Lars Marius Garshol wrote:
| Hentaigana? What are they? I tried Google, but couldn't really work
| it out.
* Ben Monroe
|
| Modern hiragana and katakana derive from certain styles of writing
| Chinese hanzi.
> Hiragana and katakana? But I was asking about hentaigana? What are
> they?
Hentaigana are kana. Hiragana and katakana come from hentaigana and are a
part of kana.
| http://okayama.cool.ne.jp/monjo/hentaigana.htm has a chart of some
| of these characters and show which hanzi they come from. It's not a
| very complete chart, though, but should suffice to get the point
| across.
> Since I can't read Japanese, not even to work out whether this chart
> shows the origins of hiragana+katakana or of hentaigana I'm afraid
> this didn't help me a lot.
Hentaigana are the kana used around 1900.
If you can't display the Japanese on the webpages correctly, try running it
through http://web.shodouka.com/ which will turn it all into pictures for
you. Even if you can't read it, you should be able to compare the characters
in the charts and (hopefully) see the resemblence (between the original
kanji and the hentaigana [=kana]) for some of the characters. And, don't
forget about the U+xxxx forms that I deliberately typed in for reference.
(Although I obviously can not type in Unicode values for hentaigana)
| For example, U+3042 (・瘢雹・瘢雹 comes from U+5B89 (絎・瘢雹 in modern
| Japanese. But, [...]
> As far as I can make out you're talking about kana here.
Correct, hentai_gana_ are kana. Refer to the pictures on the previous or
following webpages. (Run through http://web.shodouka.com/ if needed) They
are the older characters used for a little under a thousand years until
about 1900 when the kanji that is used to write kana was singled to a single
character. (I believe I went into this in much more detail in the previous
post.)
| http://homepage2.nifty.com/Gat_Tin/kanji/kana.htm shows some
| pictures of hentaigana used in modern Japan. The paragraph at the
| beginning roughly reads: "Kana that have not been encoded into
| modern, public character sets. They were used in elementary text
| books until MORI Arinori of the Ministry of Education started the
| "system of screening school textbooks" in Meiji 19 [1886]. There was
| a problem in distinguishing them from cursive kanji, but differed
| from kanji in that dakuten and handakuten [voicing marks; like " and
| a circle] could be used. (etc)"
> This is totally mystifying! This text describes hentaigana (if I
> understand you correctly) as being kana, and then seems to go on to
> say that they are like kanji.
My post must not have been very clear at all. Kana derive from kanji. They
are not the same as kana though. Hentaigana are a type of old kana. Since I
can't type hentaigana, I can only describe what they are by talking about
which kanji characters they come from (or refer to charts with pictures).
> Maybe some more concrete questions will help:
> - is hentaigana a set of characters?
Yes.
> - are they syllabic or logosyllabic characters?
They are syllabic. Each one represents a single, particular sound. They do
not individually carry a meaning like kanji do. For all intensive purposes,
you can think of them as hiragana or katakana that are not used anymore.
They are kana.
> - is it a clearly closed set? (like hiragana)
Yes. Also, because they are not used daily anymore, there should not be any
new ones.
> - are they just a different style of writing some other set of
> characters (say hiragana), or characters in their own right?
I would say that they are different characters in their own right that do
not correspond to their modern characters except in phonetic readings. But
that is probably debatable. (and I expect others to argue on the other side)
> - apparently they are in use today. why? for what? could they be
> replaced by other characters?
They are hardly used anymore. Students do not learn them in school and
except for classical scholars, extrememly few people can read them. The
pictures on the previous website of hentaigana usage are rare and your
standard citizen most like wouldn't be able to read it (or could guess from
context; and there are always exceptions). In the years I lived in Japan, I
don't recall ever seeing them except at old historic sites and a few
restraunts trying for an old style. Similar to English thorn, eth, or ash:
most people can't read them, but they still show up occasionally.
> Thank you for trying to help, but I'm afraid you're assuming I know
> far more about Japanese than I actually do.
I suppose I must have. Hope this clears it up a bit more.
Ben Monroe
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