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The term may refer to a number of
syllabaries In the linguistic study of written languages, a syllabary is a set of written symbols that represent the syllables or (more frequently) moras which make up words. A symbol in a syllabary, called a syllabogram, typically represents an (option ...
used to write Japanese phonological units,
morae A mora (plural ''morae'' or ''moras''; often symbolized μ) is a basic timing unit in the phonology of some spoken languages, equal to or shorter than a syllable. For example, a short syllable such as ''ba'' consists of one mora (''monomoraic'') ...
. Such syllabaries include (1) the original kana, or , which were
Chinese characters Chinese characters () are logograms developed for the writing of Chinese. In addition, they have been adapted to write other East Asian languages, and remain a key component of the Japanese writing system where they are known as ''kanji' ...
(
kanji are the logographic Chinese characters taken from the Chinese family of scripts, Chinese script and used in the writing of Japanese language, Japanese. They were made a major part of the Japanese writing system during the time of Old Japanese ...
) used phonetically to transcribe
Japanese Japanese may refer to: * Something from or related to Japan, an island country in East Asia * Japanese language, spoken mainly in Japan * Japanese people, the ethnic group that identifies with Japan through ancestry or culture ** Japanese diaspor ...
, the most prominent magana system being ; the two descendants of man'yōgana, (2) , and (3) . There are also , which are historical variants of the now-standard hiragana. In current usage, 'kana' can simply mean ''hiragana'' and ''katakana''. Katakana, with a few additions, are also used to write
Ainu Ainu or Aynu may refer to: *Ainu people, an East Asian ethnic group of Japan and the Russian Far East *Ainu languages, a family of languages **Ainu language of Hokkaido **Kuril Ainu language, extinct language of the Kuril Islands **Sakhalin Ainu la ...
. A number of systems exist to write the
Ryūkyūan languages The , also Lewchewan or Luchuan (), are the indigenous languages of the Ryukyu Islands, the southernmost part of the Japanese archipelago. Along with the Japanese language and the Hachijō language, they make up the Japonic language family. Al ...
, in particular Okinawan, in hiragana.
Taiwanese kana Taiwanese kana (, Pe̍h-ōe-jī : "tâi oân gí ká biêng", IPA : ) is a katakana-based writing system that was used to write Taiwanese Hokkien (commonly called "Taiwanese") when the island of Taiwan was under Japanese rule. It functioned ...
were used in
Taiwanese Hokkien Taiwanese Hokkien () (; Tâi-lô: ''Tâi-uân-uē''), also known as Taigi/Taigu (; Pe̍h-ōe-jī/Tâi-lô: ''Tâi-gí / Tâi-gú''), Taiwanese, Taiwanese Minnan, Hoklo and Holo, is a variety of the Hokkien language spoken natively by about 70% ...
as
glosses A gloss is a brief notation, especially a marginal one or an interlinear one, of the meaning of a word or wording in a text. It may be in the language of the text or in the reader's language if that is different. A collection of glosses is a ''g ...
(
ruby text Ruby characters or rubi characters () are small, annotative glosses that are usually placed above or to the right of logographic characters of languages in the East Asian cultural sphere, such as Chinese ''hanzi'', Japanese ''kanji'', and Kor ...
or ''
furigana is a Japanese reading aid consisting of smaller kana or syllabic characters printed either above or next to kanji (logographic characters) or other characters to indicate their pronunciation. It is one type of ruby text. Furigana is also known ...
'') for Chinese characters in
Taiwan Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the nort ...
when it was under Japanese rule. Each kana character (
syllabogram Syllabograms are signs used to write the syllables (or morae) of words. This term is most often used in the context of a writing system otherwise organized on different principles—an alphabet where most symbols represent phonemes, or a logographi ...
) corresponds to one sound or whole syllable in the Japanese language, unlike kanji
regular script Regular script (; Hepburn: ''kaisho''), also called (), (''zhēnshū''), (''kǎitǐ'') and (''zhèngshū''), is the newest of the Chinese script styles (popularized from the Cao Wei dynasty c. 200 AD and maturing stylistically around the ...
, which corresponds to a meaning (
logogram In a written language, a logogram, logograph, or lexigraph is a written character that represents a word or morpheme. Chinese characters (pronounced ''hanzi'' in Mandarin, ''kanji'' in Japanese, ''hanja'' in Korean) are generally logograms, as ...
). Apart from the five vowels, it is always CV (consonant
onset Onset may refer to: *Onset (audio), the beginning of a musical note or sound *Onset, Massachusetts, village in the United States **Onset Island (Massachusetts), a small island located at the western end of the Cape Cod Canal *Interonset interval, ...
with vowel
nucleus Nucleus ( : nuclei) is a Latin word for the seed inside a fruit. It most often refers to: *Atomic nucleus, the very dense central region of an atom *Cell nucleus, a central organelle of a eukaryotic cell, containing most of the cell's DNA Nucle ...
), such as ''ka'', ''ki'', etc., or V (vowel), such as ''a'', ''i'', etc., with the sole exception of the C grapheme for
nasal Nasal is an adjective referring to the nose, part of human or animal anatomy. It may also be shorthand for the following uses in combination: * With reference to the human nose: ** Nasal administration, a method of pharmaceutical drug delivery ** ...
coda Coda or CODA may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Films * Movie coda, a post-credits scene * ''Coda'' (1987 film), an Australian horror film about a serial killer, made for television *''Coda'', a 2017 American experimental film from Na ...
s usually romanised as ''n''. The structure has led some scholars to label the system ''
moraic A mora (plural ''morae'' or ''moras''; often symbolized μ) is a basic timing (linguistics), timing unit in the phonology of some spoken languages, equal to or shorter than a syllable. For example, a short syllable such as ''ba'' consists of one m ...
'', instead of ''syllabic'', because it requires the combination of two syllabograms to represent a CVC syllable with coda (i.e. CV''n'', CV''m'', CV''ng''), a CVV syllable with complex nucleus (i.e. multiple or expressively long vowels), or a CCV syllable with complex onset (i.e. including a
glide Glide may refer to: * Gliding flight, to fly without thrust Computing *Glide API, a 3D graphics interface *Glide OS, a web desktop *Glide (software), an instant video messenger *Glide, a molecular docking software by Schrödinger (company), Schr ...
, C''y''V, C''w''V). The limited number of
phoneme In phonology and linguistics, a phoneme () is a unit of sound that can distinguish one word from another in a particular language. For example, in most dialects of English, with the notable exception of the West Midlands and the north-west o ...
s in Japanese, as well as the relatively rigid syllable structure, makes the kana system a very accurate representation of spoken Japanese.


