For other meanings of Kana, see Kana (disambiguation).

Kana is a general term for the syllabic Japanese scripts hiragana (ひらがな) and katakana (カタカナ) as well as the old system known as manyogana. These were developed from the logographic characters of Chinese origin known in Japan as Kanji (漢字; Chinese pronunciation "hanzi"), as an alternative and adjunct to these latter. Kana has several meanings. ... A syllabary is a set of written symbols that represent (or approximate) syllables, which make up words. ... Japanese writing Kanji 漢字 Kana 仮名 Hiragana 平仮名 Katakana 片仮名 Uses Furigana 振り仮名 Okurigana 送り仮名 Rōmaji ローマ字 Hiragana ) are a Japanese syllabary, one of the four Japanese writing systems, along with katakana, kanji and rōmaji (i. ... Japanese writing Kanji 漢字 Kana 仮名 Hiragana 平仮名 Katakana 片仮名 Uses Furigana 振り仮名 Okurigana 送り仮名 Rōmaji ローマ字 Katakana (片仮名) are a Japanese syllabary, one of the four Japanese writing systems. ... Manyōgana (万葉仮名) is an ancient form of Japanese kana based on kanji (Chinese characters). ... The Chinese logogram for glyph or logogram. A logogram, or logograph, is a single grapheme which represents a word or a morpheme (a meaningful unit of language). ... Japanese writing Kanji 漢字 Kana 仮名 Hiragana 平仮名 Katakana 片仮名 Uses Furigana 振り仮名 Okurigana 送り仮名 Rōmaji ローマ字 Kanji ( ) are the Chinese characters (Hanzi) that are used in the modern Japanese logographic writing system along with hiragana (平仮名), katakana (片仮名) and the Roman alphabet. ... Technical note: Due to technical limitations, some web browsers may not display some special characters in this article. ...

^*Japanese does not have, and has never had, kana to represent ye, yi or wu sounds.

