Kana
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.
Neither Hiragana or Katakana have kana to represent
ye,
yi or
wu sounds. Though
ye is commonly represented using いぇ or イェ, another variant is using wi and we kana to represent yi and ye kana.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 present set of kana and rules for their usage were codified in
1946.
See also:
Historical kana usageKana are the basis for
collation in Japanese. They are taken in the order given by the
gojūon (あ い う え お … わ ' "), 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.
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 | ' | " | " | 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 | ' | " | " | 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 | ' | " | " | 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 | |FF60 | | ｡ | ｢ | ｣ | ､ | ･ | ｦ | ｧ | ｨ | ｩ | ｪ | ｫ | ｬ | ｭ | ｮ | ｯ |
|FF70 | ｰ | ｱ | ｲ | ｳ | ｴ | ｵ | ｶ | ｷ | ｸ | ｹ | ｺ | ｻ | ｼ | ｽ | ｾ | ｿ |
|FF80 | ﾀ | ﾁ | ﾂ | ﾃ | ﾄ | ﾅ | ﾆ | ﾇ | ﾈ | ﾉ | ﾊ | ﾋ | ﾌ | ﾍ | ﾎ | ﾏ |
|FF90 | ﾐ | ﾑ | ' | " | " | 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 | | 31F0 | | ㇰ | ㇱ | ㇲ | ㇳ | ㇴ | ㇵ | ㇶ | ㇷ | ㇸ | ㇹ | ㇺ | ㇻ | ㇼ | ㇽ | ㇾ | ㇿ |
| | | ｸ | ｼ | ｽ | ﾄ | ﾇ | ﾊ | ﾋ | ﾌ | ﾍ | ﾎ | ﾑ | ﾗ | ﾘ | ﾙ | ﾚ | ﾛ |
*
Romaji*
Transliteration and
Transcription*
Historical kana usage*
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
