Ancient Japanese Language
By: Florence, Brithney, Carlos, Julius
Japanese Language Background

The Japanese only had a spoken language at first. Of course, they
used the Chinese characters (which they called kanji) to write
down information. The Japanese got their writing system from the
Korean scholars, who taught them Chinese, but it was very difficult
because the Japanese needed to learn two languages to record
their information. By the 900’s, the Japanese invented kana ,
meaning borrowed letters, (originally hiragana, but kana is a
simplified meaning.) because that’s basically what they were. The
Japanese took the Chinese characters and simplified them to
represent the syllables of the Japanese dialect.

Even though the Japanese writing system is now kana, the ancient
Japanese texts showed that their language is influenced by the
Chinese grammar, such as the word order. (For example, placing
the verb after the object) Over time, the phonetic usage of
Chinese became more and more frequent until kana was born.
(The grammar system didn’t change, though.)
About The Language ~*^*~


The Japanese writing comes from the Chinese, but no
one really knows where the dialect came from,
because it’s not nearly related to any other countries’
languages. Some people say they got it from the Yayoi
and Japonic cultures, but where did the Japonic culture
get the dialect?
The theory that appears to be the most credible is the
theory that wet rice farmers from Korea brought the
early language that we know as Japanese today. This
seems the most plausible, because of the fact that
language travels with agricultural technology.
~Kanji~
 Kanji
is a type of Japanese writing that
originated from Chinese characters.
 You can only write kanji, kanji is not able
to be spoken.
o Kanji can be spoken it is only able to be
written/drawn out.
Kanji Background
 Kanji
came from a student named ‘Wani’.
He combined Confucianism and Chinese
characters.
 It started off from the Chinese language
but they mixed stuff up to make kanji.
 They adapted this to have their own
writing system.
 Kanji was introduced to the Japanese in
the 5 century.
Alphabet
 There’s
no confirmed answer but there
are about 13,000 characters.
 People pronounce it differently just
because of the way they speak.
~Kana~
 Kana
means borrowed letters.
 In the 900’s, kana was developed as a
Japanese writing.
 Kana allowed the Japanese to spell out
the sounds in their own language.
(Syllables)
 Kana allowed the Japanese to write
freely on their own.
Alphabet
 There
are two different types of kana
scripts: modern cursive hiragana(ひらがな),
modern angular katakana (カタカナ).
END!
Some questions for you to
answer:
*Where did the Japanese
written language originate
from?
*Where did the Japanese
dialect originate from?
*What is kanji?
*What is kana?
*Where do they think spoken
Japanese language came
from?