[1] Simplified versions of man'yōgana eventually gave rise to both the hiragana and katakana scripts, which are used in Modern Japanese.

[2] Scholars from the Korean kingdom of Baekje are believed to have introduced the man'yōgana writing system to the Japanese archipelago.

The chronicles Kojiki and the Nihon Shoki both state so; though direct evidence is hard to come by, scholars tend to accept the idea.

[citation needed] To alleviate the confusion and to save time writing, kanji that were used as man'yōgana eventually gave rise to hiragana, including the now-obsolete hentaigana (変体仮名) alternatives, alongside a separate system that became katakana.

The multiple alternative hiragana forms for a single syllable were ultimately standardized in 1900, and the rejected variants are now known as hentaigana.

[citation needed][8] A phenomenon similar to man'yōgana, called ateji (当て字), still occurs, where words (including loanwords) are spelled out using kanji for their phonetic value.

Examples include 倶楽部 (kurabu, "club"), 仏蘭西 (Furansu, France), 阿弗利加 (Afurika, Africa) and 亜米利加 (Amerika, America).