Man'yōgana

Principles

Man'yōgana uses kanji characters for their sounds, not their meanings. There was no standard system for choice of kanji, and different ones could be used to represent the same sound, with the choice made on the whims of the writer. By the end of the 8th century, 970 kanji were in use to represent the 90 morae of Japanese. For example, the Man'yōshū poem 17/4025 was written as follows:

In the poem, the sounds mo (母, 毛) and shi (之, 思) are written with multiple, different characters. All particles and most words are represented phonetically (多太 tada, 安佐 asa), but the words ji (路), umi (海) and funekaji (船梶) are rendered semantically.

In some cases, specific syllables in particular words are consistently represented by specific characters. That usage is known as Jōdai Tokushu Kanazukai and usage has led historical linguists to conclude that certain disparate sounds in Old Japanese, consistently represented by differing sets of man'yōgana characters, may have merged since then.

Types

In writing which utilizes man'yōgana, kanji are mapped to sounds in a number of different ways, some of which are straightforward and others which are less so.

Shakuon kana (借音仮名) are based on a Sino-Japanese on'yomi reading, in which one character represents either one mora or two morae.

Shakkun kana (借訓仮名) are based on a native kun'yomi reading, one to three characters represent one to three morae.

Development

Due to the major differences between the Japanese language (which was polysyllabic) and the Chinese language (which was monosyllabic) from which kanji came, man'yōgana proved to be very cumbersome to read and write. As stated earlier, since kanji has two different sets of pronunciation, one based on Sino-Japanese pronunciation and the other on native Japanese pronunciation, it was difficult to determine whether a certain character was used to represent its pronunciation or its meaning, i.e., whether it was man'yōgana or actual kanji, or both. To alleviate the confusion and to save time writing, kanji that were used as man'yōgana eventually gave rise to hiragana, including the now-obsolete hentaigana (変体仮名) alternatives, alongside a separate system that became katakana. Hiragana developed from man'yōgana written in the highly cursive sōsho (草書) style popularly used by women; meanwhile, katakana was developed by Buddhist monks as a form of shorthand, utilizing, in most cases, only fragments (for example, usually the first or last few strokes) of man'yōgana characters. In some cases, one man'yōgana character for a given syllable gave rise to a hentaigana that was simplified further to result in the current hiragana character, while a different man'yōgana character was the source for the current katakana equivalent. For example, the hiragana る (ru) is derived from the man'yōgana 留, whereas the katakana ル (ru) is derived from the man'yōgana 流. The multiple alternative hiragana forms for a single syllable were ultimately standardized in 1900, and the rejected variants are now known as hentaigana.

Man'yōgana continues to appear in some regional names of present-day Japan, especially in Kyūshū. A phenomenon similar to man'yōgana, called ateji (当て字), still occurs, where words (including loanwords) are spelled out using kanji for their phonetic value. Examples include 倶楽部 (kurabu, "club"), 仏蘭西 (Furansu, France), 阿弗利加 (Afurika, Africa) and 亜米利加 (Amerika, America).

Example

The following example is from the second chapter of Nihon Shoki, one of two songs associated with the Emishi people written in Western Old Japanese.

比佐迦多能
ひさかたの
pîsa kata n-ö

阿麻遅波等保斯
あまぢはとほし
ama-N-ti pa töpo-si

奈保奈保爾
なほなほに
napo napo n-i

伊弊爾可弊利提
いへにかへりて
ipê-ni kapêr-i-te

奈利乎斯麻佐爾
なりをしまさに
nari-wo s-i-[i] mas-an-i