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Decorated manuscript page from the Genryaku copy of the Man’yōshū

Man’yōgana

Man’yōgana is the historical use of Chinese characters for their sounds to record Japanese before hiragana and katakana developed.

Open decorated manuscript pages of the Man’yōshū covered in cursive Japanese calligraphy

Man’yōshū

The Man’yōshū is Japan’s earliest surviving Japanese poetry anthology, preserving more than 4,500 poems from the seventh and eighth centuries.