Japanese Scripts
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A very big thank you and blessings to Dmytro Rudiy (rudiy.nl) for his great work in upgrading the server, website and all of the infrastructure and helping make TBE fast and reliable again for everyone!
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Japanese Scripts
There was no written form of Japanese until the Chinese system was adopted.
Kanji
This has over 10,000 characters of which over 2000 can be used for personal names so many combinations are possible but in reality, only about 6500 are commonly used. It originated in China in the Kwan dynasty (BC 202-AD 220) and is derived from older Chinese characters.
Hiragana
This is the old Japanese alphabet of 46 letters which each represent a sound. It dates back to the Heian era (785-1185). Originally, it was never used in conjunction with Kanji or Katakana but this can be done in modern Japanese. Only women use these letters for their names.
Katakana
These letters are partially derived from Kanji and were used with it to help show how it was pronounced in Japanese in the Meiji era. Nowadays, foreign words are often written in katakana.
Romaji
This is the system of Romanization or conversion into western script. The spelling of a word in English usually reflects its pronunciation in Japanese.