text:
Talk:Hammer

Untitled
Need to add something on hammers with moving parts like jack-hammers.

Better to just make a link to the page War Hammer than add a whole section just for a sentence (Dec 2010)

Fixed vandalism Ghost of starman 13:57, 12 September 2006 (UTC)Ghost of starman

Fixed vandalism "yo mama...." AeturnalNarcosis (talk) 20:02, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

Hammers are used to perform measurements?
The second sentence in the article is now "Hammers are also used to perform measurements." While this might well be true, it's hardly deserving of mention before other much more common uses of hammers (driving and pulling nails, shaping and bending metals, breaking up concrete, etc., etc.) Perhaps this measurement use could be moved further down in the article. Cheers, Madmagic 07:13, 8 November 2005 (UTC)
 * Agreed, but removed it completely as the same argument can be used for any tool. It's hardly noteworthy Graibeard 07:49, 8 November 2005 (UTC)
 * Disagree. There are a wide variety of inspection hammers that is not intended to drive, pull, shape or significantly break up material.
 * Inspection hammers is used to gauge surface strength or make diagnostic sound in constructions.
 * Further there is a physicians reflex hammer / percussion hammer
 * Both which is clearly used for measuring
 * A reflex hammer is a medical instrument used by practitioners to test deep tendon reflexes.
 * A percussion hammer with a rubber head used for tapping surfaces of the body in order to produce sounds for diagnostic purposes.

 * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reflex_hammer — Preceding unsigned comment added by Windmaker~enwiki (talk • contribs) 07:16, 5 December 2020 (UTC)

I think it refers to, say, the number of force needed to drive an object much like a torque wrench. There are loads of hammers — Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.218.187.34 (talk) 18:54, 22 April 2012 (UTC)

make me a timeline
make me 1 of the hammer pls SH CLASS OF 2K21 TAKING OVER FASHION

Images
If you want, I have just uploaded a nice picture of a hammer (public domain) that I took. Hope this helps. Leif902 23:16, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

Basic hammer physics
This makes no sense: "High tech titanium heads are lighter and allow for longer handles, thus increasing velocity and delivering more energy with less arm fatigue than that of a steel head hammer of the same weight."

If the titanium hammer is lighter than the steel one, how can you compare its blows with those of a steel hammer of the same weight? Skyrocket654 03:11, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

By increasing the head's volume - since titanium has a lower density, you will need a larger head to have a head with the same mass as a given steel head.

However, I would like to concur with Skyrocket that the physics entry needs work; for one thing, it is patently false that the physics of swinging a hammer are as simple as kinetic energy in head = muscle force * arc length, as a human arm is a class three lever, meaning that the force at the hammer head may be different than the muscle force. If we let the torso be the fulcrum for simplicity, a human swinging a hammer with an outstretched arm of length "l" and muscle force "f" will have a hammerhead force of fl/h, where h is the handle length. Further, there is more to this than how much energy is stored in the head; as the entry does note, it's very important how far the head travels before stopping, and while I'm no physicist, it seems clear that since momentum is mass times velocity, and stopping something represents a change in momentum where typically you can't change the mass, the more mass the head has, the less velocity (for the same momentum), implying that a high mass head is "easier" to stop - i.e. it should travel less distance before stopping, *increasing* the functional force delivered. Also, recoil is covered under the handle section, but as noted there, the head material matters - apparently steel is 9 times more elastic than titanium, according to the entry - and I would think that belonged under the head section. Lastly, surely the surface area of the hammer matters a lot? The drag on the hammer head will increase with the square of the velocity, so you'll want to put some effort into making the head aerodynamic, and of course pressure matters - there's more to that pin having a wide head than making it easier to hit, you know.

Could someone who knows what they're talking about (i.e. not me) take a look, please? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.234.27.153 (talk) 02:49, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

 * I've made a small edit to the faulty sentence. Further improvement might be made in another eight years? No-one would bother with the aerodynamics of the head, since air resistance is negligible for the speed of most hammers.  There might be some specialist mechanically-driven hammers that travel at high speed, but I doubt whether even these have streamlined heads because shape affects the result of the impact.    D b f i r s   16:50, 7 March 2016 (UTC)

Removal of Empirix's Hammers from Symbolic Hammers
Dear Wizard191. I can appreciate that there may be some justifiable reason for removing entries in a particular article, but it would be really helpful (not to mention courteous) to at least leave the previous editor/contributor a note and reason for removing the edits. This applies to the Symbolic Hammers section and the External Links section. Right now I am dumbfounded as to why you have done this, and I request that you refrain from doing so in the future without a decent explanation. Otherwise, your removal of information appears to be vandalism. Thank you for your kind attention, Gbeith —Preceding unsigned comment added by Gbeith (talk • contribs) 22:42, 11 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Reply on your talk page. --Wizard191 (talk) 02:05, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Hammer age
I believe this is the second time I have set the age of the oldest hammer. I have TWO references to refereed journals, both of which give the age as 2.6 million years NOT 2.4.