Etymology

'Kana' is a compound of and , which eventually collapsed into ''kanna'' and ultimately 'kana'. Today it is generally assumed that 'kana' were considered "false" kanji due to their purely phonetic nature, as opposed to which were "true" kanji used for their meanings. Yet originally, ''mana'' and ''kana'' were purely calligraphic terms with ''mana'' referring to Chinese characters written in the
regular script Regular script (; Hepburn: ''kaisho''), also called (), (''zhēnshū''), (''kǎitǐ'') and (''zhèngshū''), is the newest of the Chinese script styles (popularized from the Cao Wei dynasty c. 200 AD and maturing stylistically around the ...
(''kaisho'') and ''kana'' referring to those written in the
cursive Cursive (also known as script, among other names) is any style of penmanship in which characters are written joined in a flowing manner, generally for the purpose of making writing faster, in contrast to block letters. It varies in functionalit ...
(''sōsho'') style (see ''
hiragana is a Japanese syllabary, part of the Japanese writing system, along with ''katakana'' as well as ''kanji''. It is a phonetic lettering system. The word ''hiragana'' literally means "flowing" or "simple" kana ("simple" originally as contrast ...
''). It was not until the 18th century that the early-nationalist ''kokugaku'' movement which wanted to move away from
Sinocentric Sinocentrism refers to the worldview that China is the cultural, political, or economic center of the world. It may be considered analogous to Eurocentrism. Overview and context Depending on the historical context, Sinocentrism can refer to ...
academia began to reanalyze the script from a phonological point of view. In the following centuries, contrary to the traditional Sinocentric view, ''kana'' began to be considered a national Japanese writing system that was distinct from Chinese characters, which is the dominant view today.


