In the past, the Japanese language had several characters derived from different kanji for a single sound. In modern times, they were unified so that there is one character for one sound. This is why some letters look so different between ancient and modern.
@@thegate8985 I've read that Japanese decided to keep を just to use as a particle in sentences to differentiate it from お, even though their modern pronunciation is essentially the same.
yup this is the hentaigana or "変体仮名" . today there are 45 hiraganas for 45 sounds , meaning one sound has one hiragana only for each of them . however before 1900 , there are several hiraganas that can be used interchangeably for each . for instance , "ka" can be written with 14 different hiraganas . they were all derived from the kanji 加 , 閑,可,我,駕,賀,歌,哥,香,家,嘉,歟,謌 and 佳 . all of it can be used interchangeably . another example is "ta" . there were 4 hiraganas for the sound "ta" , on which , were derived from the kanji 當 , 堂 , 田 and 佗 . therefore , you can say that there were hundreds of characters in total that were used to write the 45 sounds in hiragana . in 1900s , the "Regulations on the Enforcement of the Elementary School Ordinance" or "小学校令施行規則" had decided that only one selected character out of all hundreds of them can represent a sound . therefore , other forms of a kana that is not choosen are considered as "hentaigana" (変体仮名) or in "variant kana" . since then , the hiragana has been standardized . for instance , since the sound "ka" had 14 different hiraganas , it had been decided that the hiragana that were derived from 加 , which is か is to be used . nowadays , you can still see the hentaiganas of hiraganas on some shop signs in japan but it is not used widely anymore . EDIT : "hentai"(変体) here is not synonymous to the word "hentai"(変態) that we all know . "変体" means "weird" or "abnormality" but "変態" is , yes you've guessed it right , "pervert" .
@@taududeblobber221 Yes, that too. I have a sheet where I used the same manyōgana which was used for Hiragana but ended up with hentaigana which were very different from the ones we use.
I swear I learn something new from this channel every day ☺️ I’m currently learning kanji but it’s nice to review hiragana and what it used to look like!
@@iam__nour it’s not really hard to learn hiragana or katakana, because they don’t have so many characters. If you look at hiragana or katakana chart, you’ll see there’re 5 columns a, i, u, e, and o, and Japanese just has 5 vowels, and each row is a consonant combines with these vowels, except the 1st row.
...fortunately current hiragana are a lot easy to remember...I can't image to learn old hiragana...impossible! Ps. Your mode to work is not simply writing...is pure art...fantastic!
But back then this was exactly how people managed to write things quicker and easier. These hentaiganas are mostly connected when written vertically, making a very good flow.
fun fact: originally, japanese people didn't seperate "n" and "mu" in hiragana. the characters む and ん as well as hentaigana of them were used interchangably, until someone declared that む could only be used for mu and ん could only be used for n.
@@kingnoob3503 I don't get it. 'M' is a bilabial nasal whereas 'n' can vary between velar, palatal, dental and bilabial nasal sounds. And む has a vowel sound where ん doesn't.
@@s888r In japanese the "u" vowel is often just omited (i too, more rarely). So it is not that weird む would be read as just a bilabial nasal sometimes, like す is often just a voiceless fricative. In fact, you still see ム being used for just a bilabial nasal without a vowel in foreign names.
@@heatth1474 Ok, I do know this. But even then む becomes a strict bilabial nasal while ん can vary between all the different positions. I wouldn't be surprised if both ぬ and む would be replaced with ん. But then, ぬ wasn't inn this group.
The character corresponding to と looks a lot like it came from cursive 東 (东 in Simplified Chinese, actually), which happens to have the Kan-on reading とう; shows quite clearly how much variation there was in the hentaigana character set.
Greetings from Korea. I really enjoy your writing videos, and I find it interesting that the old versions of the current Hiragana was so different. As a language enthusiast, I was wondering if you could make a video on ‘gugyeol’, which is basically a Korean version of Katakana but was poorly used due to complex old Korean phonology. Some scholars say that Gugyeol and Katakana might even be related, like the Latin-Cyrillic alphabets.
Actually interesting. Thank you for this vedio. Early Hiragana characters are so complex to understand for a begginer. They have to practice well to write those characters. Modern Japanese Hiragana characters are so easy. 😅
The language's writing system always changes which gets me suprised. Despite the fact that i'm not Japanese and can't speak it, i'm still amazed about how the write it 1000 years ago.
I can see the old hiragana for い takes inspiration from the kanji/hanzi "I"/"Yi" 意, while the contemporary one is based on "I"/"Yi" 以. Plus that と heavily resembles the simplified "Dōng" 東 too (东)
One thing i always wonder is if the thing at き and さ is connected because fonts and all seem to heavily disagree, even on Wikipedia the stroke order gif for き connects but the image does not.
It can be connected or disconnected, depending on your own preference. Both are correct :) Its kinda like how some people right "7" with an extra line in the middle. Or some people write "8" with two circles, while some write it as an infinity sign. With the letter "a" most people dont draw that little curve at the top of "a." Some people dont dot their "i" or "j" Some people write "2" just like that, while some put a little loop at the bottom All of these differences are all correct ways to write, and non are incorrect. It's all down to the writer's preference :) The same thing is true for every language's writing system (even ancient egyptian hieroglyphics have slight differences between scribes!)
It's an issue of esthetics. The connected versions, typically used in utilitarian fonts, are the basic forms and show the path of the brush. When hand-written, a more rapidly-moving brush or pen may briefly lift up off the paper slightly in certain places (usually where the thinnest parts of the stroke would be), but it always traces the same path. A continuous stroke showing some white space is considered esthetically pleasing.
