For other uses, see Kana (disambiguation). This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding reliable references. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (September 2009) Kana Type Syllabary Spoken languages Japanese, Okinawan, Ainu, Palauan1 Time period ~800 AD to the present Parent systems Oracle Bone Script Seal Script Clerical Script Regular script (Kanji) Man'yōgana Kana ISO 15924 Hrkt Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols. Japanese writing Kanji Kana Hiragana Katakana Hentaigana Man'yōgana Uses Furigana Okurigana Rōmaji Hepburn (colloquial) Kunrei (ISO) Nihon (transliteration) Punctuation Kana are the syllabic Japanese scripts, as opposed to the logographic Chinese characters known in Japan as kanji (Japanese: 漢字) and the Roman alphabet known as rōmaji. There are three kana scripts: modern cursive hiragana (ひらがな), modern angular katakana (カタカナ), and the old syllabic use of kanji known as man’yōgana that was ancestral to both. Katakana with a few additions is also used to write Ainu. Kana was used in Taiwanese as a gloss (furigana) for Chinese characters during the Japanese administration of Taiwan. See Taiwanese kana. Kana syllabograms are always CV (consonant onset with vowel nucleus) or V (only vowel) with the sole exception of the C grapheme for nasal codas. This structure had some scholars label the system moraic instead of syllabic, because it requires the combination of two syllabograms to represent a CVC syllable with coda (i.e. CVn, CVm, CVng), 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, CyV, CwV). Contents 1 Hiragana and katakana 1.1 Diacritics 1.2 Digraphs 2 Modern usage 3 History 4 Collation 5 Kana in Unicode 6 See also 7 References 8 External links Hiragana and katakana

The difference in usage between hiragana and katakana is stylistic. Usually, hiragana is the default syllabary, and katakana is used for foreign borrowings, onomatopoeia and interjections, and transcriptions of the Sino-Japanese readings of kanji. Japanese kana, hiragana (left) and katakana (right) (Image of this table.) – k s t n h m y r w a あ ア か カ さ サ た タ な ナ は ハ ま マ や ヤ ら ラ わ ワ i い イ き キ し シ ち チ に ニ ひ ヒ み ミ * り リ ゐ ヰ u う ウ く ク す ス つ ツ ぬ ヌ ふ フ む ム ゆ ユ る ル * e え エ け ケ せ セ て テ ね ネ へ ヘ め メ * れ レ ゑ ヱ o お オ こ コ そ ソ と ト の ノ ほ ホ も モ よ ヨ ろ ロ を ヲ – * * * * ん ン * * * * * There are no kana for Ye, Yi or Wu, as corresponding syllables do not occur in Japanese natively, though [je] is believed to have existed in pre-Classical Japanese, i.e. prior to the advent of kana, and is generally represented for purposes of reconstruction by the kanji 江. In later periods, the syllabogram We came to be realized as [jɛ], as demonstrated by 17th century-era European sources, but it later merged with the vowel E and was eliminated from official orthography in 1946. In modern orthography, [je] may be written いぇ, イェ. Si, Ti, Tu, Hu, Wi and We are often transcribed into English with shi, chi, tsu, fu, i and e instead, according to contemporary pronunciation. While no longer part of standard orthography, Wi and We are sometimes used stylistically, as in ウヰスキー for whisky and ヱビス for Yebisu, a brand of beer. Diacritics See also: Dakuten, Yōon, and Historical kana usage