Please do not change this unless you have a reference which shows mine are wrong. Nick Beeson (talk) 15:58, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

Hammer as musical instrument?
Does anyone know how many times that a hammer has been used as a musical instrument, either in antiquity or in modern times? (Hammered dulcimers don't count.) Two examples I have heard in modern times are Johnny Cash's version of "The Legend of John Henry's Hammer" from the album "At Folsom Prison" and the Indigo Girls song "Orville Eastland (talk) 14:10, 30 March 2010 (UTC)

A hammer is a key component of several concert percussion instruments: Then, there's the whole topic of Wagner's Ring cycle, and its hammer symbolism: [] ResearcherQ (talk) 03:23, 18 April 2013 (UTC)
 * hammer with chimes
 * hammer with glockenspiel
 * hammer with anvil
 * hammer with bells, orchestral bells
 * hammered dulcimer
 * cimbalom (sp?)
 * a key component of a piano are its felt hammers. There's a whole topic of "voicing" piano hammers

Blister?
I'm sorry if this seems like an unusual questions, but what is relevance of 'Blister' to this article? There is a picture of a blood blister, and a link to the blister article, but really... why? Yes, using tools can give you blisters, but it can also give you cramp, or a bruise if you smack your finger... etc.? Figured I would ask the relevance before removing. Happy Anglo New Year and all that jazz 203.167.189.37 (talk) 23:11, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

Types of hammers
This english article is way worse than the Dutch article, which has a table; see http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamer_(gereedschap) Can someone translate it and put the table on the english version ? 91.182.51.243 (talk) 15:32, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

Types of Hammers

Would like to see a more comprehensive listing with descriptions of hammers under the heading in the article ... "Popular hand-powered variations include:..." From some work I did a while ago, we may wish to add the following types of hammer...

Ant-vibration hammers, with built-in tuning-fork design to minimise vibrations

Brass or nylon-faced hammer for assembly work

Brick hammer, commonly used by bricklayers with a chisel-end for splitting and facing bricks and blocks

Bumping hammer used with a dolly for car body restoration work

Chipping or scaling hammer, often with a shock reducing spring handle, used by metal-workers to clean welds

Copper and raw-hide faced hammer, for damage-free assembly work

Drywall hammer, with a serrated hammering face and an opposing axe face

Planishing hammer used in panel beating

Roofing or slating hammer, with a spike for making holes in roof slates, a nail-extracting claw and a recessed hammering face

Scutch or walling hammer, with two combing faces for dressing masonry

Slide hammer, with a heavy weight on a guide-bar used for loosening tight assemblies

Splitting hammer, with a wedge-shaped axe-head for splitting timber

Stubby hammer, with a short handle for work in confined spaces

Would also like to cite my work on the subject, entitled "The Gaffer's Glossary - Hammers" at http://www.comparetradeprices.com/content/advice/2011/03/07/hammer/ as an additional external reference

Bill Cobbett (talk) 16:49, 7 March 2011 (UTC)Bill Cobbett

 * Attention, a guide-bar would not be the same thing as a guide bar. Peter Horn User talk 15:11, 28 April 2012 (UTC)

Pink Floyd's Marching Hammers?
Lol, I think there should be a "In Popular Culture" section that mentions the "Marching Hammers" from The Wall...... --GreekRailFan (talk) 11:15, 4 July 2011 (UTC)

Birmingham screwdriver
Law of the instrument makes mention of the Birmingham screwdriver as meaning "hammer" (as Birmingham screwdriver links to this article)--though within the former article, it links to Birmingham and screwdriver individually. However, here there is no mention of the Birmingham hammer. Talk:Birmingham screwdriver suggests interested parties to see Screwdriver for an explanation. Does anyone have any further explanation to add, and shouldn't the explanation be given here instead of at Screwdriver? D. F. Schmidt (talk) 21:54, 18 February 2016 (UTC)
 * I've heard it as "Scouse screwdriver" (an insult to Liverpool workmen). Lazy carpenters on building sites have a habit of hammering hinge screws into soft wood, and maybe finding a screwdriver at the end to give a final turn, or forgetting and leaving the screws to loosen when the door is used.  The linking is not appropriate.  Where should the explanation be put?    D b f i r s   15:55, 7 March 2016 (UTC)

Bold changes to lead
I made some bold changes to the lead, but I'm not wedded to my work; revert at will.

My impression of the article was that it was somehow overtaken with strife over hammer taxonomy, most of which was pushed downward out of the lead.

Meanwhile, much else that the lead should properly summarize fell into neglect. I've touched on some of the physics and physiology as well as general desiderata, but a more concerted effort would be warranted. — MaxEnt 02:47, 11 April 2021 (UTC)

 * Thank you. Regarding pre-plannng actions which proceed too quickly for real-time feedback, you may be aware of William H. Calvin's The Cerebral Symphony: Seashore Reflections on the Structure of Consciousness which covers some of the mechanisms involved. Just plain Bill (talk) 03:16, 11 April 2021 (UTC)

Lots of original research
I came to the article to learn more about the physics behind hammers, and I wasn't necessarily disappointed because this article goes into a lot of detail about that. I'm not seeing very many citations across this entire article though, additionally the writing style doesn't seem consistent with the rest of Wikipedia: It feels conversational in some places and lacks structure elsewhere, even in the lead. Does anyone more experienced than me think it's a good idea to look into for the Physics section in particular and possibly  for the rest of the article?

