The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (30 December 2018):

hiragana

    The cursive formed Japanese kana syllabary.
   Hiragana is mostly used for grammatical particles,
   verb-inflection, and Japanese words which are not written in
   kanji or which are too difficult for an educated person to
   read or write in kanji.  Hiragana are also used for
   furigana.

   (2001-03-18)