manyogana

Meaning

Noun

• 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.

Origin

• From Japanese romanization man'yōgana of 万葉仮名.