| This is actually not entirely correct. Japanese has three forms of writing: Kanji, Hiragana, and Katakana. Kanji, which stands for "Han Language/Characters", was imported from China; "Kan" is the Japanese reading of "Han". It's used more or less as when it was imported and is largely interchangable with Traditional Chinese. Hiragana originated as a simplification of cursive Kanji, because people both today and from a few millenia ago find Kanji too complicated to deal with at times. Its name means "Simplified Kana", in contrast to Kanji. Hiragana is used to accent Kanji and connect sentences together for better flow and comprehension (known as Okurigana), can be used by itself (sometimes in place of Kanji, especially for childrens writing), and is sometimes used to convey an image of cuteness ("kawaii") and femininity due to its curvy styling. Pronunciation guides for Kanji (known as Furigana), if present, are also written with Hiragana. Katakana similarly originated as a simplification of Kanji, though its styling is more straight than Hiragana to enable easier writing with instruments besides brushes or pens on paper (eg: engraving in wood or stone). Its name means "Partial Kana", signifying that it's derived from the parts of Kanji characters. Katakana is used today to write foreign words, scientific names (including Japanese ones), and certain Japanese names such as those of businesses. It's also used to give emphasis, like how bold or italic styling or all caps is used in English. In times past, Katakana was also used instead of Hiragana to accent and connect sentences. Both Hiragana and Katakana have respective characters in their alphabets and phonetically can be interchanged character for character. The common modern day understanding that Katakana "is for foreign words" is merely just one of its use cases. |
Such as in the printed copy of Emperor Hirohito's speech announcing the surrender of Japan in 1945 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:ImperialSurrenderRescript...