Hiragana
Hiragana is a Japanese syllabary whose characters represent morae. It is used for native words, grammatical endings, and readings of kanji.
Mora: A mora is a timing unit in a language's sound system; Japanese words are organized around morae. Each basic hiragana character represents one mora, not necessarily one syllable.
Gojūon: Gojūon is the conventional chart organizing Japanese kana by consonant and vowel sounds. It lays out the basic hiragana inventory in a systematic grid.
Man'yōgana: Man'yōgana is an ancient Japanese writing system that used Chinese characters for their sounds rather than meanings. Hiragana developed by simplifying the cursive forms of characters used in this system.
Furigana: Furigana are small kana printed beside or above kanji to show their pronunciation. Hiragana is commonly used to provide readings for kanji in texts.
Japanese writing system: The Japanese writing system combines kanji, hiragana, katakana, and the Latin alphabet. Hiragana's role becomes clear alongside the scripts it routinely complements.
Yōon: Yōon are contracted Japanese morae written with an i-row kana followed by a small ya, yu, or yo kana. Small hiragana characters combine with preceding kana to represent these contracted sounds.
Heian period: The Heian period was an era of Japanese history from 794 to 1185, centered on the imperial court in Kyoto. Hiragana took shape and gained literary use in this courtly cultural setting.
Okurigana: Okurigana are kana endings attached to kanji stems in Japanese words, especially verbs and adjectives. Hiragana writes inflectional endings that complete many kanji-based words.
Kanji: Kanji are Chinese-derived characters used in Japanese writing, usually representing words or meaningful parts of words. Hiragana supplies grammatical endings and readings around many kanji.
Sokuon: Sokuon is a mora that marks a doubled consonant, written with a small tsu in kana. Hiragana uses small っ to signal a consonant closure before the next sound.