The origins of Japanese Hiragana and Katakana.JPG

Hiragana: Derived from Cursive Kanji (Sosho)
The cursive style of Kanji, which was used phonetically to write Japanese in ancient times, evolved into Hiragana around the 9th century to become an independent writing system.

Katakana: Derived from Regular Kanji (Kaisho)
In the 9th century, monks used parts of Kanji as phonetic symbols while reading Buddhist scriptures; these symbols developed into characters and became the Katakana used today.
The term Kana (仮名) itself means "temporary characters."
This shows how Kanji used for their sounds gradually evolved into Kana.
There was a strong perception that Hiragana was the script of soft, delicate women and commoners, while Katakana was the script of upright, disciplined men.
Until the 1940s, official documents were required to be written in Katakana.
However, due to post-war script reforms, Hiragana was elevated to the primary script, while Katakana was relegated to a supplementary script used for loanwords and emphasis.