Japanese on Paper: Hiragana/Katakana
Posted by Ben Goh | February 6, 2009.
Japanese writing system consists of Hiragana, Katakana and Kanji characters. These characters were derived from Chinese calligraphy as Japanese people started practicing them in the 5th century.
Hiragana and Katakana are collectively known as kana characters, each of which corresponds to a sound that can be represented as a romaji (Romanization of Japanese characters with Latin alphabets). The relationship among Hiragana/Katakana characters and Romaji can be outlined as shown below:
Hiragana Characters
The following image represents basic Hiragana set which consists of 46 characters (also known as gojuon).
Some basic Hiragana characters can be combined with dakuten markers, and be modified in various ways. When an unvoiced consonant such as k or t is combined with dakuten marker, it gets turned into a voiced consonant (such as g or d).
For an example, joining ka with a dakuten marker turns it into ga character:
Japanese culture and the unique characteristics it exhibits have never been anything
less than fascinating to me. The unwritten rules of Bushidō among Samurai warriors,
the highly elaborated kimono of a Geisha, the multifaceted chanoyu tradition, and
many other things just go to show the cultural richness of the Japanese.