manyogana

See also: man'yōgana

English

Etymology

From Japanese romanization man'yōgana of 万葉仮名.

Noun

manyogana (uncountable)

1. An ancient/early Japanese syllabary in which Chinese characters represented sounds instead of their regular meaning as they again do today in the form of kanji; it was the predecessor of hiragana and katakana, present Japanese syllabaries; used in the Manyoshū, a poetic anthology.