Japanese writing Kanji 漢字 Kana 仮名 Hiragana 平仮名 Katakana 片仮名 Uses Furigana 振り仮名 Okurigana 送り仮名 Rōmaji ローマ字 Hiragana ) are a Japanese syllabary, one of the four Japanese writing systems, along with katakana, kanji and rōmaji (i. ... Japanese writing Kanji 漢字 Kana 仮名 Hiragana 平仮名 Katakana 片仮名 Uses Furigana 振り仮名 Okurigana 送り仮名 Rōmaji ローマ字 Katakana (片仮名) are a Japanese syllabary, one of the four Japanese writing systems. ... Image File history File links Kana_chart. ... The hiragana あ. あ in hiragana, or ア in katakana is one of the Japanese kana that each respresent one mora. ... The hiragana あ. あ in hiragana or ア in katakana is one of the Japanese kana that each respresent one mora. ... か, in hiragana, or カ in katakana, is one of the Japanese kana, which each represent one mora. ... か, in hiragana, カ in katakana, ka (IPA: ) under Hepburn romanisation, is one of the Japanese kana, which each represent one mora. ... さ, in hiragana, or サ in katakana, is one of the Japanese kana, which each represent one mora. ... さ, in hiragana, or サ in katakana, or sa in Romaji under Hepburn romanisation (IPA: ), is one of the Japanese kana, which each represent one mora. ... た, in hiragana, or タ in katakana, is one of the Japanese kana, which each represent one mora. ... た, in hiragana, or タ in katakana, is one of the Japanese kana, which each represent one mora. ... な, in hiragana, or ナ in katakana, is one of the Japanese kana, which each represent one mora. ... な, in hiragana, or ナ in katakana, is one of the Japanese kana, which each represent one mora. ... Ha as it appears in hiragana. ... Ha as it appears in hiragana. ... ま, in hiragana, or マ in katakana, is one of the Japanese kana, which each represent one mora. ... ま, in hiragana, or マ in katakana, is one of the Japanese kana, which each represent one mora. ... や, in hiragana, or ヤ in katakana, is one of the Japanese kana, which each represent one mora. ... や, in hiragana, or ヤ in katakana, is one of the Japanese kana, which each represent one mora. ... ら, in hiragana, or ラ in katakana, is one of the Japanese kana, which each represent one mora. ... ら, in hiragana, or ラ in katakana, is one of the Japanese kana, which each represent one mora. ... わ, in hiragana, or ワ in katakana, is one of the Japanese kana, which each represent one mora. ... わ, in hiragana, or ワ in katakana, is one of the Japanese kana, which each represent one mora. ... ん, in hiragana, or ン in katakana, is one of the Japanese kana, which each represent one mora. ... ん, in hiragana, or ン in katakana, is one of the Japanese kana, which each represent one mora. ... The hiragana い. い in hiragana, or イ in katakana, is is one of the Japanese kana that each respresent one mora. ... The hiragana い. Look up い in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... き, in hiragana, or キ in katakana, is one of the Japanese kana, which each represent one mora. ... き, in hiragana, キ in katakana, ki in Romaji with Hepburn romanisation (IPA: ), is one of the Japanese kana, which each represent one mora. ... し, in hiragana, or シ in katakana, is one of the Japanese kana, which each represent one mora. ... し, in hiragana, or シ in katakana, or shi in Romaji under Hepburn romanisation (IPA: ), is one of the Japanese kana, which each represent one mora. ... ち, in hiragana, or チ in katakana, is one of the Japanese kana, which each represent one mora. ... ち, in hiragana, or チ in katakana, is one of the Japanese kana, which each represent one mora. ... に, in hiragana, or ニ in katakana, is one of the Japanese kana, which each represent one mora. ... に, in hiragana, or ニ in katakana, is one of the Japanese kana, which each represent one mora. ... ひ, in hiragana, or ヒ in katakana, is one of the Japanese kana, which each represent one mora. ... ひ, in hiragana, or ヒ in katakana, is one of the Japanese kana, which each represent one mora. ... み, in hiragana, or ミ in katakana, is one of the Japanese kana, which each represent one mora. ... み, in hiragana, or ミ in katakana, is one of the Japanese kana, which each represent one mora. ... り, in hiragana, or リ in katakana, is one of the Japanese kana, which each represent one mora. ... り, in hiragana, or リ in katakana, is one of the Japanese kana, which each represent one mora. ... ゐ, in hiragana, or ヰ in katakana, is one of the Japanese kana, which each represent one mora. ... ゐ, in hiragana, or ヰ in katakana, is one of the Japanese kana, which each represent one mora. ... In Japanese writing, the kana う (hiragana) and ウ (katakana) occupy the third place, between む and ゐ, in the modern Gojūon (五十音) system of collating kana. ... In Japanese writing, the kana う (hiragana) and ウ (katakana) occupy the third place in the modern Gojūon (五十音) system of collating kana. ... く, in hiragana, or ク in katakana, is one of the Japanese kana, which each represent one mora. ... く, in hiragana, or ク in katakana, and ku in Romaji with Hepburn romanisation (IPA: ), is one of the Japanese kana, which each represent one mora. ... す, in hiragana, or ス in katakana, is one of the Japanese kana, which each represent one mora. ... す, in hiragana, or ス in katakana, is one of the Japanese kana, which each represent one mora. ... つ, in hiragana, or ツ in