I noticed in words like アメリカ and イギリス are written in katakana, _****but why is
日本 (にほん) in hiragana if Japan is a country too?****_ I noticed katana is also
used in modern stuff (like smartphone, スマホ). _****Was katana made for new
words instead of making a whole new complicated kanji?****_
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2023-08-08T11:23:33.053
100580
2023-08-09T02:15:19.153
57229
question
katakana hiragana
What is the purpose of katakana?
There is no such rule that says you must write country names in katakana. The
correct rule is to write **loanwords** in katakana. Read the Usage section in
[this Wikipedia article](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katakana#Usage). Just
as English writers sometimes use italics to indicate loanwords (e.g., "
_wasabi_ ", " _ad hoc_ "), Japanese writers have a rule of using katakana for
words derived from languages such as English.

スマホ is written in katakana because it's short for スマートフォン, which is a
loanword. Western country names historically don't have corresponding words in
Japanese, so katakana is used to represent their sound. On the other hand,
some countries that are in the "kanji culture zone" are referred to in kanji
rather than katakana. Excluding Japan (日本) itself, the countries that fall
into this category are China (中国), South Korea (韓国), and North Korea (北朝鮮,
DPRK).

When katakana was first created in the 9th century by Buddhist monks, the
purpose was not to write English, but to efficiently notate the reading of
sutras that had come from distant Asian countries. Today, we still use
katakana primarily for "sound only notation".
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2023-08-09T02:15:19.153
100585
2023-08-09T02:15:19.153
5010
100580
answer