Hentaigana

Nihongo|Hentaigana|変体仮名| are alternative kana letterforms equivalent to standard kana characters. This is a legacy of man'yōgana, where many different kanji could be used to represent the same syllable. As the man'yōgana forms became simplified into cursive forms, hentaigana and hiragana were the result.

Hentaigana were used more or less interchangeably with their equivalent hiragana on an ad hoc, individual basis until 1900, when the hiragana syllabary was standardized to one character per mora. They are not included in Unicode.

Development of the hiragana syllabic "n"

The hiragana "syllabic n" ( _ja. ん) derives from a cursive form of the character 无. The spelling reform of 1900 separated the two uses, declaring that _ja. む could only be used for IPA|/mɯ/ and _ja. ん could only be used for syllable-final IPA|/n/. Previously, in the absence of a character for the syllable-final IPA|/n/, the sound was spelled (but not pronounced) identically to IPA|/mɯ/, and readers had to rely on context to determine what was intended. This ambiguity has led to some modern expressions based on what are, in effect, spelling pronunciations. For example, transl|ja|"iwan to suru" "trying to say" is ultimately a misreading of "mu" as "n"Fact|date=December 2007. (The modern Japanese form _ja. 言おう transl|ja|"iō" comes from earlier _ja. 言はむ transl|ja|"ihamu". Many other changes are seen here as well.)

Modern usage

Hentaigana are considered obsolete in modern writing, but a few uses still remain. For example, many soba shops use hentaigana to spell transl|ja|"kisoba" on their signs. Hentaigana are used in some formal handwritten documents, particularly in certificates issued by classical Japanese cultural groups (e.g., martial art schools, etiquette schools, religious study groups, etc.). Also, hentaigana are occasionally used in reproductions of classic Japanese texts. Hentaigana may be used much like blackletter in English and other Germanic languages, to give an archaic flair. However, most Japanese people are unable to read hentaigana, only recognizing a few from their common use in shop signs, or figuring them out from context.

Note that this hentai ( _ja. 変体: "variants") is not the same word as the hentai ( _ja. 変態) which can also have the meaning of pervert.

Incomplete list

Note that some of the following examples are simplified from the same kanji as their hiragana counterparts, but written differently.

_ja. 以（ _ja. い）transl|ja|i
_ja. 江（ _ja. え）transl|ja|e
_ja. 於（ _ja. お）transl|ja|o
_ja. 可（ _ja. か）transl|ja|ka
_ja. 起（ _ja. き）transl|ja|ki
_ja. 古（ _ja. こ）transl|ja|ko
_ja. 志（ _ja. し）transl|ja|shi
_ja. 春（ _ja. す）transl|ja|su
_ja. 多（ _ja. た）transl|ja|ta
_ja. 奈（ _ja. な）transl|ja|na
_ja. 能（ _ja. の）transl|ja|no
_ja. 者（ _ja. は）transl|ja|ha
_ja. 由（ _ja. ゆ）transl|ja|yu
_ja. 連（ _ja. れ）transl|ja|re
_ja. 路（ _ja. ろ）transl|ja|ro
_ja. 王（ _ja. わ）transl|ja|wa
A more complete list and more information can be seen in the Japanese Wikipedia pages and

ee also

* Katakana
* Furigana
* Romaji

External links

* [http://www.albany.edu/eas/205/hentaigana.pdf Chart of hentaigana calligraphy from O'Neill's "A Reader of Handwritten Japanese"]
* [http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/%7Ejwb/rose.jpgA chart of hentaigana] hosted by Jim Breen of the WWWJDIC
* [http://www.raccoonbend.com/languages/canna.html Chart of kana from Engelbert Kaempfer circa 1693]
* [http://homepage2.nifty.com/Gat_Tin/kanji/kana.htm Hentaigana on signs] (in Japanese)
* [http://japan-studies.com/language/hiragana/hentaigana/ Hentaigana]
* [http://www.mojikyo.org Mojikyo fonts including hentaigana and word processor support]