0_Wizard
I've taken Japanese language classes in the past, but I can really only read English loanwords these days. I've forgotten most of the Hiragana and Kanji.
English loanwords, in particular, have become frequent, and Japanese words from English roots have proliferated.
chosen_Japanese_language_0
Japanese language
chosen_topic_0_Japanese_language
Japanese language
Little is known of the language's prehistory, or when it first appeared in Japan. Chinese documents from the 3rd century recorded a few Japanese words, but substantial texts did not appear until the 8th century. During the Heian period (794–1185), Chinese had considerable influence on the vocabulary and phonology of Old Japanese. Late Middle Japanese (1185–1600) included changes in features that brought it closer to the modern language, and the first appearance of European loanwords. The standard dialect moved from the Kansai region to the Edo (modern Tokyo) region in the Early Modern Japanese period (early 17th century–mid-19th century).
Kanji
Kanji (; ) are the adopted logographic Chinese characters, that are used in the Japanese writing system. They are used alongside "hiragana" and "katakana". The Japanese term "kanji" for the Chinese characters literally means "Han characters". It is written with the same term and characters in the Chinese language to refer to the character writing system, "hanzi" (). Chinese characters first came to Japan on official seals, letters, swords, coins, mirrors, and other decorative items imported from China. The earliest known instance of such an import was the King of Na gold seal given by Emperor Guangwu of Han to a Yamato emissary in 57 AD.
Chinese characters
Chinese characters are logograms used in the writing of Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and some other Asian languages. In Standard Chinese, they are called hànzì (, lit ""Han characters""). They have been adapted to write a number of other languages, including Japanese, where they are known as "kanji" (); Korean, where they are known as "Hanja" (); Vietnamese, in a system known as "chữ Nôm"; and Zhuang, in a system known as "Sawndip". Collectively, they are known as CJK characters. Chinese characters constitute the oldest continuously used system of writing in the world. By virtue of their widespread current use in East Asia, and historic use throughout the Sinosphere, Chinese characters are among the most widely adopted writing systems in the world by number of users.
Furigana
Furigana is most often written in hiragana, though katakana, alphabet letters or other kanji can also be used in certain special cases. In vertical text, "tategaki", the furigana is placed to the right of the line of text; in horizontal text, "yokogaki", it is placed above the line of text, as illustrated below. or  These examples spell the word "kanji", which is made up of two kanji characters: 漢 ("kan", written in hiragana as かん), and 字 ("ji", written in hiragana as じ). Furigana may be added by character, in which case the furigana characters that correspond to a kanji are centered over that kanji; or by word or phrase, in which case the entire furigana word is centered over several kanji characters, even if the kanji do not represent equal shares of the kana needed to write them.
Japanese writing system
The modern Japanese writing system is a combination of two character types: logographic kanji, which are adopted Chinese characters, and syllabic kana. Kana itself consists of a pair of syllabaries: hiragana, used primarily for native or naturalised Japanese words and grammatical elements, and katakana, used primarily for foreign words and names, loanwords, onomatopoeia, scientific names, and sometimes for emphasis. Almost all written Japanese sentences contain a mixture of kanji and kana. Because of this mixture of scripts, in addition to a large inventory of kanji characters, the Japanese writing system is often considered to be the most complicated in use anywhere in the world.
Hiragana
Hiragana and katakana are both kana systems. With one or two minor exceptions, each sound in the Japanese language (strictly, each mora) is represented by one character (or one digraph) in each system. This may be either a vowel such as ""a"" (hiragana あ); a consonant followed by a vowel such as ""ka"" (か); or ""n"" (ん), a nasal sonorant which, depending on the context, sounds either like English "m", "n", or "ng" (), or like the nasal vowels of French. Because the characters of the kana do not represent single consonants (except in the case of ん "n"), the kana are referred to as syllabaries and not alphabets.
Katakana
In contrast to the hiragana syllabary, which is used for Japanese words not covered by kanji and for grammatical inflections, the katakana syllabary usage is quite similar to italics in English; specifically, it is used for transcription of foreign language words into Japanese and the writing of loan words (collectively "gairaigo"); for emphasis; to represent onomatopoeia; for technical and scientific terms; and for names of plants, animals, minerals, and often Japanese companies. Katakana are characterized by short, straight strokes and sharp corners. There are two main systems of ordering katakana: the old-fashioned iroha ordering, and the more prevalent gojūon ordering.