/jp/ - Otaku Culture

I have a test in my Japanese class today. I just wanted to make sure of something... and Im not aware of any good online translators at the moment.

senkou no bungaku desuka.
Is your major field of study also literature?

Is that correct, sorry I dont know how to do hiragana on this computer

>>3417885
Your trolling is excellent enough that I'll play along.

The Japanese use of kanji has changed somewhat from the Chinese hanzi they originated from, due to centuries in isolation and xenophobic hostility. 好 is no longer used in the same way as it is in Chinese, just as an example.

The reason most kanji have multiple pronunciations is also partially attributable to the isolation. Originally, they might have been spoken the same as the Chinese. However, the Japanese felt a need to do away with the tonal aspect of the language, as well as a need to merge the Chinese pronunciations into the more commonly-spoken tongues of Japan.
Thus, on'yomi.

However, using on'yomi for every little thing didn't sound right to a Japanese ear. They already had words for many things kanji shorthanded. Thus, they assigned the kanji to various native Japanese words and their native pronunciations.
Thus, kun'yomi. And also nanori, to an extent, for names.

Hiragana is different. See, kanji was all fine and good, but they needed something simpler for when they needed to spell things out phonetically (see the above for reasons why they'd need that). They went with man'yogana, which was alright in a sense, but it was still kanji being repurposed, which could easily confuse readers used to straight-up kanji. Eventually, the man'yogana started being written in a more shorthand fashion, until they evolved into the hiragana we know today.
See the pic attached for the visible process of this evolution.

(cont.)

>>1006076
The Tale of Genji
The Tale of the Heike
Kokin Wakashū
Makura no Sōshi ("The Pillow Book")
Tsurezuregusa