sam Mar 13 '12 at 6:20

Potentially controversial answer














I think it is largely a myth that women invented hiragana. This myth likely comes from the fact that the script was called 女手 onnade or "women's hand", and katakana was called 男手 otokode or "men's hand". Hiragana was probably called 女手 not because it was invented by women, but because they used it exclusively to write — like in the Tale of Genji — because as you mentioned, they were not literate in kanji.

We see many documents written by men at the time that mix kanji, katakana, and hiragana, so hiragana was not only used by women, but women only knew how to use hiragana. The reason I say that women probably didn't invent hiragana is that were gradually simplified forms of kanji called man'yōgana, and women didn't know kanji, so how would they know how those kanji were pronounced?

Also, the Buddhist monk Kūkai is generally credited with making the kana. While we know this isn't true, and that the creation of hiragana was a gradual process, he greatly sped up the process of making kana by introducing the first purely phonetic script, Siddham (still used in some Buddhist temples in Japan today). By introducing Japan to the idea of completely phonetic characters that didn't have any separate meaning attached, the kanji that had been used phonetically (man'yōgana) could be simplified and used as purely phonetic characters without any meaning attached or alternative readings.

  • 3
    Correct me if I'm wrong, but this reads more like it is intended as a comment on one of the above answers, as opposed to being a direct answer to the original question, yes? – Leebo Jul 12 '18 at 5:07
  • Maybe you could add a few words at the beginning of your answer to address the actual question — why were both katakana and hiragana created? At the moment your answer only comments on the origins of hiragana (but it is too long to convert to a comment on one of the other answers). – Earthliŋ Jul 16 '18 at 8:15

Your Answer

