More Than a Perfect Pangram

You probably know the classic English pangram: “The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.” It uses all the 26 letters, though some appear more than once - so it’s not actually a perfect pangram. By definition, a pangram is a sentence that includes every letter of the alphabet at least once.

Perfect pangrams do exist, but they’re rare. And crafting one that actually makes sense is pretty tricky - you can try, but you’ll likely end up with something awkward or trivial... So I never tried.

While skimming through a Japanese grammar guide, I came across a poem that was written over a thousand years ago. If you're into poetry, you might already be familiar with it - it’s quite well-known in Japanese literature. It’s called Iroha. What’s fascinating is that this poem uses every kana character (the Japanese phonetic syllabary) exactly once -and yes, that makes it a perfect pangram!

Before we get to the poem itself, let me give a bit of historical background - because it’s actually really interesting (at least to me).

Japanese has two phonetic scripts - hiragana and katakana - known as kana. Hiragana is used for native words and grammar, while katakana handles foreign words, onomatopoeia, and emphasis. Unlike the English alphabet’s letters, each kana represents a syllable-like sound, such as a consonant-vowel pair (e.g., か ka), a vowel (e.g., あ a), or a nasal (e.g., ん n).

However, the Iroha poem was originally written in man’yōgana, an ancient writing system that used Chinese characters (kanji) not for their meanings, but for their sounds, to represent Japanese syllables. At the time, Japanese had no native writing system of its own.

Hiragana and katakana evolved from simplified forms of man’yōgana characters. When the Iroha poem was later transcribed into hiragana, it was found to use each of the 47 syllables of the classical Japanese syllabary exactly once - a perfect pangram. It’s remarkable that this poem, composed over a thousand years ago, achieves such a feat, whether by design or coincidence. Beyond its linguistic brilliance, it’s widely regarded as a philosophical masterpiece for its meditations on impermanence and enlightenment.

Note: Modern Japanese uses 46 syllables, as wi (ゐ) and we (ゑ) are now obsolete. When the Iroha was composed, however, these syllables were part of the 47-syllable classical syllabary, making the poem a perfect pangram for its time.

The translation above is by Professor Ryuichi Abe. While it's refined and elegantly phrased, some parts felt distant to me or hard to connect with.

So, I went behind the scenes and looked up the poem’s kana and kanji in a Japanese dictionary to get a rough sense of the meaning myself -but given my limited grasp of the language’s cultural and linguistic nuances, I still needed more. Fortunately, I found a clear, rustic translation by Masaki Mori, a Japanese native speaker, which I prefer, not only because it’s easier to understand, but also because it reflects the kind of approach I’d take if I were translating a foreign language myself. You can read his article here. I'll quote Mori moving forward.

Line-by-line translation

Iroha's first line reads: i ro ha ni ho he to chi ri nu ru wo
Hiragana: いろはにほへとちりぬるを

Rough translation: colours are fragrant, but will scatter. 'Colours are fragrant' is a metaphor for flowers in bloom. So Mori arrived at: Flowers are in bloom, but will scatter.

Second line reads: wa ka yo ta re so tsu ne na ra mu
Hiragana: わかよたれそつねならむ

Translation: In our world, who could remain unchanged forever? The translation is pretty self-explanatory.

Third line reads: u wi no o ku ya ma ke fu ko e te
Hiragana: うゐのおくやまけふこえて

Rough translation: The deep mountain of Uwi, we will cross it today.
In old Japanese, "けふ (kefu)" was used instead of today's "きょう (kyou)", which means "today."

Here, Mori notes that the word “uwi” (有為, うゐ) comes from Buddhism and roughly means human karma. In this context, “the deep mountain” symbolizes the buildup of that karma.

His translation: Today I will reach to the place which is free from the accumulated karma of human beings

Last line reads: a sa ki yu me mi shi we i mo se su
Hiragana: あさきゆめみしゑいもせす

Mori divides the line into 3 parts:
Asakiyume means “a shallow” or “fleeting” or “superficial”

Mishi (or miji in mixed script) means “I will not dream.” So together, they mean “I will not have a superficial dream.”

Weimosesu (or weimosezu) means “unless I’m drunk” or “while I’m not drunk.

Rough translation: I will not have a superficial dream unless I’m drunk. Drunk could mean as being drunk in delusion.
Mori's translation then: I will not have a superficial dream unless I’m drunk.

I'd take it as: I will not have a superficial dream nor be drunk in delusion.

Putting them all together, we arrive with the translation:

Flowers are in bloom, but will scatter.
In our world, who could remain unchanged forever?
Today I will reach to the place which is free from the accumulated karma of human beings
I will not have a superficial dream nor be drunk in delusion.

This is simply the way I’ve chosen to interpret it. You don’t need to place too much faith in it - trust your own reading. Naturally, others might see it differently - that’s the beauty of imaginative literature, where no interpretation is entirely wrong, though some may be less convincing.

The poem evokes grief and liberation.
Grief, because life is transient. Our short time here makes it precious and beautiful. Like flowers, we bloom as human beings - we grow, mature, become wiser, growing into our best versions… then we fade away. Indeed, as David so perfectly put it: “Our days are but a handbreadth; our lifetimes, mere moments. Each one of us is but a breath.”

While karma in Buddhism carries a deeper meaning, I choose to interpret it simply: karma often reflects the weight of our actions - mistakes, regrets, trauma, unfinished business. When we hold on to them, they pile up, becoming a steep mountain that grows harder to climb. But once we cross or overcome it, we shed our delusions.

Put simply: life is fleeting, karma builds up - one must overcome it for clarity, peace, and release. Liberation.

This is why the Iroha is more than a perfect pangram. It holds a perfectly sized truth. I could’ve shared my interpretation first and kept this short - but decoding it was fun, and honestly, it made for good filler.

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Sources:

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