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The Japanese Writing System:
A Brief Sketch
Beginnings
The first contact of the Japanese with writing was when items such as inscribed
coins, swords, and bronze mirrors were brought over from China in the first few
centuries AD. The writing that was brought over to Japan at that period was no
different from the writing in China itself, i.e., Chinese characters, used to write the
Chinese language. Initially, it would have been difficult for the Japanese even to understand
the nature and function of writing, as this was something completely new.
Over time, though, they started to become familiar with the concept of writing and
subsequently learned—with the help of teachers and scribes from China and the
ancient Korean kingdoms—to write in what for them was a foreign language. This,
of course, was a formidable task, due partly to the very great differences between
the Chinese and Japanese languages. In addition, there was the intricate nature of
the Chinese script. Gradually, though, the Chinese script was adapted for Japanese.
One relatively simple way of doing this was sometimes to use characters just for
their sound value to write Japanese directly. So, for instance, we find the Japanese
word yama ‘mountain’ represented in the eighth-century poetry anthology called
Man’yōshū as , using not for its meaning ‘night’ but purely for its on reading
( i.e., Chinese-based sound value) YA, and not for its meaning ‘flax, hemp’ but
similarly for its on reading MA. Many of the Man’yōshū poems are in fact written
entirely in this way. Using Chinese characters in this way to write Japanese worked
and was quite straightforward, but it was a rather longwinded method for texts of
any length; we find this point noted in the preface to the Kojiki (Record of Ancient
Matters) of 712 AD.
Development of Kana (Japanese Syllabic Signs)
Characters employed just for their sound value often came to be written quite rapidly
for economy of effort, and this led to simpler shapes. This meant, for example,
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