More Hiragana for me. Today I've learned E (え) and O (お), as well as KA (か) and KI (き). Only thing that bothers me is that depending on the website I go to, the style of Hiragana letters seems to be different. So, what is the correct way?
Also, browsing stuff about Hiragana, I have found some interesting facts about the history of this writing style in relation to gender. Very interesting as well as bizarre for me to find out:
"Historically, in Japan, the regular script (kaisho) form of the characters, so-called otokode (男手), "men's writing", was used by men; the cursive script (sōsho) form of the kanji was used by women. Thus hiragana first gained popularity among women, who were not allowed access to the same levels of education as men. From this comes the alternative name of onnade (女手) "women's writing". For example, The Tale of Genji and other early novels by female authors used hiragana extensively or exclusively.
Male authors came to write literature using hiragana. Hiragana, with its flowing style, was used for unofficial writing such as personal letters, while katakana and Chinese were used for official documents. In modern times, the usage of hiragana has become mixed with katakana writing. Katakana is now relegated to special uses such as recently borrowed words (i.e., since the 19th century), names in transliteration, the names of animals, in telegrams, and for emphasis." ~ Source: Wikipedia.
So, let me get this straight... males and females used different writing methods for the SAME language? Wow.
QOTD: How long did it take you to learn Hiragana?
8.14.2008
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2 comments:
wow hadnt relized about that i need to study more and hmmmmm chinese i wonder if it would be easier to learn once learned japanese i would hope it isnt harder
What is the right way to write an "a" ? There's a lot of accepted ways. Same goes for Japanese letters. I learned hiragana in one week (mostly), with a set of kanji flash cards. Already knew katakana, though.
(And sex dependant writing-styles... wtf.)
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