--Simsarmy (talk) 16:32, 23 June 2021 (UTC)

"Hammer (substitution)" listed at Redirects for discussion
An editor has identified a potential problem with the redirect Hammer (substitution) and has thus listed it for discussion. This discussion will occur at Redirects for discussion/Log/2022 May 3 until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. Steel1943 (talk) 17:19, 3 May 2022 (UTC)

drywall hammers?
i would add them to types of hammers,also make an article later about them and link it to this page.

just wana ask for green light. first time editing anything so. Pagan.Chad (talk) 22:09, 18 August 2023 (UTC)

T.L.E
About this electrical tools 120.28.169.5 (talk) 13:41, 15 January 2024 (UTC)

TLE
What do you recommend of a hammer 2001:4453:65E:D00:745D:717A:87AB:1E6 (talk) 16:57, 6 March 2024 (UTC)

title: Talk:Hammer


text:
Hiragana

Hiragana (平仮名, ひらがな) is a Japanese syllabary, part of the Japanese writing system, along with katakana as well as kanji.

It is a phonetic lettering system. The word hiragana means "common" or "plain" kana (originally also "easy", as contrasted with kanji).

Hiragana and katakana are both kana systems. With few exceptions, each mora in the Japanese language is represented by one character (or one digraph) in each system. This may be a vowel such as /a/ (hiragana あ); a consonant followed by a vowel such as /ka/ (か); or /N/ (ん), a nasal sonorant which, depending on the context, sounds either like English m, n or ng when syllable-final or like the nasal vowels of French, Portuguese or Polish. Because the characters of the kana do not represent single consonants (except in the case of the aforementioned ん), the kana are referred to as syllabic symbols and not alphabetic letters.

Hiragana is used to write okurigana (kana suffixes following a kanji root, for example to inflect verbs and adjectives), various grammatical and function words including particles, and miscellaneous other native words for which there are no kanji or whose kanji form is obscure or too formal for the writing purpose. Words that do have common kanji renditions may also sometimes be written instead in hiragana, according to an individual author's preference, for example to impart an informal feel. Hiragana is also used to write furigana, a reading aid that shows the pronunciation of kanji characters.

There are two main systems of ordering hiragana: the old-fashioned iroha ordering and the more prevalent gojūon ordering.

Writing system
After the 1900 script reform, which deemed hundreds of characters hentaigana, the hiragana syllabary consists of 48 base characters, of which two (ゐ and ゑ) are only used in some proper names:

 * 5 singular vowels: あ /a/, い /i/, う /u/, え /e/, お /o/ (respectively pronounced, , , and )
 * 42 consonant–vowel unions: for example き /ki/, て /te/, ほ /ho/, ゆ /ju/, わ /wa/ (respectively pronounced, , , and )
 * 1 singular consonant (ん), romanized as n.

These are conceived as a 5×10 grid (gojūon, 五十音, "Fifty Sounds"), as illustrated in the adjacent table, read あ (a), い (i), う (u), え (e), お (o), か (ka), き (ki), く (ku), け (ke), こ (ko) and so forth (but si→shi, ti→chi, tu→tsu, hu→fu, wi→i, we→e, wo→o). Of the 50 theoretically possible combinations, yi, ye, and wu are completely unused. On the w row, ゐ and ゑ, pronounced and  respectively, are uncommon in modern Japanese, while を, pronounced, is common as a particle but otherwise rare. Strictly speaking, the singular consonant ん (n) is considered as outside the gojūon.

These basic characters can be modified in various ways. By adding a dakuten marker ( ゛), a voiceless consonant is turned into a voiced consonant: k→g, ts/s→z, t→d, h/f→b and ch/sh→j (also u→v(u)). For example, か (ka) becomes が (ga). Hiragana beginning with an h (or f) sound can also add a handakuten marker ( ゜) changing the h (f) to a p. For example, は (ha) becomes ぱ (pa).

A small version of the hiragana for ya, yu, or yo (ゃ, ゅ or ょ respectively) may be added to hiragana ending in i. This changes the i vowel sound to a glide (palatalization) to a, u or o. For example, き (ki) plus ゃ (small ya) becomes きゃ (kya). Addition of the small y kana is called yōon.

A small tsu っ, called a sokuon, indicates that the following consonant is geminated (doubled). In Japanese this is an important distinction in pronunciation; for example, compare さか, saka, "hill" with さっか, sakka, "author". However, it cannot be used to double an n – for this purpose, the singular n (ん) is added in front of the syllable, as in みんな (minna, "all"). The sokuon also sometimes appears at the end of utterances, where it denotes a glottal stop, as in いてっ! (, "Ouch!").

Two hiragana have pronunciations that depend on the context:
 * は is pronounced when used as a particle (otherwise, ).
 * へ is pronounced when used as a particle (otherwise, ).

Hiragana usually spells long vowels with the addition of a second vowel kana; for example, おかあさん (o-ka-a-sa-n, "mother"). The chōonpu (long vowel mark) (ー) used in katakana is rarely used with hiragana, for example in the word らーめん, rāmen, but this usage is considered non-standard in Japanese. However, the Okinawan language uses chōonpu with hiragana. In informal writing, small versions of the five vowel kana are sometimes used to represent trailing off sounds (はぁ, haa, ねぇ, nee). Plain (clear) and voiced iteration marks are written in hiragana as ゝ and ゞ, respectively. These marks are rarely used nowadays.

Table of hiragana
The following table shows the complete hiragana together with the modified Hepburn romanization and IPA transcription, arranged in four categories, each of them displayed in the gojūon order. Those whose romanization are in bold do not use the initial consonant for that row. For all syllables besides ん, the pronunciation indicated is for word-initial syllables; for mid-word pronunciations see below.

