Definition of the word hiragana

The Japanese writing system consists of various syllabaries (a set of characters representing syllables) and kanji (Chinese characters adopted into the Japanese language). Hiragana, also known as hiranashi (平なし), is one of the two syllabaries used in modern Japanese. It was developed during the Heian period (794-1185 CE) as a more cursive and simplified version of the earlier syllabary called kanji-kana (漢字仮名), which was used to accompany kanji characters in texts. The name hiragana, which literally means "simple syllabaries," is derived from the word hira (平), meaning "shallow" or "simple," and kanji (書), which means "to write" or "character." Hiragana characters are distinguished from their katakana counterparts (another syllabary) by their shape and use: while hiragana is predominantly used to write Japanese words and grammatical particles, katakana is typically reserved for foreign words, onomatopoeia, and scientific terminology. Overall, hiragana is an integral part of the Japanese writing system, enabling the efficient transmission of the language's unique phonetic structure in written form.