Surprisingly Many Kana System Glyphs 01: “Hiragana: Not Enough with 50 Characters”

“The 50 sounds in Hiragana” are often referenced. However, when creating Hiragana in font creation, 50 glyphs are not enough, and usually an approximate 100 glyphs are created.

Glyphs, such as “がぎぐ” with voiced dots, “ぱぴぷ” with semi-voiced dots, and small scripts including “ゃゅょ” used in palatalized doubled consonants, etc., must be complete in order to correspond to normal sentences. Even up to here, approximately 80 glyphs are needed. For kana in small scripts, separate glyphs for horizontal typesetting and vertical typesetting are prepared, respectively. Although the frequency of use is low, “ゑゐ” are created at the same time. The number of glyphs needed is then close to 100.

In addition to Hiragana, Katakana is prepared in a similar fashion. Therefore, creating only kana means creating approximately 200 glyphs. To say more, a dash-like symbol “ー,” and ditto marks “ゝゞ” often used with kana should be created and checked together.

(T.I)

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