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How do kanji differ from hiragana and katakana?
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Japanese language
Record of a haiku exchange on kaishi writing paper by Japanese poet Bashō and one of his pupils in the teacher's own handwriting, 17th century, from a hanging scroll (ink on paper).
In the Japanese writing system, kanji differ from hiragana and katakana primarily in their function, origin, and complexity.
- Nature of the Scripts: Kanji are Chinese ideograms that represent concepts or words, making them logographic. In contrast, hiragana and katakana are kana syllabaries, meaning each character represents a specific sound rather than a meaning.123
- Usage: Kanji are typically used for nouns, verb roots, and adjectives. Hiragana is used for grammatical functions, such as verb inflections, particles, and native words where kanji are obscure. Katakana is primarily reserved for foreign loanwords, scientific terms, and emphasis.124
- Complexity: Kanji consist of thousands of complex characters, whereas each kana syllabary contains 46 basic symbols.14
- Development: While kanji were imported from China, hiragana and katakana were developed by the Japanese in the 9th century by simplifying and adapting parts of kanji characters to better suit the phonetic needs of the Japanese language.134
Modern Japanese typically uses a combination of all three scripts in a single text.34