Japanese language
Hiragana is a Syllabary, meaning each character represents a syllable or vowel. Each character is a comprised of either a vowel, a consonant-vowel blend, or the syllabic consonant, n (ん). Hiragana is the standard, phonetic writing system in Japanese and is used for grammatical words or particles e.g. は、を (wa - Subject particle, o - Object Particle); words that don't have Kanji characters e.g. こんにちは (kon'nichiwa - hello); or for beginners to write Kanji. The symbols were originally adopted from Kanji characters and have changed overtime into their distinct, rounded shapes (e.g. 以 →い).