Japanese Calligraphy and Writing Systems!

In preparation for our Japanese calligraphy session this weekend, ( And yes, I am so EXCITED!) I thought it would be a good idea to post about the origins of calligraphy in Japan and how it translated in to the current writing system that they have today! This way when you are learning all the crazy characters and stroke orders on Saturday, you will know not only what they mean, but where they came from and how they are used today to communicate written knowledge!


The important thing to note is that in ancient Japan, the only writing system in existence was Kanji. Kanji is the many intricate characters you see on japanese and chinese scrolls. Each character has a meaning, such as fire, they are not letters or sounds in an alphabet. Kanji characters and the method of writing them through calligraphy came from China to Japan in about 600 AD. The Chinese roots of Japanese calligraphy go way back to about the twenty-eighth century BC. The calligraphic symbols began as being inscribed with sharp instruments; the lines were originally angular and were made obsolete by the appearance of brush and ink. The ink-wet brush created a line very different from a sharp stylus. It allowed variation in the thickness and curve of lines. The oldest existing calligraphic text in Japan is the inscription on the halo of the Bhaisajyaguru statue in the Hōryū-ji Temple. This 1400 year old Chinese text was written in Shakeitai (写経体) style, prominent in the Chinese Six Dynasties period. So now you understand that the japanese characters are so similar to chinese because they are based off of the chinese writing system. But how come the two systems are still quite different today?

The answer can be found with the inventions of Hiragana (ひらがな) and Katakana (かたかな). Before 800 AD, when Hiragana and Katakana were established, only men were allowed to write with Kanji characters. Women were not deemed honorable enough to use Kanji. So Hiragana and Katakana were created as Kana writing systems that were used to sound out the Kanji and write out native and foreign words that could not be written in Kanji and a writing form that women were allowed to use. Hiragana and Katakana are not the same as Kanji, they do not each have individual meaning but are rather put together to create words. Each character in these two systems is a mora, either a vowel (such as "a" (あ)), or a consonant followed by a vowel (such as "ka" (か)). In all knowledge institutions in Japan, Hiragana and Katakana are taught alongside Kanji and mastered first as to translate and understand the Kanji. This way children can learn how to sound out a character and write it with kana even if they don't know how to write the Kanji. This was very helpful as there are thousands of different kanji characters, while there are only a few hundred kana.

Unfortunately I don't have all the real tools to write characters in calligraphy with me on campus. But we will use water brushes and art paper for our session on saturday. Just to give you an idea of how complex the Japanese writing systems are: even though the knowledge institutions in Japan teach children Kanji and Kana all through their high school years and some into college, they still don't have the skill set required at the eighth grade level, after years of study, to even read the daily newspaper! So to say that you will be a Japanese character master after one learning session is absurd, but I will teach you the basic kanji that are used most often, and also a good portion of Hirigana and Katakana so you can know what the characters actually mean and can translate them to a more basic form of Kana. I hope you guys are as excited as I am for the calligraphy learning session!! And if you are not I promise this calligraphy video will get you pumped! (start at (1:00):



Looks cool right!!? Fortunately we won't be doing calligraphy while under arrow fire ... I doubt EVEN I could write characters very well in those conditions (crazy right?). We can talk more during class tomorrow about how to write characters and what you need to bring for this saturday. There may even be some japanese food (compliments of moi) there to further immerse you in the culture as you learn the art form of calligraphy!