Was Katakana inspired by Roman characters ?

[Alma]

even you really tried hard, I cannot see any connection in most of your examples...

and I don't know why you have doubts in "supposed source" most of them are too obvious...

also, makes no sense - why would Japanese make katakana from anything else but their kanji

[undrentide]

And the list both you and my post quoted is not "supposed" source but it IS the source.

I think that your attitude (to have doubts instead of just believing everything presented in front of you) is very important to study, though.

But your idea is far-fetched, in this case. Besides, what you suggested has no consistency - if you say katakana came from Roman alphabets, why you need to mention Greek alphabets or Phoenician (which is the origin of Roman/Slavic alphabets) ones?

[caster51]

http://godpresencewithin.web.fc2.com...gaku/kana.html

[Mazin]

@caster51
I don't even know what to say, other than that I'm terribly saddened by the fact that somebody obviously spent a lot of time on that page.

[EdZiomek]

The original comments by A ke bono and the URL lookup by Caster51, which I can't read, but I understood what the gist of the chart means, makes me conclude this could be the start of an exceptional, unique study.

Japanese, possibly related to Phonecian script, certainly related to Hebrew characters, and for my theory, extensively related to Egyptian (though I have only coincidental examples), how could there NOT be a relationship?

Keep building on this subject!

Mazin, take a break.

[Maciamo]

The original comments by A ke bono and the URL lookup by Caster51, which I can't read, but I understood what the gist of the chart means, makes me conclude this could be the start of an exceptional, unique study.
Japanese, possibly related to Phonecian script, certainly related to Hebrew characters, and for my theory, extensively related to Egyptian (though I have only coincidental examples), how could there NOT be a relationship?
Keep building on this subject!
Mazin, take a break.

I had a look at the link, and it does seem to confirm what A ke bono kane kotto said. Looking at the table of kana vs kanji vs Hebrew vs Greek alphabet, the kana look so much closer to the Hebrew and Greek alphabets than to the Chinese characters from which the kana presumably derive that it is truly disconcerting. I wouldn't surprised if the kana were developed by combining Chinese characters with Hebrew, Phoenician and/or Greek alphabet.

[Ben Bullock]

even you really tried hard, I cannot see any connection in most of your examples...
and I don't know why you have doubts in "supposed source" most of them are too obvious...

You should have doubts. Like many parts of "the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit", that Wikipedia chart is at least partly hocus-pocus. If you take the example of the katakana ン (n), the origin is disputed. Yet the Wikipedia graph shows it coming from a part of a kanji. I think somebody decided everything was "too obvious" and just created that chart, without checking.
Notice they can't even get the katakana ウィ for Wikipedia right in their illustration at the top of every page. It still says クイ.