Terms

Although the term 'kana' is now commonly understood as hiragana and katakana, it actually has broader application as listed below: * or : a
syllabary In the linguistic study of written languages, a syllabary is a set of written symbols that represent the syllables or (more frequently) moras which make up words. A symbol in a syllabary, called a syllabogram, typically represents an (optiona ...
. ** or : phonetic
kanji are the logographic Chinese characters taken from the Chinese family of scripts, Chinese script and used in the writing of Japanese language, Japanese. They were made a major part of the Japanese writing system during the time of Old Japanese ...
used as syllabary characters, historically used by men (who were more educated). ***: the most prominent system of magana. ****: cursive man'yōgana. *****, , , or : a syllabary derived from simplified sōgana, historically used by women (who were less educated), historically sorted in ''
Iroha The is a Japanese poem. Originally the poem was attributed to the founder of the Shingon Esoteric sect of Buddhism in Japan, Kūkai, but more modern research has found the date of composition to be later in the Heian period (794–1179). The f ...
'' order. ****** or : obsolete variants of hiragana. **** or : a syllabary derived by using bits of characters in man'yōgana, historically sorted in ''
gojūon In the Japanese language, the is a traditional system ordering kana characters by their component phonemes, roughly analogous to alphabetical order Alphabetical order is a system whereby character strings are placed in order based on the ...
'' order. ****: hiragana and katakana, as opposed to kanji. ***: magana for transcribing Japanese words, using, strict or loose, Chinese-derived readings (''
on'yomi are the logographic Chinese characters taken from the Chinese script and used in the writing of Japanese. They were made a major part of the Japanese writing system during the time of Old Japanese and are still used, along with the subsequent ...
''). For example, would be spelt as , with two magana with on'yomi for ''ya'' and ''ma''; likewise, spelt as 比登 for ''hi'' and ''to''. ***: magana for transcribing Japanese words, using native words ascribed to kanji (native "readings" or ''
kun'yomi are the logographic Chinese characters taken from the Chinese script and used in the writing of Japanese. They were made a major part of the Japanese writing system during the time of Old Japanese and are still used, along with the subsequent ...
''). For example, would be spelt as , with three magana with kun'yomi for ''ya'', ''ma'' and ''to''; likewise, spelt as 夏樫 for ''natsu'' and ''kashi''. * , , or : kanji used for meanings, historically used by men (who were more educated). * : mixed script including only kanji and katakana.


