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==History==
==History==
===Origins===
The earliest object with written characters on it to be uncovered in Japan dates all the way back to [[57]] CE. This is a golden seal granted to the Japanese state of [[Na]] by [[Emperor Guangwu]] of the [[Han Dynasty]]. However, writing is not believed to have been truly adopted by Japanese elites in any significant way until the 5th century CE, and it was only beginning in the 7th century that materials began to be read and written more widely by the capital elites, including Buddhist and Confucian texts, and other Chinese materials.
The earliest object with written characters on it to be uncovered in Japan dates all the way back to [[57]] CE. This is a golden seal granted to the Japanese state of [[Na]] by [[Emperor Guangwu]] of the [[Han Dynasty]]. However, writing is not believed to have been truly adopted by Japanese elites in any significant way until the 5th century CE, and it was only beginning in the 7th century that materials began to be read and written more widely by the capital elites, including Buddhist and Confucian texts, and other Chinese materials.
The ''Nihon shoki'' ([[720]]) and ''Kojiki'' ([[712]]) are generally considered the earliest surviving major-length works in Japanese. Other documents from the [[Shosoin|Shôsôin Imperial Repository]] of similar age should similar linguistic forms. While the ''Nihon shoki'' was written almost entirely in ''kanji'', the ''Kojiki'' employed a more thoroughly indigenous (non-Sinic) form. Buddhist texts written in Chinese began to be notated, or re-written, in various ways at this time to become legible as Japanese, marking the beginning of some of the earliest forms of ''kundoku''.
The ''Nihon shoki'' ([[720]]) and ''Kojiki'' ([[712]]) are generally considered the earliest surviving major-length works in Japanese. Other documents from the [[Shosoin|Shôsôin Imperial Repository]] of similar age should similar linguistic forms. While the ''Nihon shoki'' was written almost entirely in ''kanji'', the ''Kojiki'' employed a more thoroughly indigenous (non-Sinic) form. Buddhist texts written in Chinese began to be notated, or re-written, in various ways at this time to become legible as Japanese, marking the beginning of some of the earliest forms of ''kundoku''.
==Medieval==
[[Keian Genju]] ([[1427]]-[[1508]]), founder of the [[Satsunan school]] of Japanese [[Neo-Confucianism]], developed his own system of ''kundoku'' notation for reading classical Chinese as Japanese. This system, called Keian-ten, was later adapted by Satsunan leader [[Nanpo Bunshi]] ([[1555]]-[[1620]]), whose Bunshi-ten texts were then distributed more widely by his student [[Tomari Jochiku]] ([[1570]]-[[1655]]), representing perhaps a significant antecedent to the modern systems of marking ''kanbun'' for Japanese readers.<ref>Takatsu Takashi, “Ming Jianyang Prints and the Spread of the Teachings of Zhu Xi to Japan and the Ryukyu Kingdom in the Seventeenth Century,” in Angela Schottenhammer (ed.), ''The East Asian Mediterranean: Maritime Crossroads of Culture'', Harrassowitz Verlag, 2008. 255-260.</ref>
===Modern===
While it was common up through the Meiji period to use ''katakana'' for all the particles, ''okurigana'', and ''furigana'' in certain forms of writing, without any ''hiragana'', in the modern era it has become standard to use ''hiragana'' for all these purposes. ''Katakana'' is today reserved largely for foreign words and onomatopoeia.
In the 1940s, the government undertook two major spelling reforms. They established new, simplified standard forms, known as ''shinjitai'' ("new character forms") for many of the ''kanji'', eliminating the old character forms (''kyûjitai'') from standard usage. To give just a few examples, the characters for "country" (''kuni''), "etiquette" (''rei''), and "body" (''karada'') changed from 國、禮、and 體 to 国、礼、and 体, respectively. They also eliminated a few ''kana'', and their corresponding sounds, from the language, including the ''ye'' (ゑ or ヱ, as in Yedo, now [[Edo]], though still used by Yebisu Beer), ''wi'' (ゐor ヰ, still used today by Nikka Whiskey), and ''kwa'' and ''gwa'' (as in Kwannon and Hongwan-ji, now [[Kannon]] and [[Hongan-ji]]).
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==References==
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[[Category:Resource Articles]]
[[Category:Resource Articles]]