katakana, is one of the Japanese kana, which each represent one mora. ... つ, in hiragana, or ツ in katakana, is one of the Japanese kana, which each represent one mora. ... ぬ, in hiragana, or ヌ in katakana, is one of the Japanese kana, which each represent one mora. ... ぬ, in hiragana, or ヌ in katakana, is one of the Japanese kana, which each represent one mora. ... ふ, in hiragana, or フ in katakana, is one of the Japanese kana, which each represent one mora. ... ふ, in hiragana, or フ in katakana, is one of the Japanese kana, which each represent one mora. ... む, in hiragana, or ム in katakana, is one of the Japanese kana, which each represent one mora. ... む, in hiragana, or ム in katakana, is one of the Japanese kana, which each represent one mora. ... ゆ, in hiragana, or ユ in katakana, is one of the Japanese kana, which each represent one mora. ... ゆ, in hiragana, or ユ in katakana, is one of the Japanese kana, which each represent one mora. ... る, in hiragana, or ル in katakana, is one of the Japanese kana, which each represent one mora. ... る, in hiragana, or ル in katakana, is one of the Japanese kana, which each represent one mora. ... In Japanese writing, the kana え (hiragana) and エ (katakana) occupy the fourth place, between う and お, in the modern Gojūon (五十音) system of collating kana. ... In Japanese writing, the kana え (hiragana) and エ (katakana) occupy the fourth place, between う and お, in the modern Gojūon (五十音) system of collating kana. ... け, in hiragana, or ケ in katakana, is one of the Japanese kana, which each represent one mora. ... け, in hiragana, or ケ in katakana, and ke in Romaji under Hepburn romanisation (IPA: ), is one of the Japanese kana, which each represent one mora. ... せ, in hiragana, or セ in katakana, is one of the Japanese kana, which each represent one mora. ... せ, in hiragana, or セ in katakana, is one of the Japanese kana, which each represent one mora. ... て, in hiragana, or テ in katakana, is one of the Japanese kana, which each represent one mora. ... て, in hiragana, or テ in katakana, is one of the Japanese kana, which each represent one mora. ... ね, in hiragana, or ネ in katakana, is one of the Japanese kana, which each represent one mora. ... ね, in hiragana, or ネ in katakana, is one of the Japanese kana, which each represent one mora. ... へ, in hiragana, or ヘ in katakana, is one of the Japanese kana, which each represent one mora. ... へ, in hiragana, or ヘ in katakana, is one of the Japanese kana, which each represent one mora. ... め, in hiragana, or メ in katakana, is one of the Japanese kana, which each represent one mora. ... め, in hiragana, or メ in katakana, is one of the Japanese kana, which each represent one mora. ... れ, in hiragana, or レ in katakana, is one of the Japanese kana, which each represent one mora. ... れ, in hiragana, or レ in katakana, is one of the Japanese kana, which each represent one mora. ... ゑ, in hiragana, or ヱ in katakana, is one of the Japanese kana, which each represent one mora. ... ゑ, in hiragana, or ヱ in katakana, is one of the Japanese kana, which each represent one mora. ... In Japanese writing, the kana お (hiragana) and オ (katakana) occupy the fifth place, between え and か, in the modern Gojūon (五十音) system of collating kana. ... In Japanese writing, the kana お (hiragana) and オ (katakana) occupy the fifth place, between え and か, in the modern Gojūon (五十音) system of collating kana. ... こ, in hiragana, or コ in katakana, is one of the Japanese kana, which each represent one mora. ... こ, in hiragana, or コ in katakana, or ko in Romaji with Hepburn romanisation (IPA: ), is one of the Japanese kana, which each represent one mora. ... そ, in hiragana, or ソ in katakana, is one of the Japanese kana, which each represent one mora. ... そ, in hiragana, or ソ in katakana, is one of the Japanese kana, which each represent one mora. ... と, in hiragana, or ト in katakana, is one of the Japanese kana, which each represent one mora. ... と, in hiragana, or ト in katakana, is one of the Japanese kana, which each represent one mora. ... In order to write の, begin slightly above the center, stroke downward diagonally, then upward, and then curve around as indicated by the arrows. ... Look up の in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... ほ, in hiragana, or ホ in katakana, is one of the Japanese kana, which each represent one mora. ... ほ, in hiragana, or ホ in katakana, is one of the Japanese kana, which each represent one mora. ... も, in hiragana, or モ in katakana, is one of the Japanese kana, which each represent one mora. ... も, in hiragana, or モ in katakana, is one of the Japanese kana, which each represent one mora. ... よ, in hiragana, or ヨ in katakana, is one of the Japanese kana, which each represent one mora. ... よ, in hiragana, or ヨ in katakana, is one of the Japanese kana, which each represent one mora. ... ろ, in hiragana, or ロ in katakana, is one of the Japanese kana, which each represent one mora. ... ろ, in hiragana, or ロ in katakana, is one of the Japanese kana, which each represent one mora. ... を, in hiragana, or ヲ in katakana, is one of the Japanese kana, which each represent one mora. ... を, in hiragana, or ヲ in katakana, is one of the Japanese kana, which each represent one mora. ...

