Hi Alex, those aren't hieroglyphs, though ... characters or kana :-).
Japanese kana spelling is highly regular with three common particles being the exception: は, へ, and を. Normally these would be pronounced as ha, he and wo, but as particles they are pronounced wa, e and o. Well, in singing o becomes wo again. And that's it - the rest of the spelling is regular - well, if you forget about the little complication of a few thousand kanji :-).