Hiragana: All 71, and the Kanji Each One Came From | Japanese Before Grade 1

All 71 hiragana, the 46 basic kana and the 25 voiced ones, each with its sound, the kanji it came from, an everyday word and live stroke order. How to use it: each kana appears alone for two beats. Say it before the voice does. Every hiragana began as a kanji written in cursive until it wore down to a few strokes: 安 became あ, 以 became い. For つ the sources differ (川 or 州), and the clip shows both. How 48 kana became 46, and why を survives only as a particle, is Field Note 010 on japanundercover.com Chapters 0:00 あ い う え お 0:32 か き く け こ 0:55 さ し す せ そ 1:24 た ち つ て と 1:48 な に ぬ ね の 2:14 は ひ ふ へ ほ 2:38 ま み む め も 3:02 や ゆ よ 3:16 ら り る れ ろ 3:45 わ を ん 3:59 が ぎ ぐ げ ご 4:25 ざ じ ず ぜ ぞ 4:51 だ ぢ づ で ど 5:17 ば び ぶ べ ぼ 5:43 ぱ ぴ ぷ ぺ ぽ Full per-kana timestamps are in the pinned comment. Credits Kana origins: Fukui Prefectural Archives, くずし字一覧表; Japanese Wikipedia, 平仮名. Stroke order: KanjiVG, © Ulrich Apel, CC BY-SA 3.0. Example words checked against JMdict, Electronic Dictionary Research and Development Group, CC BY-SA 4.0. Fonts: Noto Serif JP, Noto Sans JP, DM Sans and Instrument Serif, SIL Open Font License. Music made with Suno. Readings: Haru. Licence links for each source are in Field Note 010.