Ancient writing in Japan: men were from China, women used sylabic writing

post from Linfamy:

Because the Japanese elites modeled themselves after China, official documents were written in Chinese characters, or kanji. Kanji was called “man’s hand.” Women could not step foot into the realm of politics and government, so women of the court wrote in hiragana, a cursive script invented in Japan that makes me think of the path of a cherry blossom petal floating in a tranquil pond. Now this did not mean men only wrote in kanji and women only wrote in hiragana. It depended on what was written rather than the writer’s chromosomes. For example, government decrees and records were written in kanji, but Japanese waka poetry was written in hiragana, even if the writer was a man. Men wrote love letters to women in hiragana.

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