もじ【文字】
■ /moji/, also pronounced もんじ /monji/. Also called
字 /ji/, though this often refers to kanji. (The pronunciation もんじ
/monji/ is rarely used in speech and sounds old-fashioned.)
Characters (graphs), kana, letters, hieroglyphics.
Japanese is often quoted as being the hardest
language to become literate in. Not only do the 2000-plus standard
kanji require long study, but the kanji are mixed with the hiragana and
katakana scripts along with letters from the alphabet.
Together, the hiragana and katakana are referred to as kana. Excluding
perhaps number 5 below, the hiragana and katakana have a one-to-one
correspondence. The kana have been broken down for the learner into
groups:
1) 五十音図 - these tables have the basic kana
2) 濁音・半濁音 - these are kana with diacritical
marks
3) 拗音 - these are the result of combining
kana ending with /i/ with /ya/, /yu/ and /yo/, like kyo in Kyoto
4) 促音 - this is the use of /tsu/ to make
consonant sounds longer, like the /kk/ in bookkeeper
5) 外来語用の特別かな - these are newer kana
combinations used for foreign words and other effects
Other 文字 commonly used in Japanese are:
6) 漢字 - kanji; characters (or graphs)
mainly from China. One special use of kanji is described in the entry
on 当て字. 漢字 that were invented in
Japan are explained in 国字.
7) ローマ字 - letters from the alphabet
文字 with special uses or applications:
8) ギリシャ文字 - Greek letters, used mainly in mathematics
9) 変体仮名 - hentaigana, alternate forms of
hiragana
10) 万葉仮名 - man'yougana, kanji used phonetically in ancient times, most
notably in the ancient poetry collection 万葉集 man'youshuu.
Names of other common types of 文字:
11) ロシア文字・キリル文字 - Russian/Cyrillic letters
12) 象形文字 - shoukei moji, hieroglyphics
13) ハングル文字 - hangul (Korean writing)
14) ヘブライ文字 - Hebrew letters
15) アラビア文字 - Arabic letters
In formation about the coding systems used to represent Japanese in
computers can be found in the entry on 文字
コード.
This entry was created by Benjamin Barrett, with additional contributions by Jon Babcock, Tom Gally, and another contributor.