Syllables beginning with the voiced consonants [g], [z], [d] and [b] are spelled with kana from the corresponding unvoiced columns (k, s, t and h) and the voicing mark, dakuten. Syllables beginning with [p] are spelled with kana from the h column and the half-voicing mark, handakuten. Dakuten diacritic marks, hiragana (left) and katakana (right) g z d b p a が ガ ざ ザ だ ダ ば バ ぱ パ i ぎ ギ じ ジ ぢ ヂ び ビ ぴ ピ u ぐ グ ず ズ づ ヅ ぶ ブ ぷ プ e げ ゲ ぜ ゼ で デ べ ベ ぺ ペ o ご ゴ ぞ ゾ ど ド ぼ ボ ぽ ポ Zi, Di and Du are often transcribed into English as ji, ji and zu instead, according to contemporary pronunciation. Digraphs Syllables beginning with palatalized consonants are spelled with kana from the i row followed by small Ya, Yu or Yo. These digraphs are called yōon. Yōon digraphs, hiragana k s t n h m r ya きゃ しゃ ちゃ にゃ ひゃ みゃ りゃ yu きゅ しゅ ちゅ にゅ ひゅ みゅ りゅ yo きょ しょ ちょ にょ ひょ みょ りょ There are no digraphs for the semivowel y and w columns. The digraphs are usually transcribed with three letters, leaving out the i: CyV. Si+Y* and Ti+Y* are often transcribed sh* and ch* instead of sy* and ty*. Modern usage Hiragana is mostly used to indicate prefixes, particles, and grammatical word endings (okurigana). It is also used to represent entire words (usually of Japanese, rather than Chinese, origin) in place of kanji. See the article hiragana for details.

Today katakana is most commonly used to write words of foreign origin that do not have kanji representations. Katakana is also used to represent onomatopoeia, technical and scientific terms, and some corporate branding. See the article katakana for details. 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 yet know kanji may dispense with it altogether and instead use hiragana combined with spaces. History Development of hiragana and katakana The first kana was a system called man'yōgana, a set of kanji used for their phonetic values, much as Chinese uses characters for their phonetic values in foreign loanwords today. Man'yōshū, a poetry anthology assembled in 759, is written in this early script. Hiragana developed as a distinct script from cursive man'yōgana, whereas katakana developed from abbreviated parts of regular script man'yōgana as a glossing system to add readings or explanations to Buddhist sutras. Hiragana was developed for speed, whereas katakana developed to be small. 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. The modern arrangement of kana reflects that of Siddham, but the traditional iroha arrangement follows a poem which uses each kana once.

The present set of kana was codified in 1900, and rules for their usage in 1946. Identical man’yōgana roots of katakana and hiragana glyphs a i u e o =:≠ - ≠ ≠ = ≠ = 2:3 k = = = ≠ = 4:1 s ≠ = ≠ = = 3:2 t ≠ ≠ = = = 3:2 n = = = = = 5:0 h ≠ = = = = 4:1 m = ≠ ≠ = = 3:2 y = = = 3:0 r = = ≠ = = 4:1 w = ≠ = ≠ 2:2 n ≠ 0:1 =:≠ 6:4 5:4 6:4 7:2 9:1 33:15 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. 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. 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 A B C D E F 304x ぁ あ ぃ い ぅ う ぇ え ぉ お か が き ぎ く 305x ぐ け げ こ ご さ ざ し じ す ず せ ぜ そ ぞ た 306x だ ち ぢ っ つ づ て で と ど な に ぬ ね の は 307x ば ぱ ひ び ぴ ふ ぶ ぷ へ べ ぺ ほ ぼ ぽ ま み 308x む め も ゃ や ゅ ゆ ょ よ ら り る れ ろ ゎ わ 309x ゐ ゑ を ん ゔ ゕ ゖ ゙ ゚ ゛ ゜ ゝ ゞ ゟ 30Ax ゠ ァ ア ィ イ ゥ ウ ェ エ ォ オ カ ガ キ ギ ク 30Bx グ ケ ゲ コ ゴ サ ザ シ ジ ス ズ セ ゼ ソ ゾ タ 30Cx ダ チ ヂ ッ ツ ヅ テ デ ト ド ナ ニ ヌ ネ ノ ハ 30Dx バ パ ヒ ビ ピ フ ブ プ ヘ ベ ペ ホ ボ ポ マ ミ 30Ex ム メ モ ャ ヤ ュ ユ ョ ヨ ラ リ ル レ ロ ヮ ワ 30Fx ヰ ヱ ヲ ン ヴ ヵ ヶ ヷ ヸ ヹ ヺ ・ ー ヽ ヾ ヿ