Hiragana and katakana

The following table reads, in
gojūon In the Japanese language, the is a traditional system ordering kana characters by their component phonemes, roughly analogous to alphabetical order Alphabetical order is a system whereby character strings are placed in order based on the ...
order, as ''a'', ''i'', ''u'', ''e'', ''o'' (down first column), then ''ka'', ''ki'', ''ku'', ''ke'', ''ko'' (down second column), and so on. ''n'' appears on its own at the end. Asterisks mark unused combinations. *There are presently no kana for ''ye'', ''yi'' or ''wu'', as corresponding syllables do not occur natively in modern Japanese. **The (''ye'') sound is believed to have existed in pre-Classical Japanese, mostly before the advent of kana, and can be represented by the
man'yōgana is an ancient writing system that uses Chinese characters to represent the Japanese language. It was the first known kana system to be developed as a means to represent the Japanese language phonetically. The date of the earliest usage of this ...
kanji 江. There was an archaic Hiragana () derived from the
man'yōgana is an ancient writing system that uses Chinese characters to represent the Japanese language. It was the first known kana system to be developed as a means to represent the Japanese language phonetically. The date of the earliest usage of this ...
''ye'' kanji 江, which is encoded into Unicode at code point U+1B001 (𛀁), but it is not widely supported. It is believed that ''e'' and ''ye'' first merged to ''ye'' before shifting back to ''e'' during the
Edo period The or is the period between 1603 and 1867 in the history of Japan, when Japan was under the rule of the Tokugawa shogunate and the country's 300 regional '' daimyo''. Emerging from the chaos of the Sengoku period, the Edo period was characteriz ...
. As demonstrated by 17th century-era European sources, the syllable ''we'' (ゑ・ヱ ) also came to be pronounced as (''ye''). If necessary, the modern orthography allows e(''ye'') to be written as いぇ (イェ), but this usage is limited and nonstandard. **The modern Katakana ''e'', エ, derives from the man'yōgana 江, originally pronounced ''ye''; a "Katakana letter Archaic E" () derived from the man'yōgana 衣 (''e'') is encoded into Unicode at code point U+1B000 (𛀀), due to being used for that purpose in scholarly works on classical Japanese. **Some
gojūon In the Japanese language, the is a traditional system ordering kana characters by their component phonemes, roughly analogous to alphabetical order Alphabetical order is a system whereby character strings are placed in order based on the ...
tables published during the 19th century list additional Katakana in the ''ye'' (), ''wu'' () and ''yi'' () positions. These are not presently used, and the latter two sounds never existed in Japanese. They were added to Unicode in version 14.0 in 2021. These sources also list (Unicode U+1B006, 𛀆) in the Hiragana ''yi'' position, and in the ''ye'' position. *Although removed from the standard orthography with the ''gendai kanazukai'' reforms, ''wi'' and ''we'' still see stylistic use, as in ウヰスキー for ''whisky'' and ヱビス or ゑびす for Japanese kami Ebisu, and
Yebisu is a Japanese beer brewing company founded in 1876. Sapporo is the oldest brand of beer in Japan. It was first brewed in Sapporo, Japan, in 1876 by brewer Seibei Nakagawa. The world headquarters of Sapporo Breweries is in Ebisu, Shibuya, Toky ...
, a brand of beer named after Ebisu. Hiragana ''wi'' and ''we'' are preserved in certain
Okinawan scripts Okinawan, spoken in Okinawa Island, was once the official language of the Ryukyu Kingdom. At the time, documents were written in kanji and hiragana, derived from Japan. Although generally agreed among linguists to be a distinct language, m ...
, while katakana ''wi'' and ''we'' are preserved in the
Ainu language Ainu (, ), or more precisely Hokkaido Ainu, is a language spoken by a few elderly members of the Ainu people on the northern Japanese island of Hokkaido. It is a member of the Ainu language family, itself considered a language family isolate ...
. *''wo'' is preserved only as the
accusative The accusative case (abbreviated ) of a noun is the grammatical case used to mark the direct object of a transitive verb. In the English language, the only words that occur in the accusative case are pronouns: 'me,' 'him,' 'her,' 'us,' and ‘the ...
particle In the Outline of physical science, physical sciences, a particle (or corpuscule in older texts) is a small wikt:local, localized physical body, object which can be described by several physical property, physical or chemical property, chemical ...
, normally occurring only in hiragana. *''si'', ''ti'', ''tu'', ''hu'', ''wi'', ''we'' and ''wo'' are usually romanized respectively as ''shi'', ''chi'', ''tsu'', ''fu'', ''i'', ''e'' and ''o'' instead, according to contemporary pronunciation.


Diacritics

Syllables beginning with the voiced consonants and are spelled with kana from the corresponding unvoiced columns (''k'', ''s'', ''t'' and ''h'') and the voicing mark, ''
dakuten The , colloquially , is a diacritic most often used in the Japanese kana syllabaries to indicate that the consonant of a syllable should be pronounced voiced, for instance, on sounds that have undergone rendaku (sequential voicing). The , co ...
''. Syllables beginning with are spelled with kana from the ''h'' column and the half-voicing mark, ''
handakuten The , colloquially , is a diacritic most often used in the Japanese kana syllabaries to indicate that the consonant of a syllable should be pronounced voiced, for instance, on sounds that have undergone rendaku (sequential voicing). The , co ...
''. * Note that the か゚, ら゚ and the remaining entries in the two rightmost columns, though they exist, are not used in standard Japanese orthography. *''zi'', ''di'', and ''du'' are often transcribed into English as ''ji'', ''ji'', and ''zu'' instead, respectively, according to contemporary pronunciation. * Usually, a i u e oare represented respectively by バ aiue and ボ o for example, in loanwords such as バイオリン (''baiorin'' "violin"), but (less usually) the distinction can be preserved by using -with voicing marks or by using uand a vowel kana, as in ヴァ(ヷ), ヴィ(ヸ), ヴ, ヴェ(ヹ), and ヴォ(ヺ). Note that ヴ did not have a JIS-encoded Hiragana form (ゔ) until
JIS X 0213 JIS X 0213 is a Japanese Industrial Standard defining coded character sets for encoding the characters used in Japan. This standard extends JIS X 0208. The first version was published in 2000 and revised in 2004 (JIS2004) and 2012. As well as add ...
, meaning that many
Shift JIS Shift JIS (Shift Japanese Industrial Standards, also SJIS, MIME name Shift_JIS, known as PCK in Solaris contexts) is a character encoding for the Japanese language, originally developed by a Japanese company called ASCII Corporation in conjunctio ...
flavours (including the Windows and HTML5 version) can only represent it as a katakana, although
Unicode Unicode, formally The Unicode Standard,The formal version reference is is an information technology Technical standard, standard for the consistent character encoding, encoding, representation, and handling of Character (computing), text expre ...
supports both.