Spelling–phonology correspondence
In the middle of words, the g sound (normally ) may turn into a velar nasal or velar fricative. For example, かぎ (kagi, key) is often pronounced. However, じゅうご (jūgo, fifteen) is pronounced as if it was jū and go stacked end to end:.

In many accents, the j and z sounds are pronounced as affricates ( and, respectively) at the beginning of utterances and fricatives in the middle of words. For example, すうじ sūji 'number', ざっし zasshi  'magazine'.

The singular n is pronounced before m, b and p,  before t, ch, ts, n, r, z, j and d,  before k and g,  at the end of utterances, and some kind of high nasal vowel  before vowels, palatal approximants (y), and fricative consonants (s, sh, h, f and w).

In kanji readings, the diphthongs ou and ei are usually pronounced (long o) and  (long e) respectively. For example, とうきょう (lit. toukyou) is pronounced 'Tokyo', and せんせい sensei is  'teacher'. However, とう tou is pronounced 'to inquire', because the o and u are considered distinct, u being the verb ending in the dictionary form. Similarly, している shite iru is pronounced 'is doing'.

In archaic forms of Japanese, there existed the kwa (くゎ ) and gwa (ぐゎ ) digraphs. In modern Japanese, these phonemes have been phased out of usage.

For a more thorough discussion on the sounds of Japanese, please refer to Japanese phonology.

Spelling rules
With a few exceptions, such as for the three particles は (pronounced instead of ), へ (pronounced  instead of ) and  (written を instead of お), Japanese when written in kana is phonemically orthographic, i.e. there is a one-to-one correspondence between kana characters and sounds, leaving only words' pitch accent unrepresented. This has not always been the case: a previous system of spelling, now referred to as historical kana usage, differed substantially from pronunciation; the three above-mentioned exceptions in modern usage are the legacy of that system.

There are two hiragana pronounced ji (じ and ぢ) and two hiragana pronounced zu (ず and づ), but to distinguish them, particularly when typing Japanese, sometimes ぢ is written as di and づ is written as du. These pairs are not interchangeable. Usually, ji is written as じ and zu is written as ず. There are some exceptions. If the first two syllables of a word consist of one syllable without a dakuten and the same syllable with a dakuten, the same hiragana is used to write the sounds. For example, chijimeru ('to boil down' or 'to shrink') is spelled ちぢめる and tsuzuku ('to continue') is つづく.

For compound words where the dakuten reflects rendaku voicing, the original hiragana is used. For example, chi (血 'blood') is spelled ち in plain hiragana. When 鼻 hana ('nose') and 血 chi ('blood') combine to make hanaji (鼻血 'nose bleed'), the sound of 血 changes from chi to ji. So hanaji is spelled はなぢ. Similarly, tsukau (使う/遣う; 'to use') is spelled つかう in hiragana, so kanazukai (仮名遣い; 'kana use', or 'kana orthography') is spelled かなづかい in hiragana. However, there are cases where ぢ and づ are not used, such as the word for 'lightning', inazuma (稲妻). The first component, 稲, meaning 'rice plant', is written いな (ina). The second component, 妻 (etymologically 夫), meaning 'spouse', is pronounced つま (tsuma) when standalone or often as づま (zuma) when following another syllable, such in 人妻 (hitozuma, 'married woman'). Even though these components of 稲妻 are etymologically linked to 'lightning', it is generally arduous for a contemporary speaker to consciously perceive inazuma as separable into two discrete words. Thus, the default spelling いなずま is used instead of いなづま. Other examples include kizuna (きずな) and sakazuki (さかずき). Although these rules were officially established by a Cabinet Notice in 1986 revising the modern kana usage, they have sometimes faced criticism due to their perceived arbitrariness.

Officially, ぢ and づ do not occur word-initially pursuant to modern spelling rules. There were words such as ぢばん jiban 'ground' in the historical kana usage, but they were unified under じ in the modern kana usage in 1946, so today it is spelled exclusively じばん. However, づら zura 'wig' (from かつら katsura) and づけ zuke (a sushi term for lean tuna soaked in soy sauce) are examples of word-initial づ today.

No standard Japanese words begin with the kana ん (n). This is the basis of the word game shiritori. ん n is normally treated as its own syllable and is separate from the other n-based kana (na, ni etc.).

ん is sometimes directly followed by a vowel (a, i, u, e or o) or a palatal approximant (ya, yu or yo). These are clearly distinct from the na, ni etc. syllables, and there are minimal pairs such as きんえん kin'en 'smoking forbidden', きねん kinen 'commemoration', きんねん kinnen 'recent years'. In Hepburn romanization, they are distinguished with an apostrophe, but not all romanization methods make the distinction. For example, past prime minister Junichiro Koizumi's first name is actually じゅんいちろう Jun'ichirō pronounced

There are a few hiragana that are rarely used. Outside of Okinawan orthography, ゐ wi and ゑ we  are only used in some proper names. 𛀁 e was an alternate version of え e before spelling reform, and was briefly reused for ye during initial spelling reforms, but is now completely obsolete. ゔ vu is a modern addition used to represent the /v/ sound in foreign languages such as English, but since Japanese from a phonological standpoint does not have a /v/ sound, it is pronounced as /b/ and mostly serves as a more accurate indicator of a word's pronunciation in its original language. However, it is rarely seen because loanwords and transliterated words are usually written in katakana, where the corresponding character would be written as ヴ. The digraphs ぢゃ, ぢゅ, ぢょ for ja/ju/jo are theoretically possible in rendaku, but are nearly never used in modern kana usage; for example, the word 夫婦茶碗, meoto-jawan (couple bowls), spelled めおとぢゃわん, where 茶碗 alone is spelled ちゃわん (chawan).

