Editing Classical Japanese (section)

=== Miscellaneous ===

Two other significant differences involve the ''way'' that kana are used in general, rather than ''which'' kana are used. The first is that Chinese characters in classical texts are often fully marked with [[Furigana|ruby text]] ({{nihongo2|振り仮名}} ''Furigana''), especially in old laws and other very important documents. Ruby text is still widely used in modern Japanese, but only for characters with non-standard or ambiguous pronunciations, or sometimes in materials designed for children or foreigners. The second difference is that, especially in legal documents, Katakana were often used in the way that Hiragana are used in modern Japanese, to write out adjective and verb inflections, suffixes, and particles ({{nihongo2|送り仮名}} ''Okurigana''), and for the aforementioned ruby text.

Finally, [[Iteration mark#Japanese|kana iteration marks]] were far more common in classical Japanese, and sometimes used in ways that are considered completely obsolete in modern Japanese.

For an example of a major document written in the classical style, see as an example [[:s:ja:大日本帝國憲法|the original text]] of the 1890 [[Meiji Constitution]], which is written in classical Japanese using historical kana, old character forms, kana iteration marks, and Katakana in place of Hiragana (although it lacks universal ruby text).