Digraphs

Syllables beginning with palatalized consonants are spelled with one of the seven
consonant In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the vocal tract. Examples are and pronounced with the lips; and pronounced with the front of the tongue; and pronounced wit ...
al kana from the ''i'' row followed by small ''ya'', ''yu'' or ''yo''. These digraphs are called
yōon The , also written as ''yōon'', is a feature of the Japanese language in which a mora is formed with an added sound, i.e., palatalized, or (more rarely in the modern language) with an added sound, i.e. labialized. ''Yōon'' are represented in ...
. * There are no digraphs for the
semivowel In phonetics and phonology, a semivowel, glide or semiconsonant is a sound that is phonetically similar to a vowel sound but functions as the syllable boundary, rather than as the nucleus of a syllable. Examples of semivowels in English are the ...
''y'' and ''w'' columns. * The digraphs are usually transcribed with three letters, leaving out the ''i'': C''y''V. For example, きゃ is transcribed as ''kya''. * ''si''+''y''* and ''ti''+''y''* are often transcribed ''sh*'' and ''ch*'' instead of ''sy*'' and ''ty*''. For example, しゃ is transcribed as ''sha''. * In earlier Japanese, digraphs could also be formed with ''w''-kana. Although obsolete in modern Japanese, the digraphs くゎ (/kʷa/) and くゐ/くうぃ(/kʷi/), are preserved in certain Okinawan orthographies. In addition, the kana え can be used in Okinawan to form the digraph くぇ, which represents the /kʷe/ sound. * Note that the き゚ゃ, き゚ゅ and remaining entries in the rightmost column, though they exist, are not used in standard Japanese orthography. *''jya'', ''jyu'', and ''jyo'' are often transcribed into English as ''ja'', ''ju'', and ''jo'' instead, respectively, according to contemporary pronunciation.


