Quote:
Originally Posted by nerd
Fun fact: Most of Japan's first original literature was written by women. Most men were busy copying Chinese texts and women weren't allowed to be educated in Chinese, so they wrote original work in Japan's native script, hiragana.
Wee! Isn't learning fun?!
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If my Japanese course lecturer was not mistaken, hiragana was not any more Japan's "native script" compared to "Chinese". the Japanese first used "manyogana" to record the pronunciation of the Chinese characters, and the "manyogana" are in fact all Chinese character themselves. the formal "Kaishu" form of "manyogana" ("Chinese") was only used by men, while the informal cursive form of "manyogana" ("Chinese") was used by both men and women. Later the cursive form of manyogana evolved into hiragana, by taking laterals and radicals of the cursive form of manyogana ("Chinese"). So both manyogana ("Chinese") and hiragana are Japan's native script.