Kana 17204 221562104 2008-06-25T01:51:53Z Tgies 88740 /* Modern usage */ +okurigana, +particles {{otheruses}} {{Infobox WS |name=Kana |type=[[Syllabary]] |languages=[[Japanese language|Japanese]], [[Okinawan language|Okinawan]] and [[Ainu language|Ainu]] |time=~800 C.E. to the present |iso15924=Hrkt }} '''Kana''' is a general term for the [[Syllabary|syllabic]] [[Japanese language|Japanese]] scripts [[hiragana]] (ひらがな) and [[katakana]] (カタカナ) as well as the old system known as [[Man'yōgana|man'yōgana]]. These were developed from the [[Logogram|logographic]] [[Chinese character|characters]] of [[China|Chinese]] origin known in Japan as [[Kanji]] ({{lang-ja|漢字}}; [[Chinese language|Chinese]] pronunciation "[[hanzi|hànzì]]"), as an alternative and adjunct to these latter. In addition, kana were borrowed into [[Taiwanese (linguistics)|Taiwanese]] to indicate the [[pronunciation]] of [[Chinese character]]s like [[furigana]] during the [[Japanese occupation of Taiwan]]. See [[Taiwanese kana]]. {{Japanese writing}} == Hiragana and katakana == {| class="wikitable" |+Table of the Japanese kana |+<small>[[Hiragana]] (left) and [[katakana]] (right) (grouped vertically).</small> |+<small>Syllables in parentheses are archaic. ([[:Image:Kana chart.png|Image of this table]].)</small> |- ! !ø !k !s !t !n !h !m !y !r !w !n/m |- |a |''a'' [[あ]] [[ア]] |''ka'' [[か]] [[カ]] |''sa'' [[さ]] [[サ]] |''ta'' [[た]] [[タ]] |''na'' [[な]] [[ナ]] |''ha'' [[は]] [[ハ]] |''ma'' [[ま]] [[マ]] |''ya'' [[や]] [[ヤ]] |''ra'' [[ら]] [[ラ]] |''wa'' [[わ]] [[ワ]] |- |i |''i'' [[い]] [[イ]] |''ki'' [[き]] [[キ]] |''shi'' [[し]] [[シ]] |''chi'' [[ち]] [[チ]] |''ni'' [[に]] [[ニ]] |''hi'' [[ひ]] [[ヒ]] |''mi'' [[み]] [[ミ]] |* |''ri'' [[り]] [[リ]] |''(wi)'' [[ゐ]] [[ヰ]] |- |u |''u'' [[う]] [[ウ]] |''ku'' [[く]] [[ク]] |''su'' [[す]] [[ス]] |''tsu'' [[つ]][[ツ]] |''nu'' [[ぬ]] [[ヌ]] |''fu'' [[ふ]] [[フ]] |''mu'' [[む]] [[ム]] |''yu'' [[ゆ]] [[ユ]] |''ru'' [[る]] [[ル]] |* |''n/m'' [[ん]] [[ン]] |- |e |''e'' [[え]] [[エ]] |''ke'' [[け]] [[ケ]] |''se'' [[せ]] [[セ]] |''te'' [[て]] [[テ]] |''ne'' [[ね]] [[ネ]] |''he'' [[へ]] [[ヘ]] |''me'' [[め]] [[メ]] |* |''re'' [[れ]] [[レ]] |''(we)'' [[ゑ]] [[ヱ]] |- |o |''o'' [[お]] [[オ]] |''ko'' [[こ]] [[コ]] |''so'' [[そ]] [[ソ]] |''to'' [[と]] [[ト]] |''no'' [[の]] [[ノ]] |''ho'' [[ほ]] [[ホ]] |''mo'' [[も]] [[モ]] |''yo'' [[よ]] [[ヨ]] |''ro'' [[ろ]] [[ロ]] |''o''/''(wo)'' [[を]] [[ヲ]] |} *Neither Hiragana nor Katakana have kana to represent ''ye'', ''yi'' or ''wu'' sounds. However, ''ye'' is believed to have existed as a syllable 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'' (represented by the katakana ヱ and hiragana ゑ) came to be realized as [jɛ], as demonstrated in 1600s-era European sources, but later merged with the vowel ''e'' and was eliminated from official orthography in [[1946]]. "Ye" in modern orthography is commonly represented using いぇ or イェ. *While no longer a part of standard orthography, both ''wi'' and ''we'' are still sometimes used stylistically, such as in ウヰスキー for "whiskey," and ヱビス for [[Yebisu]], a beer brand. == Modern usage == Hiragana is mostly used to indicate prefixes, [[Japanese particles|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. 