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For other uses, see Kana (disambiguation).
 .This article contains Japanese text. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of kanji and kana.^ Labels: Japanese name , Japanese symbols , kanji .

 ^ King Japanese symbol in kanji .

 ^ FREE Japanese kanji symbols: Respect .
Kana
Type Syllabary
Spoken languages Japanese, Okinawan, Ainu, Palauan[1]
Time period ~800 C.E. to the present
Parent systems
ISO 15924 Hrkt
.Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode.^ Pages above the hiragana page contain punctuation, symbols, and other similar characters.
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.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.^ Labels: Japan , Japanese history , Japanese symbols , kanji , phrase , samurai .

 ^ The website is called " Japanese symbol learning resource " On this learning website, you can also understand the difference between kanji, hiragana and katakana scripts.

 ^ We use both hiragana and kanji scripts to write overcome in Japanese, and they are four Japanese symbols.

 .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.^ Hiragana Normally, when we write "respect" in Japanese, we use kanji symbols.

 ^ The website is called " Japanese symbol learning resource " On this learning website, you can also understand the difference between kanji, hiragana and katakana scripts.

 ^ We use both hiragana and kanji scripts to write overcome in Japanese, and they are four Japanese symbols.
Katakana with a few additions is 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 with vowel) or V (only vowel) with the sole exception of the C grapheme for n. This structure had some scholars label the system moraic instead of syllabic, because it requires the combination of two syllabograms to represent a CVC or CCV syllable.

Contents

Hiragana and katakana

.The difference in usage between hiragana and katakana is stylistic.^ The website is called " Japanese symbol learning resource " On this learning website, you can also understand the difference between kanji, hiragana and katakana scripts.

 ^ Japanese king symbol By the way, if you want to learn the difference between Japanese scripts called Kanji, hiragana, and katakana, why don't read our FREE Japanese symbol newsletter .

 .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.^ Hiragana Normally, when we write "respect" in Japanese, we use kanji symbols.

 ^ Labels: Japanese symbols , kanji , Katakana .

 ^ Learn Japanese language Learn to speak and write Japanese kanji, hiragana and katakana symbols!
.
Japanese kana, hiragana (left) and katakana (right)
(Image of this table.^ Learn Japanese language Learn to speak and write Japanese kanji, hiragana and katakana symbols!

 ^ The website is called " Japanese symbol learning resource " On this learning website, you can also understand the difference between kanji, hiragana and katakana scripts.

 ^ Related Flashcards Katakana flashcards Japanese Language Beginner Set 02 (katakana) Japanese Katakana Beginning Japanese nihongo in Hiragana and Katakana Japanese Katakana Japanese Katakana + more Japanese Katakana Japanese Katakana Practice 1 Japanese Hiragana and Katakana Japanese Vocabulary selected katakana Japanese Vocabulary - Lesson 4: What Language/What Do You Eat?
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 )
V k s t n h m y r w n
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 * ん ン
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
  • There are no kana for ye, yi, or wu, as these syllables do not occur in Japanese, though ye is believed to have existed in pre-Classical Japanese (prior to the advent of kana), and is generally represented for purposes of reconstruction by the kanji 江. In later periods, the syllable we (katakana ヱ, hiragana ゑ) came to be realized as [jɛ], as demonstrated by 1600s-era European sources, but later merged with the vowel e. It was eliminated from official orthography in 1946. In modern orthography, ye may be written いぇ, イェ.
  • si, ti, tu and hu are often transcribed shi, chi, tsu and fu instead.
  • While no longer part of standard orthography, wi and we are sometimes used stylistically, as in ウヰスキー for "whiskey" and ヱビス for Yebisu, a brand of beer.

Diacritics

See also: Dakuten
Syllables beginning with the voiced consonants g, z, d and b are spelled with kana from the k, s, t and h columns, respectively, 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 ji, ji and zu instead.

Digraphs

See also: Yōon
Syllables beginning with palatalized consonants are spelled with kana from the i row followed by small ya, yu or yo. This is 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 half-consonantal y and w columns.
  • The transcription is with three letters, leaving out the i: CyV.
  • syV and tyV are often transcribed shV and chV instead.

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.^ Virtual key codes are used to report which keyboard key has been pressed, rather than a character generated by the combination of one or more keystrokes (such as "A", which comes from shift and "a").
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 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

See also: Historical kana usage
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
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

See also

References

  1. ^ Thomas E. McAuley, Language change in East Asia, 2001:90

External links


Study guide

Up to date as of January 14, 2010

From Wikiversity

.Welcome to the kana lessons course, where you will learn how to read, write, and pronounce hiragana and katakana, the two syllabaries of the Japanese language.^ Learn Japanese language Learn to speak and write Japanese kanji, hiragana and katakana symbols!

 ^ Japanese Lessons - Learn Katakana 11 .
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 ^ Talksushi.com - Learn how to read Japanese with this one of many Japanese language videos.
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Like kanji, the kana are not just geometric shapes but rather three-dimensional paths. Character strokes must therefore be arranged in a certain way.

Contents

Reading material

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.See the Japanese wikibook for it's contents on hiragana and katakana.^ Learn Japanese language Learn to speak and write Japanese kanji, hiragana and katakana symbols!

 ^ The website is called " Japanese symbol learning resource " On this learning website, you can also understand the difference between kanji, hiragana and katakana scripts.

 ^ You are commenting on: Japanese Lessons - Learn Katakana 5 Flag this Content as Inappropriate .
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Learning activities

The kana are generally best learned by rote though mnemonics can help with the initial memorisation. .Find yourself a nice drilling program or website and practice every day until you can consistently remember the entire kana.^ EVERY DAY I LOVE YOU .
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 Build on a small subset and work from there.
.You will find links to useful software in the textbook Practice software section.^ This is the entire and exclusive Agreement between you and us regarding use of the Site and it cannot be modified, except as specifically described below in Section 2.
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 ^ On this site, you will find a great information about Japanese writing system and calligraphy designs used as tattoo tribals and design.

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Mix in plenty of writing practice as you learn the readings. .It will take many repetitions to get used to the movements to make your characters look nice.^ This is the second time of using your service and once again you have delivered, many thanks.

 You can practice writing on this sheet.

Tests

Further reading

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.See the Japanese wikibook for it's contents on the Japanese/Japanese writing system.^ On this site, you will find a great information about Japanese writing system and calligraphy designs used as tattoo tribals and design.
Project: Introduction to Japanese
Previous: Introduction to the Japanese Writing System — Kana — Next: Kanji

Simple English

Kana refers to the two syllabic writing systems used in Japanese. These are: Hiragana and Katakana

Retrieved from "http://yak.rapint.com/wiki/Kana"

Citable sentences

Up to date as of December 15, 2010

Here are sentences from other pages on Hiragana, which are similar to those in the above article.








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