Trading Company of Boston	About Hiragana

The rounder of the two Kana syllabaries, the Hiragana were invented independant of the Katakana at a later time, by the Buddhist priest known as Kûkai (AD 774-835).  Unlike the Katakana, his simplification of the phonetic Kanji virtually created Heian literature (794-1185, the age of peace and tranquility). The reason is that people believed women were incapable of learning to write the complex Chinese characters, and hence they did not waste the resources necessary to educate them.  But because the Hiragana were quite simple in comparison to the phonetic Kanji alphabet, women were taught to write the spoken Japanese language with the Hiragana.

Outrageous Japanese: Slang, Curses & Epithets by Jack Seward.
First Novel in History As a result the wealthy women of Japan were educated, and able to express themselves in writing, and they did so with great skill and passion.  In fact, the first published works in Japan were almost all written by women.  It is also undeniable that the single most important of all Heian period works, and for that matter of all Japanese literature, is the Genji monogatari  [The Tale of Genji].  The story of Genji concerns the adventures of an Emperor's son, who is great lover, who wins the heart of many women, and also depicts Japanese Heian period culture as one of the most artistic and cultivated in all of human history.  Finished in 1008 AD, it is perhaps the first novel ever written.  The author, Lady Murasaki (Shikibu, b 978), was sent by her father, a member of the powerful Fujiwara clan, to be an attendant to a princess in the emperor's court after the death of her husband.  Once, when I was attending an event at Keidanren Hall in Tokyo, I met a young lady who works for NEC Corporation, that received a university degree in the study of Genji monogatari .  You can examine a poem written by Lady Murasaki on the Japan Poem web site.
Comfort Women: Sexual Slavery in the Japanese Military During World War II.

Similiar to the Katakana, each Hiragana symbol was simplified from a Chinese character that was being used to represent a sound, like a Kanji alphabet. However, Kûkai's Hiragana were simplified from the entire Kanji instead of just a radical, or sub-part.  The primary function of the Hiragana script in modern times is the expression of native Japanese words for which there are no Chinese characters. It is also the only script used for particles and copulas, and all inflectional endings and verb stems. Opposite of native English speakers, children in Japan learn the Hiragana first, since they've already gained a command over the spoken language before learning to read and write. These children write with Hiragana instead of Kanji until their knowledge of Kanji increases.

Mastering Japanese, 10 Compact Disks and fast-paced Textbook. Based on Eleanor Jordan's Yale University curriculum, this program does not lend itself to laziness, but is for those interested in well designed, but tough audio drills.

Eventually, at a pace mandated by Monbusho, the Japanese Ministry of Education, Japanese children learn more and more Kanji (see the Grade 1 Kanji set).  With time, the Hiragana play less of a role in the written expression of their core ideas, and eventually come to represent only the stem portion of most verbal or adjectival constructs (these hiragana being called the Okurigana), and those native Japanese words for which there are no Kanji with which to represent the idea.  However, there are many cases when a word has a Kanji representing it, but only in the most formal circumstances, and by the most educated (or aged) classes would it find use.  This reflects in spirit the ancient practice of the upper classes, whose education included the study of the Chinese classics.  Also, while children are learning the pronunciation of new Kanji, or when it is expected that an adult speaker may not know an uncommon reading of a Chinese character, Hiragana script may be found written above the Kanji or on the right hand side. In this situation they are referred to as yomigana ("reading kana") or furigana ("handicap kana", as found in Kodansha's Furigana Japanese-English Dictionary).

FACT: A strategy based on sound research can mobilize and compel Kanji to contribute to conversational skills. See The Kanji Way to Japanese Language Power.
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