Modern usage

The difference in usage between hiragana and katakana is stylistic. Usually, hiragana is the default syllabary, and katakana is used in certain special cases. Hiragana is used to write native Japanese words with no
kanji are the logographic Chinese characters taken from the Chinese family of scripts, Chinese script and used in the writing of Japanese language, Japanese. They were made a major part of the Japanese writing system during the time of Old Japanese ...
representation (or whose kanji is thought obscure or difficult), as well as grammatical elements such as
particles In the physical sciences, a particle (or corpuscule in older texts) is a small localized object which can be described by several physical or chemical properties, such as volume, density, or mass. They vary greatly in size or quantity, from su ...
and inflections (
okurigana are kana suffixes following kanji stems in Japanese written words. They serve two purposes: to inflect adjectives and verbs, and to force a particular kanji to have a specific meaning and be read a certain way. For example, the plain verb fo ...
). Today katakana is most commonly used to write words of foreign origin that do not have kanji representations, as well as foreign personal and place names. Katakana is also used to represent
onomatopoeia Onomatopoeia is the process of creating a word that phonetically imitates, resembles, or suggests the sound that it describes. Such a word itself is also called an onomatopoeia. Common onomatopoeias include animal noises such as ''oink'', ''m ...
and interjections, emphasis, technical and scientific terms, transcriptions of the Sino-Japanese readings of kanji, and some corporate branding. Kana can be written in small form above or next to lesser-known kanji in order to show pronunciation; this is called
furigana is a Japanese reading aid consisting of smaller kana or syllabic characters printed either above or next to kanji (logographic characters) or other characters to indicate their pronunciation. It is one type of ruby text. Furigana is also known ...
. Furigana is used most widely in children's or learners' books. Literature for young children who do not yet know kanji may dispense with it altogether and instead use hiragana combined with spaces. Systems supporting only a limited set of characters, such as
Wabun code is a form of Morse code used to send Japanese language in kana characters. Unlike International Morse Code, which represents letters of the Latin script, in Wabun each symbol represents a Japanese kana. For this reason, Wabun code is also some ...
for
Morse code Morse code is a method used in telecommunication to encode text characters as standardized sequences of two different signal durations, called ''dots'' and ''dashes'', or ''dits'' and ''dahs''. Morse code is named after Samuel Morse, one of ...
telegrams and single-byte digital
character encoding Character encoding is the process of assigning numbers to Graphics, graphical character (computing), characters, especially the written characters of Language, human language, allowing them to be Data storage, stored, Data communication, transmi ...
s such as
JIS X 0201 JIS X 0201, a Japanese Industrial Standard developed in 1969 (then called JIS C 6220 until the JIS category reform), was the first Japanese electronic character set to become widely used. It is either a 7-bit encoding or an 8-bit encoding, althou ...
or EBCDIK, likewise dispense with kanji, instead using only katakana. This is not necessary in systems supporting double-byte or variable-width encodings such as
Shift JIS Shift JIS (Shift Japanese Industrial Standards, also SJIS, MIME name Shift_JIS, known as PCK in Solaris contexts) is a character encoding for the Japanese language, originally developed by a Japanese company called ASCII Corporation in conjunctio ...
,
EUC-JP Extended Unix Code (EUC) is a multibyte character encoding system used primarily for Japanese, Korean, and simplified Chinese. The most commonly used EUC codes are variable-length encodings with a character belonging to an compliant coded charac ...
,
UTF-8 UTF-8 is a variable-width encoding, variable-length character encoding used for electronic communication. Defined by the Unicode Standard, the name is derived from ''Unicode'' (or ''Universal Coded Character Set'') ''Transformation Format 8-bit'' ...
or
UTF-16 UTF-16 (16-bit computing, 16-bit Unicode Transformation Format) is a character encoding capable of encoding all 1,112,064 valid code points of Unicode (in fact this number of code points is dictated by the design of UTF-16). The encoding is variab ...
.


