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The syllable characters in the two tables present the Japanese あいうえお aiueo syllabary in hiragana and katakana. The two sets of characters stand for the same sounds. The designation “aiueo” comes from the first five syllables (cf. ABC and alpha-bet(a)). The order in which the syllables of the Fifty Sounds Table are arranged was developed about a thousand years ago in imitation of the pattern of Indian alphabets. In some of the cells of this 5 x 10 grid of 50 cells there is no corresponding Japanese sound, so these cells remain empty, while the consonant ん, which does not fit within this grid, is assigned its own cell outside the table. Thus this table contains (not counting the two obsolete characters) a total of 46 syllable characters, which represent 46 sounds (syllables).
Further syllable characters derived from these 46 characters, and combinations of them that stand for other syllables, are listed on the page of Kana romanization tables.
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