1
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Ancient Japanese, especially Old Japanese in the Nara period, sounded different.

2
00:00:06,360 --> 00:00:10,891
It likely had eight vowels that merged into today’s five.

3
00:00:10,891 --> 00:00:16,932
Writers used Manyogana, Chinese characters for Japanese sounds, before kana.

4
00:00:16,932 --> 00:00:21,384
Word order was SOV, marked by particles like ga, no, wo.

5
00:00:21,384 --> 00:00:27,585
Early works like Kojiki and Man’yōshū preserve poems, myths, and court speech.

6
00:00:27,585 --> 00:00:33,149
Over centuries, sounds shifted from p to h, while honorifics deepened.