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Japan tattoo 1
A special monograph which is the only one in is gender,
about Japanese ideograms and their meanings.
A BRIEF HISTORY OF JAPANESE WRITING
The modern history of Japan began in 1867, when it embarked on trade with the west. This event led to the abolition of the ancient feudal system and the dismantling of the warrior class. Warriors were no longer allowed to carry their highly representative swords in public. However, the powerfully spiritual and symbolic image of the warrior and his sword that had had a profound impact and influence on the destiny of ancient Japan was to remain an integral part of the modern country, especially prominent in both martial arts and in the Ways. Even Japanese art, which owes much to the feudal warrior figure, survived and thrived through the social and cultural revolution and became renowned the world over.
THE WAY OF CALLIGRAPHY
One of the most popular Japanese art forms is undoubtedly shodo, the Way of calligraphy, which dates back to thousands of years ago. The first examples of pictographic script come from China, in the 18th century B.C. Man, the sun, the moon and other such elements were represented with the use of simplistic symbols on smooth surfaces, usually animal bones. They had a sacred function for priests who used them as oracles to predict the future.
With the CHIN dynasty, which ruled China in the 3rd century B.C., calligraphy engravings were employed both in ordinary life and to record the acts of the Imperial Court. One of its ministers, named Li Ssu, was entrusted with creating a standard system of characters, meanings and writing techniques.
CONFUCIAN PHILOSOPHY
However, the first real comprehensive spread of the pictographic script was due to Confucian philosophy and the consequent demand for written texts among the masses. The "four treasures" that made this possible were paper, ink, the ink stone and finally the brush. This last item, in talented hands soon became the link between art and writing.
This form of calligraphy was then introduced into Japan in about 600 A.D. There was a religious motivation behind this development too. Buddhism had spread throughout Japan and the need to make its beliefs accessible to all became the catalyst for the use of calligraphy. The Kana alphabet was codified two centuries later in order to transfer the phonetic elements of Japanese onto paper. The world's first ever novel "The Tale of Genji" was written in this format.
Over the years, brushes were produced with different types of hair and in various sizes. One calligrapher even wrote by dipping his long beard in ink.
ALLURING JAPANESE WRITING
Japanese has three different forms of writing, Hiragana, Katakana and kanji.
Hiragana and Katakana include a total of 107 symbols that are divided into two syllabaries made up of 46 pure sounds (Seion) each, plus 20 impure sounds (Dakuon). There are also 5 semi-pure sounds (Handakuon) and 36 compound sounds (Yoon) derived from the combination of the aforementioned sounds.
Hiragana is the most popular writing system, used to write words of Chinese or Japanese origin. Katakana is mainly used for words of foreign origin. Finally Kanji, the most important part of Japanese writing, were imported from China around the 5th century and adapted to the Japanese language. In general kana (Hiragana and Katakana) are used to make Kanji easier to read or to complete their sounds.
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