The みゅ myu kana is extremely rare in originally Japanese words; linguist Haruhiko Kindaichi raises the example of the Japanese family name Omamyūda (小豆生田) and claims it is the only occurrence amongst pure Japanese words. Its katakana counterpart is used in many loanwords, however.

e and i
On the row beginning with わ /wa/, the hiragana ゐ /wi/ and ゑ /we/ are both quasi-obsolete, only used in some names. They are usually respectively pronounced [i] and [e]. In modified Hepburn romanization, they are generally written i and e.

yi
It has not been demonstrated whether the mora /ji/ existed in old Japanese. Though ye did appear in some textbooks during the Meiji period along with another kana for yi in the form of cursive 以. Today it is considered a Hentaigana by scholars and is encoded in Unicode 10 This kana could have a colloquial use, to convert the combo yui (ゆい) into yii (い), due to other Japanese words having a similar change.

ye
An early, now obsolete, hiragana-esque form of ye may have existed (𛀁  ) in pre-Classical Japanese (prior to the advent of kana), but is generally represented for purposes of reconstruction by the kanji 江, and its hiragana form is not present in any known orthography. In modern orthography, ye can also be written as いぇ (イェ in katakana).

While hiragana and katakana letters for "ye" were used for a short period after the advent of kana, the distinction between /ye/ and /e/ disappeared before glyphs could become established.

wu
It has not been demonstrated whether the mora /wu/ existed in old Japanese. However, hiragana wu also appeared in different Meiji-era textbooks. Although there are several possible source kanji, it is likely to have been derived from a cursive form of the man'yōgana 汙, although a related variant sometimes listed is from a cursive form of 紆. However, it was never commonly used. This character is included in Unicode 14 as HIRAGANA LETTER ARCHAIC WU (𛄟).

History
Hiragana developed from man'yōgana, Chinese characters used for their pronunciations, a practice that started in the 5th century. The oldest examples of Man'yōgana include the Inariyama Sword, an iron sword excavated at the Inariyama Kofun. This sword is thought to be made in the year 辛亥年 (most commonly taken to be C.E. 471). The forms of the hiragana originate from the cursive script style of Chinese calligraphy. The table to the right shows the derivation of hiragana from manyōgana via cursive script. The upper part shows the character in the regular script form, the center character in red shows the cursive script form of the character, and the bottom shows the equivalent hiragana. The cursive script forms are not strictly confined to those in the illustration.

When it was first developed, hiragana was not accepted by everyone. The educated or elites preferred to use only the kanji system. Historically, in Japan, the regular script (kaisho) form of the characters was used by men and called otokode (男手), "men's writing", while the cursive script (sōsho) form of the kanji was used by women. Hence hiragana first gained popularity among women, who were generally not allowed access to the same levels of education as men, thus hiragana was first widely used among court women in the writing of personal communications and literature. From this comes the alternative name of onnade (女手) "women's writing". For example, The Tale of Genji and other early novels by female authors used hiragana extensively or exclusively. Even today, hiragana is felt to have a feminine quality.

Male authors came to write literature using hiragana. Hiragana was used for unofficial writing such as personal letters, while katakana and kanji were used for official documents. In modern times, the usage of hiragana has become mixed with katakana writing. Katakana is now relegated to special uses such as recently borrowed words (i.e., since the 19th century), names in transliteration, the names of animals, in telegrams, and for emphasis.

Originally, for all syllables there was more than one possible hiragana. In 1900, the system was simplified so each syllable had only one hiragana. The deprecated hiragana are now known as hentaigana (変体仮名).

The pangram poem Iroha-uta ("ABC song/poem"), which dates to the 10th century, uses every hiragana once (except n ん, which was just a variant of む before the Muromachi era).

Stroke order and direction
The following table shows the method for writing each hiragana character. The table is arranged in a traditional manner, beginning top right and reading columns down. The numbers and arrows indicate the stroke order and direction respectively.

Unicode
Hiragana was added to the Unicode Standard in October, 1991 with the release of version 1.0.

The Unicode block for Hiragana is U+3040–U+309F:

The Unicode hiragana block contains precomposed characters for all hiragana in the modern set, including small vowels and yōon kana for compound syllables as well as the rare ゐ wi and ゑ we; the archaic 𛀁 ye is included in plane 1 at U+1B001 (see below). All combinations of hiragana with dakuten and handakuten used in modern Japanese are available as precomposed characters (including the rare ゔ vu), and can also be produced by using a base hiragana followed by the combining dakuten and handakuten characters (U+3099 and U+309A, respectively). This method is used to add the diacritics to kana that are not normally used with them, for example applying the dakuten to a pure vowel or the handakuten to a kana not in the h-group.

Characters U+3095 and U+3096 are small か (ka) and small け (ke), respectively. U+309F is a ligature of より (yori) occasionally used in vertical text. U+309B and U+309C are spacing (non-combining) equivalents to the combining dakuten and handakuten characters, respectively.

Historic and variant forms of Japanese kana characters were first added to the Unicode Standard in October, 2010 with the release of version 6.0, with significantly more added in 2017 as part of Unicode 10.

