Changes

===Modern===

===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.

While ''hiragana'' are standardized today into a single form for each ''kana'', e.g. あ being the only ''hiragana'' character for the sound "a", up until the Meiji period there was no singular standard character. While many of the ''kana'' standard today were in use in the pre-modern period, they were used alongside calligraphically abbreviated forms of a number of other ''kanji'' as well, with no particular preference given to the ''kana'' we now take as standard. For example, と, the standard ''kana'' for the sound "to" today, is derived from an abbreviation of the ''kanji'' 止 (''tomaru'', "to stop"). But in pre-modern and early modern texts, this と is used interchangeably with calligraphically abbreviated forms of the ''kanji'' 登、東、斗、度、土、and 刀.<ref>Kasama eiin sôkan kangyôkai, ''Jiten kana: shahon wo yomu tanoshimi'' 字典かな～写本をよむ楽しみ, Kasama shoin, 2010, 33-34.</ref> It was only from the Meiji period onwards that と developed any special prominence over these other ways of conveying the sound "to."

 

''Hiragana'' was used extensively up through the early modern period, as it still is today, for particles, ''okurigana'', and ''furigana''; however, up through the Meiji period, it was quite common to use ''katakana'' for these purposes as well. Today, by contrast, ''katakana'' is reserved largely for foreign words and onomatopoeia. One of the few exceptions is seen in the use of the ''katakana'' "ke" (ケ) to denote the sound "ka" when counting, or in certain placenames, where it derives from the use of "ga" as a possessive particle, for example in the placename Ichigaya 市ヶ谷 (lit. "valley of the market"), or in the phrase ''sankagetsu'' 三ヶ月 ([a length/duration of] three months).

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]]).

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]]).