Downloaded from https://www.everyspec.com FM 34-54 JAPANESE: Japanese has a mixed writing system. Like the Chinese, the Japanese normally use international numerals in their S&T literature; but this is not the real reason their writing system is mixed. Japanese writing is mixed because, in general, it uses Chinese characters to write the lexical stem of nouns and verbs (the part of the word that conveys the basic meaning); and a set of phonetic symbols invented in Japan called hiragana to write the grammatical affixes of the nouns and verbs as well as entire auxiliary words.
Japanese also use another set of phonetic symbols, also invented in Japan, called katakana to write words borrowed from European languages. The presence of these katakana symbols distinguishes Japanese. Normal prose will contain perhaps 60 to 70 percent hiragana symbols. Unlike Chinese characters, hiragana are written with curved strokes. Katakana are less frequent. The hiragana are illustrated in Figure G-16 and the katakana are illustrated in Figure G-17. Pay particular attention to the fifth symbol from the left in the bottom row of the hiragana (Figure G-16), the one labeled "no." This symbol is used to write a very common grammatical affix.
It will almost always occur frequently in any Japanese text. G-23