History

Old Japanese was written entirely in kanji, and a set of kanji called ''
man'yōgana is an ancient writing system that uses Chinese characters to represent the Japanese language. It was the first known kana system to be developed as a means to represent the Japanese language phonetically. The date of the earliest usage of this ...
'' were first used to represent the phonetic values of grammatical particles and morphemes. As there was no consistent method of sound representation, a phoneme could be represented by multiple kanji, and even those kana's pronunciations differed in whether they were to be read as or , making decipherment problematic. The ''
man'yōshū The is the oldest extant collection of Japanese (poetry in Classical Japanese), compiled sometime after AD 759 during the Nara period. The anthology is one of the most revered of Japan's poetic compilations. The compiler, or the last in ...
'', a poetry anthology assembled sometime after 759 and the eponym of ''man'yōgana'', exemplifies this phenomenon, where as many as almost twenty kanji were used for the mora ''ka''. The consistency of the kana used was thus dependent on the style of the writer.
Hiragana is a Japanese syllabary, part of the Japanese writing system, along with ''katakana'' as well as ''kanji''. It is a phonetic lettering system. The word ''hiragana'' literally means "flowing" or "simple" kana ("simple" originally as contrast ...
developed as a distinct script from cursive ''man'yōgana'', whereas
katakana is a Japanese syllabary, one component of the Japanese writing system along with hiragana, kanji and in some cases the Latin script (known as rōmaji). The word ''katakana'' means "fragmentary kana", as the katakana characters are derived fr ...
developed from abbreviated parts of
regular script Regular script (; Hepburn: ''kaisho''), also called (), (''zhēnshū''), (''kǎitǐ'') and (''zhèngshū''), is the newest of the Chinese script styles (popularized from the Cao Wei dynasty c. 200 AD and maturing stylistically around the ...
''man'yōgana'' as a glossing system to add readings or explanations to Buddhist
sutra ''Sutra'' ( sa, सूत्र, translit=sūtra, translit-std=IAST, translation=string, thread)Monier Williams, ''Sanskrit English Dictionary'', Oxford University Press, Entry fo''sutra'' page 1241 in Indian literary traditions refers to an aph ...
s. Both of these systems were simplified to make writing easier. The shapes of many hiragana resembled the Chinese cursive script, as did those of many katakana the Korean ''
gugyeol Gugyeol, also ''kwukyel'', is a system for rendering texts written in Classical Chinese into understandable Korean. It was chiefly used during the Joseon Dynasty, when readings of the Chinese classics were of paramount social importance. Thus, ...
'', suggesting that the Japanese followed the continental pattern of their neighbors. Kana is traditionally said to have been invented by the
Buddhist priest A ''bhikkhu'' (Pali: भिक्खु, Sanskrit: भिक्षु, ''bhikṣu'') is an ordained male in Buddhist monasticism. Male and female monastics ("nun", ''bhikkhunī'', Sanskrit ''bhikṣuṇī'') are members of the Sangha (Buddhist ...
Kūkai Kūkai (; 27 July 774 – 22 April 835Kūkai was born in 774, the 5th year of the Hōki era; his exact date of birth was designated as the fifteenth day of the sixth month of the Japanese lunar calendar, some 400 years later, by the Shingon sec ...
in the ninth century. Kūkai certainly brought the
Siddhaṃ script (also '), also known in its later evolved form as Siddhamātṛkā, is a medieval Brahmic abugida, derived from the Gupta script and ancestral to the Nāgarī, Assamese, Bengali, Tirhuta, Odia and Nepalese scripts. The word means "ac ...
of India home on his return from
China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...
in 806; his interest in the sacred aspects of
speech Speech is a human vocal communication using language. Each language uses Phonetics, phonetic combinations of vowel and consonant sounds that form the sound of its words (that is, all English words sound different from all French words, even if ...
and
writing Writing is a medium of human communication which involves the representation of a language through a system of physically Epigraphy, inscribed, Printing press, mechanically transferred, or Word processor, digitally represented Symbols (semiot ...
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. The modern arrangement of kana reflects that of Siddhaṃ, but the traditional ''
iroha The is a Japanese poem. Originally the poem was attributed to the founder of the Shingon Esoteric sect of Buddhism in Japan, Kūkai, but more modern research has found the date of composition to be later in the Heian period (794–1179). The f ...
'' arrangement follows a poem which uses each kana once. However, hiragana and katakana did not quickly supplant ''man'yōgana''. It was only in 1900 that the present set of kana was codified. All the other forms of hiragana and katakana developed before the 1900 codification are known as . Rules for their usage as per the spelling reforms of 1946, the , which abolished the kana for ''wi'' (ゐ・ヰ), ''we'' (ゑ・ヱ), and ''wo'' (を・ヲ) (except that the last was reserved as the accusative particle).


Collation

Kana are the basis for
collation Collation is the assembly of written information into a standard order. Many systems of collation are based on numerical order or alphabetical order, or extensions and combinations thereof. Collation is a fundamental element of most office fili ...
in Japanese. They are taken in the order given by the ''
gojūon In the Japanese language, the is a traditional system ordering kana characters by their component phonemes, roughly analogous to alphabetical order Alphabetical order is a system whereby character strings are placed in order based on the ...
'' (あ い う え お ... わ を ん), though
iroha The is a Japanese poem. Originally the poem was attributed to the founder of the Shingon Esoteric sect of Buddhism in Japan, Kūkai, but more modern research has found the date of composition to be later in the Heian period (794–1179). The f ...
(い ろ は に ほ へ と ... せ す (ん)) ordering is used for enumeration in some circumstances. Dictionaries differ in the sequence order for long/short vowel distinction, small ''tsu'' and diacritics. As Japanese does not use word spaces (except as a tool for children), there can be no word-by-word collation; all collation is kana-by-kana.