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. == History == {{See also|Historical kana usage}} Both [[hiragana]] and [[katakana]] developed from the ancient kana system [[Man'yōgana|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 [[Buddhism|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 communication|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]]. ==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. {| |- align="center" | || ||0||1||2||3||4||5||6||7||8||9||A||B||C||D||E||F |- align="center" |304x|| || ||ぁ||あ||ぃ||い||ぅ||う||ぇ||え||ぉ||お||か||が||き||ぎ||く |- align="center" |305x|| ||ぐ||け||げ||こ||ご||さ||ざ||し||じ||す||ず||せ||ぜ||そ||ぞ||た |- align="center" |306x|| ||だ||ち||ぢ||っ||つ||づ||て||で||と||ど||な||に||ぬ||ね||の||は |- align="center" |307x|| ||ば||ぱ||ひ||び||ぴ||ふ||ぶ||ぷ||へ||べ||ぺ||ほ||ぼ||ぽ||ま||み |- align="center" |308x|| ||む||め||も||ゃ||や||ゅ||ゆ||ょ||よ||ら||り||る||れ||ろ||ゎ||わ |- align="center" |309x|| ||ゐ||ゑ||を||ん||ゔ||ゕ||ゖ|| || ||゙||゚||゛||゜||ゝ||ゞ||ゟ |- align="center" |30Ax|| ||゠||ァ||ア||ィ||イ||ゥ||ウ||ェ||エ||ォ||オ||カ||ガ||キ||ギ||ク |- align="center" |30Bx|| ||グ||ケ||ゲ||コ||ゴ||サ||ザ||シ||ジ||ス||ズ||セ||ゼ||ソ||ゾ||タ |- align="center" |30Cx|| ||ダ||チ||ヂ||ッ||ツ||ヅ||テ||デ||ト||ド||ナ||ニ||ヌ||ネ||ノ||ハ |- align="center" |30Dx|| ||バ||パ||ヒ||ビ||ピ||フ||ブ||プ||ヘ||ベ||ペ||ホ||ボ||ポ||マ||ミ |- align="center" |30Ex|| ||ム||メ||モ||ャ||ヤ||ュ||ユ||ョ||ヨ||ラ||リ||ル||レ||ロ||ヮ||ワ |- align="center" |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): {| |- align="center" | || ||0||1||2||3||4||5||6||7||8||9||A||B||C||D||E||F |- align="center" ||FF60|| || ||。||「||」||、||・||ヲ||ァ||ィ||ゥ||ェ||ォ||ャ||ュ||ョ||ッ |- align="center" ||FF70|| ||ー||ア||イ||ウ||エ||オ||カ||キ||ク||ケ||コ||サ||シ||ス||セ||ソ |- align="center" ||FF80|| ||タ||チ||ツ||テ||ト||ナ||ニ||ヌ||ネ||ノ||ハ||ヒ||フ||ヘ||ホ||マ |- align="center" ||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]]. {| |- align="center" |&nbsp;||&nbsp;||0||1||2||3||4||5||6||7||8||9||A||B||C||D||E||F |- align="center" |31F0||&nbsp;||ㇰ||ㇱ||ㇲ||ㇳ||ㇴ||ㇵ||ㇶ||ㇷ||ㇸ||ㇹ||ㇺ||ㇻ||ㇼ||ㇽ||ㇾ||ㇿ |- align="center" |&nbsp;||&nbsp;||ク||シ||ス||ト||ヌ||ハ||ヒ||フ||ヘ||ホ||ム||ラ||リ||ル||レ||ロ |} == See also == *[[Romaji]] *[[Transliteration]] and [[Transcription (linguistics)|Transcription]] <!--*[[Iroha]] Ordering of Kana as a poem--> *[[Historical kana usage]] *[[Man'yōgana]] *[[Hentaigana]] ==External links== *[http://www.realkana.com/ Real Kana] Practice hiragana and katakana using different typefaces. *[http://www.omniglot.com/writing/japanese_hiragana.htm Origin of Hiragana] *[http://www.omniglot.com/writing/japanese_katakana.htm Origin of Katakana] *[http://www.j-talk.com/nihongo/ Change Kanji into Romaji and Hiragana] *[http://www.qbit.it/lab/kana/ Kana web translator] - Transliterate Kana to Rōmaji *[http://intrebari.lx.ro/ Converts Romaji to Kana, Hepburn System] *[http://brng.jp/50renshuu.pdf Kana Copybook (PDF)] *[http://choplair.org/?en/Kana_no_quiz Kana no quiz] Free/libre and cross-platform educational software to memorize Japanese kana pronouncing & transcription. *[http://www.furigana.jp/ Furigana.jp], Converts Japanese web pages or text into one of three formats for easier reading: furigana, kana or romaji <font color=red>NOT WORKING (times out as of at least Friday 11 April 2008)</font> *[http://www.japancalligraphy.eu/kana/ Japanese calligraphy. Kana] [[Category:Japanese writing system terms]] [[Category:Kana|Kana]] [[af:Kana]] [[bs:Kana]] [[ca:Kana]] [[de:Japanische Schrift#Kana]] [[es:Kana]] [[fr:Kana (caractères)]] [[gl:Kana]] [[zh-classical:假名]] [[ko:가나 (문자)]] [[id:Aksara Kana]] [[it:Kana]] [[la:Cana]] [[jbo:ponle'u]] [[ms:Tulisan Kana]] [[nl:Kana (Japans)]] [[ja:仮名 (文字)]] [[pl:Kana (pismo)]] [[pt:Kana (escrita)]] [[ro:Kana]] [[ru:Кана]] [[simple:Kana]] [[sk:Kana]] [[su:Kana]] [[fi:Kana (kirjoitusjärjestelmä)]] [[sv:Kana (skriftsystem)]] [[th:คะนะ]] [[vi:Kana]] [[tg:Кана (ҷопонӣ)]] [[uk:Кана]] [[zh-yue:假名 (日文)]] [[zh:假名]]