Early Middle Japanese

Early Middle Japanese
日本語
The oldest cursive kana written in early Heian period, indicating the birth of hiragana from Man'yōgana
Region	Japan
Era	Evolved into Late Middle Japanese at the end of the 12th century
Language family	Japonic Japanese Early Middle Japanese
Early form	Old Japanese
Writing system	Hiragana, Katakana, and Han
Language codes
ISO 639-3	ojp (Old Japanese)
Linguist List	ojp Described as "The ancestor of modern Japanese. 7th–10th centuries AD." The more usual date for the change from Old Japanese to Middle Japanese is ca. 800 (end of the Nara era).
Glottolog	None
This article contains IPA phonetic symbols. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Unicode characters. For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, see Help:IPA.

Early Middle Japanese (中古日本語, Chūko-Nihongo)^[1] is a stage of the Japanese language between 794 and 1185, which is known as the Heian period (平安時代). The successor to Old Japanese (上代日本語), it is also known as Late Old Japanese. However, the term "Early Middle Japanese" is preferred, as it is closer to Late Middle Japanese (中世日本語, after 1185) than to Old Japanese (before 794).