Old Japanese
Videos
Old Japanese is the oldest attested stage of the Japanese language, recorded in documents from the Nara period. It became Early Middle Japanese in the succeeding Heian period. Old Japanese is an early
Rubbing of Bussokuseki-kahi poems carved c. 752, recording Old Japanese using Chinese characters
11th-century annotated manuscript of the Man'yōshū
Man'yōgana
Videos
Man'yōgana is an ancient Japanese writing system that uses Chinese characters to phonetically represent Old Japanese. It was the first known kana system to be developed as a means to phonetically tran
Old Japanese
…of the Old Japanese corpus consists of poetry, especially the Man'yōshū, with a smaller number of formal prose works. These texts were written using man'yōgana, a writing system that employs Chinese characters as syllabograms or (occasionally) logograms. The language featured a few phonological differences…
A page from Katsura-bon Man'yōshū with poems written with man'yōgana and accompanied by hiragana transcription.