There are 3 types of Japanese writing:
1. Kanji, characters used for nouns and things like numbers.
2.Hiragana, characters that represent syllables.
3.Katakana, the simplest form of Japanese used to create things like foreign words. An image is shown above.
Apparently, Japanese writing originates from old Chinese writing. It traces back to 4th century AD, when the Chinese writing system was introduced. There was no pre language known to Japan before the Chinese came. After World War II, a reform of the writing system formed. Even though Chinese was written from up to down, the japanese adopted the left to right system from the encounter of Americans.
The choice of style differs between formal and informal. Kanji is usually for formal celebrations, and the others are used for everyday situations.
The romanization of the Japanese language has also occured, known as the Japanese American style.
There are two types of writing: traditional and simplified.They are very, very old, originating from 3200 BC. Of course they weren't the same back then... There are thousands of characters which must be memorized in fact 5000 are needed just to read a newspaper article.