What is Manyogana?
'''Man'yōgana''' is the oldest known sound-based [[writing system]] used for the [[Japanese language]]. When [[kanji]], or [[Chinese character|Chinese characters]] used to write Japanese, first came to Japan in around the 4th century AD through the [[Korean Peninsula]], it was only used to write the [[Chinese language]].<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.kanji.org/kanji/japanese/writing/outline.htm|title=Outline of the Japanese Writing System|website=www.kanji.org|access-date=2017-07-06}}</ref> Even though Chinese was not [[Native speaker|native]] to the [[Japanese people]], [[classical Chinese]] writings were nonetheless studied heavily by upper-class Japanese. Some time later, although the exact time is unknown, Chinese characters, which came be known as kanji in Japan, was being used to write the Japanese language for the first time in roughly the 6th century AD, although it had a heavy Chinese influence.<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.tofugu.com/japanese/kanji-history/|title=The History Of Kanji|last=Koichi|date=2010-03-22|newspaper=Tofugu|access-date=2017-07-06|language=en-US}}</ref> Figuring out how to write the Chinese character system to correctly fit the Japanese language was quite a difficult task, since there were such big differences between Chinese and Japanese. For example, Chinese has an SVO (subject-verb-object) [[word order]] (i.e. I eat sushi), while Japanese has an SOV word order (i.e. I sushi eat). Also, while Chinese [[Morpheme|morphemes]], or the smallest meaningful part of a word, are usually [[Syllable|monosyllabic]], or having just one [[syllable]], Japanese words often were [[Syllable|polysyllabic]], or having two or more syllables. Examples of this include 山, 魚, 中, 国, 人, 多, 速 and 見. In [[Mandarin Chinese]], the most spoken Chinese dialect in the world, these morphemes are pronounced ''shān, yú, zhōng,'' ''guó, rén, duō, sù'' and ''kàn'' in that order, all of which are just one syllable. In the native Japanese [[pronunciation]], however, these morphemes are pronounced ''yama, sakana, naka,