The Development of Japanese Kana

Japan never developed any form of autonomous writing. Therefore, when the need for a system of writing arose, the only choice left to the Japanese was to borrow Chinese characters ‒ kanji ‒ from China. The introduction of Chinese characters dates back to the end of the fourth century or the beginning of the fifth, when they allegedly reached Japan via the Korean peninsula ‒ i.e. the kingdom of Paekche. Many Japanese today believe that, with the introduction of Chinese characters, it became immediately possible to write easily in Japanese, but historical evidence does not corroborate this thesis, and in fact it tells us a completely different story.