万葉仮名

See also: 萬葉假名 and 万叶假名

Japanese

Japanese Wikipedia has an article on:

万葉仮名

Wikipedia ^ja

English Wikipedia has an article on:

Man'yōgana

Wikipedia

Kanji in this term
万	葉	仮	名
まん Grade: 2	よう Grade: 3	か > が Grade: 5	な Grade: 1
kan'yōon	on'yomi	kun'yomi

Alternative spelling
萬葉假名 (kyūjitai)

Etymology

Compound of 万葉 (man'yō, “ten thousand leaves”, from the title of the Old Japanese poetry anthology, Man'yōshū, “Collection of Ten Thousand Leaves”) +‎ 仮名 (kana, “phonetic character”, literally “borrowed characters” or “borrowed names”, from the way the characters were borrowed for their phonetic values).^[1]^[2] The kana changes to gana as an instance of rendaku (連濁).

This kind of phonetic re-use of Chinese characters was broadly popularized by the Man'yōshū. Chinese used phonetically to spell Japanese occurs even earlier in the historical record, such as on the Inariyama Sword, dated to 471 or 531.

Pronunciation

(Tokyo) まんよーがな [màń'yóógáná] (Heiban – [0])^[3]^[2]^[4]
(Tokyo) まんよーがな [màń'yóꜜògànà] (Nakadaka – [3])^[3]^[2]^[4]
IPA^(key): [mã̠ɰ̃jo̞ːɡa̠na̠]

Noun

万(まん)葉(よう)仮(が)名(な) • (man'yōgana) ^{←まんえふがな (man'efugana)^?}

Man'yōgana, the early Japanese syllabary using Chinese characters to represent Japanese sounds: the predecessor of hiragana and katakana

References

^ Shōgaku Tosho (1988) 国語大辞典（新装版） [Unabridged Dictionary of Japanese (Revised Edition)] (in Japanese), Tōkyō: Shogakukan, →ISBN
↑ ^2.0 ^2.1 ^2.2 Matsumura, Akira, editor (2006), 大辞林 [Daijirin] (in Japanese), Third edition, Tokyo: Sanseidō, →ISBN
↑ ^3.0 ^3.1 NHK Broadcasting Culture Research Institute, editor (1998), NHK日本語発音アクセント辞典 [NHK Japanese Pronunciation Accent Dictionary] (in Japanese), Tokyo: NHK Publishing, Inc., →ISBN
↑ ^4.0 ^4.1 Kindaichi, Kyōsuke et al., editors (1997), 新明解国語辞典 [Shin Meikai Kokugo Jiten] (in Japanese), Fifth edition, Tokyo: Sanseidō, →ISBN

[KDJ-1] Shōgaku Tosho (1988) 国語大辞典（新装版） [Unabridged Dictionary of Japanese (Revised Edition)] (in Japanese), Tōkyō: Shogakukan, →ISBN

[DJR-2] 2.0 ^2.1 ^2.2 Matsumura, Akira, editor (2006), 大辞林 [Daijirin] (in Japanese), Third edition, Tokyo: Sanseidō, →ISBN

[NHK-3] 3.0 ^3.1 NHK Broadcasting Culture Research Institute, editor (1998), NHK日本語発音アクセント辞典 [NHK Japanese Pronunciation Accent Dictionary] (in Japanese), Tokyo: NHK Publishing, Inc., →ISBN

[SMK5-4] 4.0 ^4.1 Kindaichi, Kyōsuke et al., editors (1997), 新明解国語辞典 [Shin Meikai Kokugo Jiten] (in Japanese), Fifth edition, Tokyo: Sanseidō, →ISBN

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