Hiragana (2)

History
Hiragana developed from man'yōgana, Chinese characters used for their pronunciations, a practice which started in the 5th century. The forms of the hiragana originate from the cursive script style of Chinese calligraphy. The figure below shows the derivation of hiragana from manyōgana via cursive script. The upper part shows the character in the regular script form, the center character in red shows the cursive script form of the character, and the bottom shows the equivalent hiragana.

When they were first created, hiragana were not accepted by everyone. Many felt that the language of the educated was still Chinese. Historically, in Japan, the regular script (kaisho) form of the characters, so-called otokode (男手, otokode), "men's writing", was used by men; the cursive script (sōsho) form of the kanji was used by women. Thus hiragana first gained popularity among women, who were not allowed access to the same levels of education as men. From this comes the alternative name of onnade (女手, onnade) "women's writing". For example, The Tale of Genji and other early novels by female authors used hiragana extensively or exclusively.

Male authors came to write literature using hiragana. Hiragana, with its flowing style, was used for unofficial writing such as personal letters, while katakana and Chinese were used for official documents. In modern times, the usage of hiragana has become mixed with katakana writing. Katakana is now relegated to special uses such as recently borrowed words (i.e., since the 19th century), names in transliteration, the names of animals, in telegrams, and for emphasis.

Originally, all sounds had more than one hiragana. In 1900, the system was simplified so each sound had only one hiragana. Other hiragana are known as hentaigana (変体仮名, hentaigana)

The pangram poem Iroha-uta ("ABC song/poem"), which dates to the 10th century, uses every hiragana once　(except n ん, which was just a variant of む before Muromachi era). In the chart below, the romanization shows the hiragana; the reading in modern Japanese is in parentheses.

Note that the last line begins with an obsolete kana (we ゑ).

いろはにほへと(いろはにおえど)　I ro ha ni ho he to(Iro wa nioedo)　Even the blooming flowers

ちりぬるを(ちりぬるを) 　chi ri nu ru wo(chirinuru o)　Will eventually fade

わかよたれそ(わがよたれぞ)　wa ka yo ta re so(waga yo tare zo)　Even our world

つねならむ(つねならん)　tsu ne na ra mu(tsune naran)　Is not eternal

うゐのおくやま(ういのおくやま)　u wi no o ku ya ma(ui no okuyama)　The deep mountains of vanity

けふこえて(きょうこえて)　ke fu ko e te(kyō koete)　Cross them today

あさきゆめみし(あさきゆめみじ)　a sa ki yu me mi shi(asaki yume miji)　And superficial dreams

ゑひもせす(えいもせず)　we hi mo se su(ei mo sezu)　Shall no longer delude you.