The Unicode block for Kana Supplement is U+1B000–U+1B0FF, and is immediately followed by the Kana Extended-A block (U+1B100–U+1B12F). These blocks include mainly hentaigana (historic or variant hiragana):

The Unicode block for Kana Extended-B is U+1AFF0–U+1AFFF:

The Unicode block for Small Kana Extension is U+1B130–U+1B16F:

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Hohenstaufen

The Hohenstaufen dynasty, also known as the Staufer, was a noble family of unclear origin that rose to rule the Duchy of Swabia from 1079, and to royal rule in the Holy Roman Empire during the Middle Ages from 1138 until 1254. The dynasty's most prominent rulers – Frederick I (1155), Henry VI (1191) and Frederick II (1220) – ascended the imperial throne and also reigned over Italy and Burgundy. The non-contemporary name of 'Hohenstaufen' is derived from the family's Hohenstaufen Castle on Hohenstaufen mountain at the northern fringes of the Swabian Jura, near the town of Göppingen. Under Hohenstaufen rule, the Holy Roman Empire reached its greatest territorial extent from 1155 to 1268.

Name
The name Hohenstaufen was first used in the 14th century to distinguish the 'high' (hohen) conical hill named Staufen in the Swabian Jura (in the district of Göppingen) from the village of the same name in the valley below. The new name was applied to the hill castle of Staufen by historians only in the 19th century to distinguish it from other castles of the same name. The name of the dynasty followed suit, but in recent decades, the trend in German historiography has been to prefer the name 'Staufer', which is closer to contemporary usage.

The name 'Staufen' itself derives from Stauf (OHG stouf, akin to Early Modern English stoup), meaning 'chalice'. This term was commonly applied to conical hills in Swabia during the Middle Ages. It is a contemporary term for both the hill and the castle, although its spelling in the Latin documents of the time varies considerably: Sthouf, Stophe, Stophen, Stoyphe, Estufin, etc. The castle was built or at least acquired by Duke Frederick I of Swabia in the latter half of the 11th century.

Members of the family occasionally used the toponymic surname de Stauf or variants thereof. Only in the 13th century would the name come to be applied to the family as a whole. Around 1215, a chronicler referred to the "emperors of Stauf". In 1247, the Emperor Frederick II himself referred to his family as the domus Stoffensis (Staufer house), but this was an isolated instance. Otto of Freising (d. 1158) associated the Staufer with the town of Waiblingen, and around 1230, Burchard of Ursberg referred to the Staufer as of the "royal lineage of the Waiblingens" (regia stirps Waiblingensium). The exact connection between the family and Waiblingen is not clear, but as a name for the family, it became very popular. The pro-imperial Ghibelline faction of the Italian civic rivalries of the 13th and 14th centuries derived its name from Waiblingen.

In Italian historiography, the Staufer are known as the Svevi (Swabians).

Origins
The origin remains unclear, however, Staufer counts are mentioned in a document of emperor Otto III in 987 as descendants of counts of the region of Riesgau near Nördlingen in the Duchy of Swabia, who were related to the Bavarian Sieghardinger family. A local count Frederick (d. about 1075) is mentioned as progenitor in a pedigree drawn up by Abbot Wibald of Stavelot at the behest of Emperor Frederick Barbarossa in 1153. He held the office of a Swabian count palatine; his son Frederick of Büren (c. 1020–1053) married Hildegard of Egisheim-Dagsburg (d. 1094/95), a niece of Pope Leo IX. Their son Frederick I was appointed Duke of Swabia at Hohenstaufen Castle by the Salian king Henry IV of Germany in 1079.

At the same time, Duke Frederick I was engaged to the king's approximately seventeen-year-old daughter, Agnes. Nothing is known about Frederick's life before this event, but he proved to be an imperial ally throughout Henry's struggles against other Swabian lords, namely Rudolf of Rheinfelden, Frederick's predecessor, and the Zähringen and Welf lords. Frederick's brother Otto was elevated to the Strasbourg bishopric in 1082.

Upon Frederick's death, he was succeeded by his son, Duke Frederick II, in 1105. Frederick II remained a close ally of the Salians, he and his younger brother Conrad were named the king's representatives in Germany when the king was in Italy. Around 1120, Frederick II married Judith of Bavaria from the rival House of Welf.

Ruling in Germany

When the last male member of the Salian dynasty, Emperor Henry V, died without heirs in 1125, a controversy arose about the succession. Duke Frederick II and Conrad, the two current male Staufers, by their mother Agnes, were grandsons of late Emperor Henry IV and nephews of Henry V. Frederick attempted to succeed to the throne of the Holy Roman Emperor (formally known as the King of the Romans) through a customary election, but lost to the Saxon duke Lothair of Supplinburg. A civil war between Frederick's dynasty and Lothair's ended with Frederick's submission in 1134. After Lothair's death in 1137, Frederick's brother Conrad was elected King as Conrad III.

Because the Welf duke Henry the Proud, son-in-law and heir of Lothair and the most powerful prince in Germany, who had been passed over in the election, refused to acknowledge the new king, Conrad III deprived him of all his territories, giving the Duchy of Saxony to Albert the Bear and that of Bavaria to Leopold IV, Margrave of Austria. In 1147, Conrad heard Bernard of Clairvaux preach the Second Crusade at Speyer, and he agreed to join King Louis VII of France in a great expedition to the Holy Land which failed.

