Orthography at the turn of the previous century A couple of days ago I purchased an old book published in 1908. It uses a strange orthography I haven't encountered before. Everything that is not in kanji is written in katakana, including particles, inflections, etc. Was this the normal way, or one of the normal ways, of writing Japanese at that time? The book is a handbook of the Okinawan language for Japanese speakers. All the Okinawan is written in katakana while all the Japanese is written in Kanji plus katakana. So it could be that the author of the handbook made a stylistic choice because of the type of book and didn't use the normal Japanese orthography of the day. Here's a tiny sample: !Japanese orthography sample using katakana My camera is terrible at macro shots so here's my attempted transcription: > {}

Yes, it's common to write in that way.

Writing **** instead of **** and **** instead of **** are a part of the Historical Kana Orthography ().

Writing katakana instead of hiragana is considered more formal in old days.

See and

> ... The Historical Kana Orthography was used in pre-World War II official documents and schools.
>
> Before World War II, Katakana was considered more formal and used in official documents. It was taught before hiragana in schools.