Modern usage

Hiragana is mostly used to indicate grammatical aspects of the language. It is also used to represent an entire word (usually of Japanese, rather than Chinese origin) in place of kanji. See the article hiragana for details. Japanese writing Kanji 漢字 Kana 仮名 Hiragana 平仮名 Katakana 片仮名 Uses Furigana 振り仮名 Okurigana 送り仮名 Rōmaji ローマ字 Kanji ( ) are the Chinese characters (Hanzi) that are used in the modern Japanese logographic writing system along with hiragana (平仮名), katakana (片仮名) and the Roman alphabet. ... Japanese writing Kanji 漢字 Kana 仮名 Hiragana 平仮名 Katakana 片仮名 Uses Furigana 振り仮名 Okurigana 送り仮名 Rōmaji ローマ字 Hiragana ) are a Japanese syllabary, one of the four Japanese writing systems, along with katakana, kanji and rōmaji (i. ...

Today katakana is most commonly used to write words of foreign origin that do not have a kanji representation. For example, "George W. Bush" can be expressed as ジョージ・W.・ブッシュ. Katakana is also used for sound effects, biological terms, and some corporate branding. See the article katakana for details. Japanese writing Kanji 漢字 Kana 仮名 Hiragana 平仮名 Katakana 片仮名 Uses Furigana 振り仮名 Okurigana 送り仮名 Rōmaji ローマ字 Katakana (片仮名) are a Japanese syllabary, one of the four Japanese writing systems. ...

Kana can be written in small form above or next to lesser-known kanji in order to show pronunciation; this is called furigana. Furigana is used most widely in children's books. Literature for young children who do not know kanji may dispense with it altogether and use hiragana combined with spaces instead. Japanese writing Kanji 漢字 Kana 仮名 Hiragana 平仮名 Katakana 片仮名 Uses Furigana 振り仮名 Okurigana 送り仮名 Rōmaji ローマ字 Category Furigana (Japanese: ふりがな), are a Japanese reading aid. ...

History of kana

Both hiragana and katakana developed from the ancient kana system man'yōgana, a kind of phonetic characters using kanji. Man'yōshū, a poetry anthology written in 759, is written in this early script. Japanese writing Kanji 漢字 Kana 仮名 Hiragana 平仮名 Katakana 片仮名 Uses Furigana 振り仮名 Okurigana 送り仮名 Rōmaji ローマ字 Hiragana ) are a Japanese syllabary, one of the four Japanese writing systems, along with katakana, kanji and rōmaji (i. ... Japanese writing Kanji 漢字 Kana 仮名 Hiragana 平仮名 Katakana 片仮名 Uses Furigana 振り仮名 Okurigana 送り仮名 Rōmaji ローマ字 Katakana (片仮名) are a Japanese syllabary, one of the four Japanese writing systems. ... Manyōgana (万葉仮名) is an ancient form of Japanese kana based on kanji (Chinese characters). ... Manyoshu (万葉集 ManyōshÅ«, Collection of Ten Thousand Leaves) is the oldest existing, and most highly revered, collection of Japanese poetry, compiled sometime in the Nara or early Heian periods. ... Events The Franks capture Narbonne; the Saracens are completely driven out of Japanese poet Otomo no Yakamochi compiled the first Japanese poetry anthology Manyoshu. ...

Kana is traditionally said to have been invented by the Buddhist priest Kūkai in the 9th century. Kūkai certainly brought the Siddham script home on his return from China in 806; his interest in the sacred aspects of speech and writing led him to the conclusion that Japanese would be better represented by a phonetic alphabet than by the kanji which had been used up to that point. Buddhism is a religion and philosophy focusing on the teachings of the Buddha Śākyamuni (Siddhārtha Gautama), who probably lived in the 5th century BCE. Buddhism spread throughout the ancient Indian sub-continent in the five centuries following the Buddhas death, and propagated into Central, Southeast, and East Asia... Roman Catholic priests in traditional clerical clothing. ... Painting of Kukai (774-835). ... As a means of recording the passage of time the 9th century was that century that lasted from 801 to 900. ... Siddham (Sanskrit, accomplished or perfected) — referred to in Japanese as bonji (梵字) — is the name of a North Indian script used for writing Sanskrit. ... Events April 12 - Nicephorus elected patriarch of Constantinople, succeeding Tarasius. ... One might be looking for the academic discipline of communications. ... See also Creative writing. ...

