Japanese people didn’t have peculiar letters before they imported Chinese characters in the early fifth century. Chinese characters had their own meanings, so our ancestors gave them Japanese readings that had the same meanings. Then they used those letters as phonograms as well as ideograms. About 400 years later, they made “hiragana” from running hand and “katakana” from the parts of “kanji” to use only as phonograms. “Hiragana” became especially popular among the noblewomen, and at that time, the golden age had come to Japanese classic literature.
I think this history shows that Japanese people are very good at taking something in and arranging it according to our own style. This characteristic may come from Japan being an island country. We haven’t been getting influence from other countries compared to countries with borders, and have had enough time to expand on one thing. Anyhow, I like this characteristic of Japanese people and I think we can be proud of it. Aside from this, I’m sorry that we may be slightly lacking in originality.
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