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. 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): 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 A B C D E F FF6x ｡ ｢ ｣ ､ ･ ｦ ｧ ｨ ｩ ｪ ｫ ｬ ｭ ｮ ｯ FF7x ｰ ｱ ｲ ｳ ｴ ｵ ｶ ｷ ｸ ｹ ｺ ｻ ｼ ｽ ｾ ｿ FF8x ﾀ ﾁ ﾂ ﾃ ﾄ ﾅ ﾆ ﾇ ﾈ ﾉ ﾊ ﾋ ﾌ ﾍ ﾎ ﾏ FF9x ﾐ ﾑ ﾒ ﾓ ﾔ ﾕ ﾖ ﾗ ﾘ ﾙ ﾚ ﾛ ﾜ ﾝ ﾞ ﾟ

There is also a small "Katakana Phonetic Extensions" range (U+31F0 ... U+31FF), which includes some extra characters for writing the Ainu language.     0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 A B C D E F 31Fx   ㇰ ㇱ ㇲ ㇳ ㇴ ㇵ ㇶ ㇷ ㇸ ㇹ ㇺ ㇻ ㇼ ㇽ ㇾ ㇿ Unicode version 6.0 also includes "Katakana letter archaic E" (U+1B000) and "Hiragana letter archaic YE" (U+1B001) in the Kana Supplement block.2 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 A B C D E F 1B00x 𛀀 𛀁 See also Gojūon Romaji Transliteration and Transcription Historical kana usage Man'yōgana Hentaigana References ^ Thomas E. McAuley, Language change in East Asia, 2001:90 ^ http://www.unicode.org/charts/PDF/Unicode-6.0/U60-1B000.pdf External links KanaQ Kana flashcard tool that runs on mobile phones. Real Kana Practice hiragana and katakana using different typefaces. Origin of Hiragana Origin of Katakana Change Kanji into Romaji and Hiragana Kana web translator - Transliterate Kana to Rōmaji Kana Copybook (PDF) Kana no quiz Free/libre and cross-platform educational software to memorize Japanese kana pronouncing & transcription. Japanese calligraphy. Kana KanaQuest Memorize Japanese words and kana with multiple quizzes. v · d · eJapanese language History Old Japanese · Early Middle Japanese · Late Middle Japanese · Classical Japanese Dialects Hokkaidō · Tōhoku (Tsugaru · Kesen · Yamagata) · Kantō (Ibaraki · Tokyo) · Tōkai-Tōsan (Nagaoka · Nagoya · Mino · Hida) · Hokuriku · Kansai · Chūgoku · Umpaku · Shikoku (Iyo · Tosa · Sanuki) · Hōnichi · Hichiku (Saga) · Satsugū · Hachijō · Okinawa Literature Books · List of classic texts · List of writers · Poetry Writing system Logograms Kanji · Kanbun Kana Hiragana · Katakana · Furigana · Okurigana · Gojūon · Man'yōgana · Hentaigana Orthography Punctuation · Japanese orthography issues · Kanazukai · Historical kana orthography · Jōdai Tokushu Kanazukai · Modern kana usage · Yotsugana Grammar and vocabulary Japanese grammar · Verb conjugations and adjective declensions · Consonant and vowel verbs · Pronouns · Adjectives · Possessives · Particles · Topic marker · Counter words · Numerals · Sino-Japanese vocabulary · Honorific speech · Honorifics · Gender differences · Loan words (gairaigo) Phonology Pitch accent · Sound symbolism · Rendaku Romanization Hepburn · Nihon-shiki · Kunrei · JSL · Wāpuro rōmaji