Japanese Writing System

1. Script Basics: Mixed Characters
2. Type Long Vowels (Macrons) for Rōmaji
   1. Windows Word Alt Codes
   2. Macintosh OS X Extended Keyboard Accent Codes
3. Typing the Yen Sign
4. Japanese Computing Links

Script Basics: Mixed Scripts

Four Main Scripts

Modern Japanese writing mixes four different scripts, including the Latin alphabet, depending on the word and context of the material. The four major scripts used in Japanese are:

1. katakana (カタカナ)- One of the native phonetic syllabaries (each character is a syllable). katakana is used for foreign words, some company names, new Japanese words and other words in which a pronunciation needs to be specified.
2. Hiragana (ひらがな) - The other native phonetic syllabary (each character is a syllable) which is used for specifying certain grammatical endings. Hiragana (literally "women's writing") is circular with larger loops. katakana is more angular and resembles a streamlined Chinese character. Case endings or grammatical endings written in Hiragana are called Okurigana.
3. Kanji (漢字)- The Japanese name for Chinese characters used in writing many Japanese words.
4. Romaji (Rōmaji) - The Japanese name for the Roman (English) alphabet which has been adopted as part of the writing system. Note that the Romaji includes long marks (macrons) on vowels.

See image below for an example of a Kikkoman Web page that uses all four scripts.

In addition to the scripts listed above, Japanese writing can also include these scripts.

1. Furigana/RUBY - A style of Japanese writing in which phonetic Katakana and Hiragana are placed above Kanji (Chinese) characters in order to provide a pronunciation hint.
   Note: "Hurigana" is an alternate spelling of Furigana.
2. Hentaigana - An older, more ornate form of Hiragana used in formal Japanese documents such as diplomas and shop names.
3. Emoji - Picture icons used in Japanese text messages similar to emoticons, but also including weather symbols, holiday symbols, food and drink symbols and more. The use of symbols is so popular in Japan, that many are scheduled to be included in future versions of Unicode.

Emoji on iPhone

Image courtesy Nobuyuki Hayashi.
Licensed by Creative Commons.

Some References

• Japanese Writing Tutor
• Omniglot Japanese
• Ancient Scripts: Japanese
• Wikipedia Japanese Writing System - see links on right for additional Wikipedia pages

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Typing Japaenese

Type Long Vowels of Romaji

Long Vowel Codes and Procedures
PLATFORM	DESCRIPTION
Word for Windows	Use 4-digit ALT codes. See list here.
Windows	Use the Character Map. See instructions here.
Macintosh	Type Option+Y
HTML	Use the code ¥ to specify a Yen symbol. See more details

 

Type the Yen Sign

Below are the codes for typing a Yen sign in different platforms.

Yen Symbol Codes

Platform	Description
Windows	Type Alt+0165. You must use the numeric keypad. See details on the Alt Key page.
Macintosh	Type Option+Y
HTML	Use the code ¥ to specify a Yen symbol. See details on the HTML code page.

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Links

Japanese Computing

Windows

• Declan Software Installing Windows IME for Japanese - Updated for Windows 7 and Vista. Scroll down for contents.
• Yes Japan Installing Japanese on Vista/Windows 7
• Windows XP Japanese Input
• Microsoft Japanese Language Pack - for older Windows Systems only.
• Writing Japanese under Windows
• Jim Breen Japanese Computing Links
• Nihongo Computing in Japanese
• Microsoft Global IME - Used to type East Asian Languages
• CJK Fontboard - Information and font links for Japanese and other East Asian languages

Macintosh

• Yes Japan Typing on Mac OS X
• University of Hawaii Japanese Input for Mac OS X (PDF)
• Japanese for your Mac
• Nihongo Computing in Japanse

Other Platforms (Including DOS/Unix)

• Japanese Input and Fonts in Ubuntu Linux and other Japanese Ubuntu Pages
• Enabling Japanese in Gentoo Linux
• Jim Breen Japanese Computing Links
• Linux in Japan and Linux Nihongo - Both date from the late 90s, but may have good information
• Internationalization Gurus: Japanese - Information on HTML, Japanese encoding, XML and conversion utilities

Japanese Writing System

Script Basics

• Japanese Writing Tutor - Japanese writing tutorial with animations of writing in Japanese.
• Omniglot Japanese
• Wikipedia Japanese Writing - see menu on right for additional Wikipedia pages

Additional Fonts

• Microsoft Global IME for Windows XP - Includes East Asian fonts
• Global IME for Windows 2000/NT
• Gallery of Unicode Fonts - Japanese
• Alan Wood's Unicode Fonts

Web Development Tips

• Computing with Accents Web Development Tips
• Japanese Text Encoding - Technical overview of Japanese encoding
• Unihan Database from Unicode

 

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