Unicode: Japanese Writing System の

By Xah Lee. Date: . Last updated: .
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Japanese Writing System Character Sets

Japanese writing system uses the following characters:

Of the kana, there are 2 types:

Hiragana (ひらがな, 平仮名)

There are a total of 48 hiragana in modern Japanese.

Hiragana
aiueo
k
s
t
n
h
m
y
r
w

ん (n)

Katakana (カタカナ, 片仮名)
  • Katakana looks angular.
  • Katakana is used for place names, company names, imported words, emphasis, etc.
  • Purpose of Katakana is somewhat like English uppercase letters.
Katakana
aiueo
K
S
T
N
H
M
Y
R
W

Hiragana and Katakana Comparison

Japanese kana: hiragana and katakana
kstnhmyrw
a
a
ka sa ta na ha ma ya ra wa
i i ki si ti ni hi mi ri wi
u u ku su tu nu hu mu yu ru
e e ke se te ne he me re we
o o ko so to no ho mo yo ro wo
n
n

The Dakuten Diacritic Mark

(U+309B: KATAKANA-HIRAGANA VOICED SOUND MARK)

Dakuten is a diacritic mark that often occurs for many hiragana.

When it appears on a hiragana, it means that the consonant of the syllable should be voiced.

History of Japanese Writing System

Japanese kana derivation 44270
Japanese kana derivation from kanji

Character Frequency in Japanese

In formal writing, such as newspaper or books, about 40% are kanji.

Japanese Character frequency
Characters%
Kanji41.38
Hiragana36.62
Katakana6.38
Punctuation and symbols13.09
Digits2.07
English letters0.46

In informal writing, such as online chat, less kanji is used.

To read Japanese newspaper or books, you need to know 2k kanji. See Jōyō kanji (常用漢字)

In comparison, for Chinese people reading Chinese newspaper, 3500 characters are needed. [通用规范汉字表 [Table of General Standard Chinese Characters]. Ministry of Education of the People's Republic of China. 18 Jun 2013.]

Source, Japanese newspaper Asahi Shimbun from the year 1993 (around 56.6 million tokens). [Chikamatsu, Nobuko; Yokoyama, Shoichi; Nozaki, Hironari; Long, Eric; Fukuda, Sachio (2000). A Japanese logographic character frequency list for cognitive science research. Behavior Research Methods, Instruments, and Computers. 32 (3): 482–500.] via Wikipedia Japanese writing system

Sample Japanese Text

Here is sample of Japanese writing, from Wikipedia Japanese article on keyboard:

キーボード(英: Keyboard)は、コンピュータへの入力機器の一つであり、手指でキーを押すことでコンピュータへ文字信号などを送信するもの。様々なソフトウェア上で文字入力を基本とした機器であるが、コンピュータ (OS) の操作全般にも用いられる。

日本語における 鍵盤はkey boardからの訳語であり両者は本来的に同一のものである。欧米においては鍵盤楽器のカラクリを応用した機械式タイプライターを経て、タイプライターのインタフェースを模した電子的入力機器へと連続的に発展していった歴史的経緯により一連の概念として理解されるが、タイプライターの普及が限定的に留まった日本の社会通念においては、楽器の鍵盤と入力機器のキーボードとは断絶しており個別に扱われることが多く、電子楽器のキーボードでわずかに関連性が示される程度である。

[2017-07-16 キーボード (コンピュータ)]

Those complex looking ones are kanji (Chinese characters). The cursive looking ones are hiragana, and angular ones are katakana.

Complete List of Hiragana in Unicode

Unicode Small Hiragana

Misc Unicode Hiragana

𛀁 🈀

Complete List of Katakana in Unicode

Unicode Small Katakana

Misc

𛀀

Misc

Half Width Kana

ソ

Unicode Japanese