Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. The cursive and flowing variety of kana used in most modern Japanese texts, especially to represent inflectional endings and particles.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. The cursive form of Japanese writing, said to have been introduced by a Buddhist priest named Kuhai about the middle of the ninth century. It consists of abbreviated forms of a limited number of the more common Chinese characters, used phonetically, and is the style of letter commonly used in books and written documents. See
kana and katakana.
Wiktionary
Etymologies
- Japanese romanization of 平仮名. (Wiktionary)
- Japanese : hira, ordinary, plain + kana, kana; see kana. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“Modern Japanese uses four writing systems simultaneously: kanji (based on Chinese characters), two phonetic systems called hiragana and katakana, and the Roman alphabet (romaji).”
“The Japanese use only about 1,875 kanji characters, mostly for nouns, and write the rest of their language in phonetic characters known as hiragana and katakana.”
“(Separately, they are called hiragana and katakana).”
“Having prior knowledge such as hiragana & katakana first before jumping into one of their course will save you time.”
“The Japanese therefore began to work on a phonetic syllabary now known as hiragana to make the Chinese kanji more adaptable as well as to express those matters uniquely Japanese for which there were no Chinese characters at all.”
“' hiragana '' and '' katakana '' Japanese characters more than one day per week came to 51%, up 6 points.”
“And on the bright side at least it's not mixing kanji, hiragana, and katakana together as I've seen other artists do.”
“His lips moved as he deciphered the hiragana, and he was filled with joy that his mother had found someone to write on her behalf, and that he could read it.”
“For now, it was only the hiragana that he had mastered—the simplified form of writing that was used mainly by women.”
“Because, according to actual Japanese people, the various Japanese alphabets (there are several kinds including katakana, kanji and hiragana) are incredibly difficult to differentiate even for native Japanese readers.”
The Huffington Post: Shirin Sadeghi: Israeli Scientists Warn: Arabic Is "Hard for the Brain"
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These user-created lists contain the word ‘hiragana’.
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Land of the Rising Sun
The culture, the words, the idiosyncracies of Japan.
salaryman, r�?maji, ronin, kanji, hiragana, katakana, kabuki, karaoke, itadakimasu, gaiden, sumi-e, bushido and 39 more...
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writing
words associated with writing and writing systems
bokmål, hangul, kana, circumflex, diacritic, umlaut, tréma, hanzi, hiragana, kanji, katakana, pinyin and 5 more...
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Japan
Words associated with Japan or japanese.
kanji, kana, hiragana, katakana, harakiri, sudoku, pillow book, heian, lady-in-waiting, sakura, doll festival, nori and 22 more...
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