In Unicode

The hiragana range in
Unicode Unicode, formally The Unicode Standard,The formal version reference is is an information technology Technical standard, standard for the consistent character encoding, encoding, representation, and handling of Character (computing), text expre ...
is U+3040 ... U+309F, and the katakana range is U+30A0 ... U+30FF. The obsolete and rare characters (''wi'' and ''we'') also have their proper code points. 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 The , colloquially , is a diacritic most often used in the Japanese kana syllabaries to indicate that the consonant of a syllable should be pronounced voiced, for instance, on sounds that have undergone rendaku (sequential voicing). The , co ...
and
handakuten The , colloquially , is a diacritic most often used in the Japanese kana syllabaries to indicate that the consonant of a syllable should be pronounced voiced, for instance, on sounds that have undergone rendaku (sequential voicing). The , co ...
, which correspond to the spacing characters U+309B and U+309C. U+309D is the hiragana
iteration mark Iteration marks are characters or punctuation marks that represent a duplicated character or word. Chinese In Chinese, (usually appearing as ) or is used in casual writing to represent a doubled character. However, it is not used in formal writ ...
, 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. 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 additional small kana characters for writing the
Ainu language Ainu (, ), or more precisely Hokkaido Ainu, is a language spoken by a few elderly members of the Ainu people on the northern Japanese island of Hokkaido. It is a member of the Ainu language family, itself considered a language family isolate ...
. Further small kana characters are present in the "Small Kana Extension" block. Unicode also includes "Katakana letter archaic E" (U+1B000), as well as 255 archaic Hiragana, in the Kana Supplement block. It also includes a further 31 archaic Hiragana in the Kana Extended-A block.https://www.unicode.org/charts/PDF/U1B100.pdf The Kana Extended-B block was added in September, 2021 with the release of version 14.0:


See also

*
Furigana is a Japanese reading aid consisting of smaller kana or syllabic characters printed either above or next to kanji (logographic characters) or other characters to indicate their pronunciation. It is one type of ruby text. Furigana is also known ...
*
Okurigana are kana suffixes following kanji stems in Japanese written words. They serve two purposes: to inflect adjectives and verbs, and to force a particular kanji to have a specific meaning and be read a certain way. For example, the plain verb fo ...
*
Yotsugana are a set of four specific kana, じ, ぢ, ず, づ (in the Nihon-shiki romanization system: ''zi'', ''di'', ''zu'', ''du''), used in the Japanese writing system. They historically represented four distinct voiced morae (syllables) in th ...
*
Gojūon In the Japanese language, the is a traditional system ordering kana characters by their component phonemes, roughly analogous to alphabetical order Alphabetical order is a system whereby character strings are placed in order based on the ...
*
Hentaigana In the Japanese writing system, are variant forms of hiragana. History Today, with few exceptions, there is only one hiragana for each of the forty-five moras that are written without diacritics or digraphs. However, traditionally the ...
*
Historical kana orthography The , or , refers to the in general use until orthographic reforms after World War II; the current orthography was adopted by Cabinet order in 1946. By that point the historical orthography was no longer in accord with Japanese pronunciation ...
*
Man'yōgana is an ancient writing system that uses Chinese characters to represent the Japanese language. It was the first known kana system to be developed as a means to represent the Japanese language phonetically. The date of the earliest usage of this ...
*
Romanization of Japanese The romanization of Japanese is the use of Latin script to write the Japanese language. This method of writing is sometimes referred to in Japanese as . Japanese is normally written in a combination of logographic characters borrowed from Ch ...
*
Transliteration Transliteration is a type of conversion of a text from one writing system, script to another that involves swapping Letter (alphabet), letters (thus ''wikt:trans-#Prefix, trans-'' + ''wikt:littera#Latin, liter-'') in predictable ways, such as ...
and
Transcription (linguistics) Transcription in the linguistic sense is the systematic representation of spoken language in written form. The source can either be utterances (''speech'' or ''sign language'') or preexisting text in another writing system. Transcription shoul ...


References


External links


Hiragana & katakana chart and writing practice sheet





Kana web translator
- Transliterate Kana to Rōmaji
Kana Copybook (PDF)
{{Authority control Heian period Japanese writing system Japanese writing system terms Nara period de:Japanische Schrift#Kana