Collation

Kana are the basis for collation in Japanese. They are taken in the order given by the gojūon (あ い う え お … わ を ん), though iroha ordering is used for enumeration in some circumstances. Dictionaries differ in the sequence order for long/short vowel distinction, small tsu and diacritics. As the Japanese do not use word spaces (except for children), there can be no word-by-word collation; all collation is kana-by-kana. In textual criticism and bibliography, collation is the reading of two (or more) texts side-by-side in order to note their differences. ... The gojÅ«on (五十音) is a Japanese ordering of kana. ... The iroha (Jp. ...

Kana in Unicode

The Hiragana range in Unicode is U+3040 ... U+309F, and the Katakana range is U+30A0 ... U+30FF. The obsolete characters (WI and WE) also have their proper codepoints, except for hentaigana, as hentaigana are considered glyph variants of more common kana. Due to technical limitations, some web browsers may not display some special characters in this article. ... Japanese writing Kanji 漢字 Kana 仮名 Hiragana 平仮名 Katakana 片仮名 Uses Furigana 振り仮名 Okurigana 送り仮名 Romaji ローマ字 Hentaigana (変体仮名) are alternative kana letterforms equivalent to standard kana characters. ... These are the astrological glyphs as most commonly used in Western Astrology A glyph is a specific symbol representing a semantic or phonetic unit of definitive value in a writing system. ...

Code points U+3040, U+3097, and U+3098 are unassigned as of Unicode 4.1. Characters U+3095 and U+3096 are hiragana small ka and small ke, respectively. U+30F5 and U+30F6 are their katakana equivalents. Characters U+3099 and U+309A are combining dakuten and handakuten, which correspond to the spacing characters U+309B and U+309C. U+309D is the hiragana iteration mark, used to repeat a previous hiragana. U+309E is the voiced hiragana iteration mark, which stands in for the previous hiragana but with the consonant voiced (k becomes g, h becomes b, etc.). U+30FD and U+30FE are the katakana iteration marks. U+309F is a ligature of "yori" (より) sometimes used in vertical writing. U+30FF is a ligature of "koto" (コト), also found in vertical writing. Dakuten (濁点), colloquially ten-ten (dot dot), is a diacritic sign most often used in the Japanese kana syllabaries to indicate that the consonant of a syllable should be pronounced voiced. ... Dakuten (濁点), colloquially ten-ten (dot dot), is a diacritic sign most often used in the Japanese kana syllabaries to indicate that the consonant of a syllable should be pronounced voiced. ... Iteration marks (Jp. ...

Additionally, there are halfwidth equivalents to the standard fullwidth katakana. These are encoded within the Halfwidth and Fullwidth Forms block (U+FF00–U+FFEF), starting at U+FF65 and ending at U+FF9F (characters U+FF61–U+FF64 are halfwidth punctuation marks):

There is also a small "Katakana Phonetic Extensions" range (U+31F0 ... U+31FF), which includes some extra characters for writing the Ainu language. The Ainu language (Ainu: , aynu itak; Japanese: ainu-go) is spoken by the Ainu ethnic group on the northern Japanese island of Hokkaido. ...

See also:

• Romaji
• Transliteration and Transcription
• Historical kana usage

Japanese writing Kanji 漢字 Kana 仮名 Hiragana 平仮名 Katakana 片仮名 Uses Furigana 振り仮名 Okurigana 送り仮名 Romaji ローマ字 The title given to this article lacks diacritics because of certain technical limitations. ... Transliteration is a mapping from one system of writing into another. ... Transcription is the conversion into written, typewritten or printed form, of a spoken language source, such as the proceedings of a court hearing. ... Kana is a general term for two types of syllabic Japanese script: hiragana (ひらがな) and katakana (カタカナ). ...

External links

• Practice hiragana and katakana using different typefaces
• Change Kanji into Romaji and Hiragana
• Kana web translator - Transliterate Kana to Rōmaji
• Converts Romaji to Kana, Hepburn System
• Learn hiragana and katakana playfully