5 Facts You Didn’t Know about Hiragana

Tsunagu Japan compiled a list of 13 facts one does not know about hiragana. Here, we list 5! What do you know about this Japanese alphabet?

1. Modern hiragana has 46 syllables.

2. The basis of hiragana was born in the Nara period. This was called Manyou Gana, and these were symbols, or kanji, that represented a single sound.

3. The first piece of literature written in hiragana was “Tosa Nikki”, a diary literature written in the Heian period.

4. Hiragana was seen as women’s writing. In the Heian period public writing was writing using Chinese characters while private writing, texts and such written by women, was written in hiragana. This is how it became known as “onna-te” or “woman writing”.

5. Japanese names in hiragana are mostly considered feminine.

Interesting, right? Check out the entire list of facts via Tsunagu Japan