
The Alphabets at Risk of Extinction - asplake
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200121-the-alphabets-at-risk-of-extinction
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sauropterygia
"Today, Kaoru Akagawa uses Kana, a mostly forgotten script traditionally used
by Japanese women, in her art"

"Yet as the centuries passed, and the authorities began culling what they saw
as superfluous letters, over 90% of Kana characters were lost. When Akagawa
started investigating the script, she remembers, “no one had heard” of Kana."

Kana is alive and well in the Japanese language, as it refers to the Japanese
syllabaries, Hiragana and Katakana.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kana](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kana)

What I think the article means is "Hentaigana", Hiragana variations that fell
out of favor during the Meiji era.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hentaigana](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hentaigana)

As all Hiragana, they are based on the cursive Kanji (Chinese Characters). One
can easilly find books about cursive forms of Kanji and Kana-only caligraphy
books even here in Brazil. So I found the "no one had heard of Kana" part a
bit off, even if refering to actually Hentaigana/old Kana. Whole Kana-only
books where printed in the Edo era, often with the same connected style of
Kaoru Akagawa, with Hentaigana and all:
[https://pulverer.si.edu/sites/default/files/styles/essay_lar...](https://pulverer.si.edu/sites/default/files/styles/essay_large/public/image_assets/Fig9_FSC-
GR-780.634.2_007.jpg?itok=uZnr4VPu)
[https://pulverer.si.edu/sites/default/files/styles/essay_lar...](https://pulverer.si.edu/sites/default/files/styles/essay_large/public/image_assets/Fig2_FSC-
GR-780.469.3_012.jpg?itok=ArkD2Oit)

So anyone with some knowledge of Japanese History would have heard of them,
specially in Japan. The wikipedia article even points out they are still used
in signs for an archaic feel. Reading and writting them would indeed be
relativelly rare, as cursive Kanji is, but the "no one had heard of Kana"
(sic) part sounds very unlikely to me.

