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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.

Table of the Japanese kana
Hiragana and katakana (grouped vertically).
Syllables in parentheses are archaic. (Kana chart.png.)
vowel k s t n h m y r w n
あア かカ さサ たタ なナ はハ まマ やヤ らラ わワ んン
akasatanahamayarawan
いイきキしシちチにニひヒみミ りリゐヰ
ikishichinihimi * ri(wi)
うウくクすスつツぬヌふフむムゆユるル
ukusutsunufumuyuru *
えエけケせセてテねネへヘめメ れレゑヱ
ekeseteneheme * re(we)
おオこコそソとトのノほホもモよヨろロをヲ
okosotonohomoyoro(w)o

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.
123456789ABCDEF
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):

123456789ABCDEF
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.
  123456789ABCDEF
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

See also:

External links

Japanese terms | Kana

Kana | Japanisches Schriftsystem#Kana | Kana | Kana (caractères) | Kana | 가나 (문자) | Kana | Kana (Japans) | 仮名 (文字) | Kana | Kana | Кана | Kana | คะนะ | 假名

 

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the "Kana".

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