Kana

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Kana
Type:
Languages:
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ISO 15924 code: Hrkt
Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. See IPA chart for English for an English-​based pronunciation key.


For other uses, 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 (Japanese: 漢字; Chinese pronunciation "hànzì"), as an alternative and adjunct to these latter.

In addition, kana were borrowed into the Taiwanese language to indicate the pronunciation of Chinese characters like furigana during the Japanese colonial period of Taiwan. See Taiwanese kana.

Table of the Japanese kana
Hiragana and katakana (grouped vertically).
Syllables in parentheses are archaic. (Image of this table.)
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
a ka sa ta na ha ma ya ra wa n
いイ きキ しシ ちチ にニ ひヒ みミ りリ ゐヰ
i ki shi chi ni hi mi * ri (wi)
うウ くク すス つツ ぬヌ ふフ むム ゆユ るル
u ku su tsu nu fu mu yu ru *
えエ けケ せセ てテ ねネ へヘ めメ れレ ゑヱ
e ke se te ne he me * re (we)
おオ こコ そソ とト のノ ほホ もモ よヨ ろロ をヲ
o ko so to no ho mo yo ro (w)o

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.

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[edit] Modern usage

Hiragana is mostly used to indicate prefixes and grammatical word endings. 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. For example, "George W. Bush" can be expressed as ジョージ・W・ブッシュ. 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.

[edit] 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 assembled 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 usage

[edit] 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.

[edit] 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
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.

    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

[edit] See also

[edit] External links

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