Conrad's brother Duke Frederick II died in 1147, and was succeeded in Swabia by his son, Duke Frederick III. When King Conrad III died without adult heir in 1152, Frederick also succeeded him, taking both German royal and Imperial titles.

Frederick Barbarossa
Frederick I (Reign 2 January 1155 – 10 June 1190), known as Frederick Barbarossa because of his red beard, struggled throughout his reign to restore the power and prestige of the German monarchy against the dukes, whose power had grown both before and after the Investiture Controversy under his Salian predecessors. As royal access to the resources of the church in Germany was much reduced, Frederick was forced to go to Italy to find the finances needed to restore the king's power in Germany. He was soon crowned emperor in Italy, but decades of warfare on the peninsula yielded scant results. The Papacy and the prosperous city-states of the Lombard League in northern Italy were traditional enemies, but the fear of Imperial domination caused them to join ranks to fight Frederick. Under the skilled leadership of Pope Alexander III, the alliance suffered many defeats but ultimately was able to deny the emperor a complete victory in Italy. Frederick returned to Germany. He had vanquished one notable opponent, his Welf cousin, Duke Henry the Lion of Saxony and Bavaria in 1180, but his hopes of restoring the power and prestige of the monarchy seemed unlikely to be met by the end of his life.

During Frederick's long stays in Italy, the German princes became stronger and began a successful colonization of Slavic lands. Offers of reduced taxes and manorial duties enticed many Germans to settle in the east in the course of the Ostsiedlung. In 1163 Frederick waged a successful campaign against the Kingdom of Poland in order to re-install the Silesian dukes of the Piast dynasty. With the German colonization, the Empire increased in size and came to include the Duchy of Pomerania. A quickening economic life in Germany increased the number of towns and Imperial cities, and gave them greater importance. It was also during this period that castles and courts replaced monasteries as centers of culture. Growing out of this courtly culture, Middle High German literature reached its peak in lyrical love poetry, the Minnesang, and in narrative epic poems such as Tristan, Parzival, and the Nibelungenlied.

Henry VI

Frederick died in 1190 while on the Third Crusade and was succeeded by his son, Henry VI. Elected king even before his father's death, Henry went to Rome to be crowned emperor. He married Princess Constance of Sicily, and deaths in his wife's family gave him claim of succession and possession of the Kingdom of Sicily in 1189 and 1194 respectively, a source of vast wealth. Henry failed to make royal and Imperial succession hereditary, but in 1196 he succeeded in gaining a pledge that his infant son Frederick would receive the German crown. Faced with difficulties in Italy and confident that he would realize his wishes in Germany at a later date, Henry returned to the south, where it appeared he might unify the peninsula under the Hohenstaufen name. After a series of military victories, however, he fell ill and died of natural causes in Sicily in 1197. His underage son Frederick could only succeed him in Sicily and Malta, while in the Empire the struggle between the House of Staufen and the House of Welf erupted once again.

Philip of Swabia
Because the election of a three-year-old boy to be German king appeared likely to make orderly rule difficult, the boy's uncle, Duke Philip of Swabia, brother of late Henry VI, was designated to serve in his place. Other factions however favoured a Welf candidate. In 1198, two rival kings were chosen: the Hohenstaufen Philip of Swabia and the son of the deprived Duke Henry the Lion, the Welf Otto IV. A long civil war began; Philip was about to win when he was murdered by the Bavarian count palatine Otto VIII of Wittelsbach in 1208. Pope Innocent III initially had supported the Welfs, but when Otto, now sole elected monarch, moved to appropriate Sicily, Innocent changed sides and accepted young Frederick II and his ally, King Philip II of France, who defeated Otto at the 1214 Battle of Bouvines. Frederick had returned to Germany in 1212 from Sicily, where he had grown up, and was elected king in 1215. When Otto died in 1218, Frederick became the undisputed ruler, and in 1220 was crowned Holy Roman Emperor.

Philip changed the coat of arms from a black lion on a gold shield to three leopards, probably derived from the arms of his Welf rival Otto IV.

Ruling in Italy
The conflict between the Staufer dynasty and the Welf had irrevocably weakened the Imperial authority and the Norman kingdom of Sicily became the base for Staufer rule.

Frederick II
Emperor Frederick II spent little time in Germany as his main concerns lay in Southern Italy. He founded the University of Naples in 1224 to train future state officials and reigned over Germany primarily through the allocation of royal prerogatives, leaving the sovereign authority and imperial estates to the ecclesiastical and secular princes. He made significant concessions to the German nobles, such as those put forth in an imperial statute of 1232, which made princes virtually independent rulers within their territories. These measures favoured the further fragmentation of the Empire.

By the 1226 Golden Bull of Rimini, Frederick had assigned the military order of the Teutonic Knights to complete the conquest and conversion of the Prussian lands. A reconciliation with the Welfs took place in 1235, whereby Otto the Child, grandson of the late Saxon duke Henry the Lion, was named Duke of Brunswick and Lüneburg. The power struggle with the popes continued and resulted in Frederick's excommunication in 1227. In 1239, Pope Gregory IX excommunicated Frederick again, and in 1245 he was condemned as a heretic by a church council. Although Frederick was one of the most energetic, imaginative, and capable rulers of the time, he was not concerned with drawing the disparate forces in Germany together. His legacy was thus that local rulers had more authority after his reign than before it. The clergy also had become more powerful.

