are historical variants of modern standard hiragana. They're a legacy of man'yōgana, where many different kanji could be used to represent the same sound value. As the man'yōgana became simplified into cursive forms, multiple hiragana, including the hentaigana, was the result. Many derive from differing man'yōgana characters, but some are the result of differing styles of cursive writing. Hentaigana were used more or less interchangeably with their standard equivalents on an ad h… (More on Hentaigana)