Ka (

hiragana is a Japanese language, Japanese syllabary, part of the Japanese writing system, along with ''katakana'' as well as ''kanji''. It is a phonetic lettering system. The word ''hiragana'' means "common" or "plain" kana (originally also "easy", ...

: か,

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 ...

: カ) is one of the Japanese

kana are syllabary, syllabaries used to write Japanese phonology, Japanese phonological units, Mora (linguistics), morae. In current usage, ''kana'' most commonly refers to ''hiragana'' and ''katakana''. It can also refer to their ancestor , wh ...

, which each represent one mora. Both represent . The shapes of these kana both originate from 加. The character can be combined with a

dakuten The , colloquially , is a diacritic most often used in the Japanese kana syllabaries to indicate that the consonant of a mora should be pronounced voiced, for instance, on sounds that have undergone rendaku (sequential voicing). The , coll ...

, to form が in hiragana, ガ in katakana and ''ga'' in

Hepburn romanization is the main system of Romanization of Japanese, romanization for the Japanese language. The system was originally published in 1867 by American Christian missionary and physician James Curtis Hepburn as the standard in the first edition of h ...

. The phonetic value of the modified character is in initial positions and varying between and in the middle of words. A

handakuten The , colloquially , is a diacritic most often used in the Japanese language, Japanese kana syllabaries to indicate that the consonant of a Mora (linguistics), mora should be pronounced Voice (phonetics), voiced, for instance, on sounds that ...

(゜) does not occur with ''ka'' in normal Japanese text, but it may be used by linguists to indicate a

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 * ...

pronunciation . か is the most commonly used interrogatory particle. It is also sometimes used to delimit choices. が is a Japanese case marker, as well as a conjunctive particle. It is used to denote the focus of attention in a sentence, especially to the grammatical subject.

Stroke order

The Hiragana か is made with three strokes: # A horizontal line which turns and ends in a hook facing left. # A curved vertical line that cuts through the first line. # A small curved line on the right. The Katakana カ is made with two strokes: # A horizontal line which turns and ends in a hook facing left. # A curved vertical line that cuts through the first line.

Other communicative representations

Stroke order

Other communicative representations

Braille representation

Computer encodings

References

See also