By the time of Frederick's death in 1250, little centralized power remained in Germany. The Great Interregnum, a period in which there were several elected rival kings, none of whom was able to achieve any position of authority, followed the death of Frederick's son King Conrad IV of Germany in 1254. The German princes vied for individual advantage and managed to strip many powers away from the diminished monarchy. Rather than establish sovereign states however, many nobles tended to look after their families. Their many male heirs created more and smaller estates, and from a largely free class of officials previously formed, many of these assumed or acquired hereditary rights to administrative and legal offices. These trends compounded political fragmentation within Germany. The period was ended in 1273 with the election of Rudolph of Habsburg, a godson of Frederick.

End of the Staufer dynasty
Conrad IV was succeeded as duke of Swabia by his only son, two-year-old Conradin. By this time, the office of duke of Swabia had been fully subsumed into the office of the king, and without royal authority had become meaningless. In 1261, attempts to elect young Conradin king were unsuccessful. He also had to defend Sicily against an invasion, sponsored by Pope Urban IV (Jacques Pantaléon) and Pope Clement IV (Guy Folques), by Charles of Anjou, a brother of the French king. Charles had been promised by the popes the Kingdom of Sicily, where he would replace the relatives of Frederick II. Charles had defeated Conradin's uncle Manfred, King of Sicily, in the Battle of Benevento on 26 February 1266. The king himself, refusing to flee, rushed into the midst of his enemies and was killed. Conradin's campaign to retake control ended with his defeat in 1268 at the Battle of Tagliacozzo, after which he was handed over to Charles, who had him publicly executed at Naples. With Conradin, the direct line of the Dukes of Swabia finally ceased to exist, though most of the later emperors were descended from the Staufer dynasty indirectly.

The last member of the dynasty was Manfred's son, Henry [Enrico], who died in captivity at Castel dell'Ovo on 31 October 1318.

During the political decentralization of the late Staufer period, the population had grown from an estimated 8 million in 1200 to about 14 million in 1300, and the number of towns increased tenfold. The most heavily urbanized areas of Germany were in the south and the west. Towns often developed a degree of independence, but many were subordinate to local rulers if not immediate to the emperor. Colonization of the east also continued in the thirteenth century, most notably through the efforts of the Teutonic Knights. German merchants also began trading extensively on the Baltic.

Legacy
The Kyffhäuser Monument was erected to commemorate Frederick I, and was inaugurated in 1896.

On October 29, 1968, the 700th anniversary of the death of Konradin, a society known as "Society for Staufer History" (de) was founded in Göppingen.

The Castel del Monte, Apulia which was built during the 1240s by the Emperor Frederick II was designated as a World Heritage Site in 1996.

The German artist, Hans Kloss, painted his Staufer-Rundbild depicting in great detail the history of the House of Hohenstaufen, in Lorch Monastery.

From 2000 to 2018, the Committee of Staufer Friends (de) has built thirty-eight Staufer steles (de) in Germany, France, Italy, Austria, Czech Republic and the Netherlands.

Holy Roman Emperors and Kings of the Romans
The first ruling Hohenstaufen, Conrad III, like the last one, Conrad IV, was never crowned emperor. After a 20-year period (Great interregnum 1254–1273), the first Habsburg was elected king.
 * Conrad III, king 1138–1152
 * Frederick Barbarossa, king 1152–1190, emperor after 1155
 * Henry VI, king 1190–1197, emperor after 1191
 * Philip of Swabia, king 1198–1208
 * Frederick II, king 1208–1250, emperor after 1220
 * Henry (VII), king 1220–1235 (under his father Emperor Frederick II)
 * Conrad IV, king 1237–1254 (until 1250 under his father Emperor Frederick II)

Kings of Italy
Note: The following kings are already listed above as German Kings
 * Conrad III 1128–1135
 * Frederick I 1154–1190
 * Henry VI 1191–1197

Kings of Sicily
Note: Some of the following kings are already listed above as German Kings
 * Henry VI 1194–1197
 * Frederick 1198–1250
 * Henry (VII) 1212–1217 (nominal king under his father)
 * Conrad 1250–1254
 * Conradin 1254–1258/1268
 * Manfred 1258–1266
 * Constance II (Queen) 1282–1285

Dukes of Swabia
Note: Some of the following dukes are already listed above as German Kings
 * Frederick I, Duke of Swabia (Friedrich) (r. 1079–1105)
 * Frederick II, Duke of Swabia (r. 1105–1147)
 * Frederick I, Holy Roman Emperor (Frederick III of Swabia)(r. 1147–1152) King in 1152 and Holy Roman Emperor in 1155
 * Frederick IV, Duke of Swabia (r. 1152–1167)
 * Frederick V, Duke of Swabia (r. 1167–1170)
 * Frederick VI, Duke of Swabia (r. 1170–1191)
 * Conrad II, Duke of Swabia (r. 1191–1196)
 * Philip of Swabia (r. 1196–1208) King in 1198
 * Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor (r. 1212–1216) King in 1212 and Holy Roman Emperor in 1220
 * Henry (VII) of Germany (r. 1216–1235), King 1220–1235
 * Conrad IV (r. 1235–1254) King in 1237
 * Conrad V (Conradin) (r. 1254–1268)

Family tree of the House of Hohenstaufen

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Notes: For further detailed dynastic relationships, see also Family tree of the German monarchs.

title: Hohenstaufen