katakana
Sign in to saveis a Japanese syllabary, one component of the Japanese writing system along with hiragana, kanji and in some cases the Latin script (known as rōmaji).
AI overview
Katakana is one of the four writing systems used in Japanese, alongside hiragana, kanji, and sometimes Latin letters. It's a syllabary, meaning each character represents a sound rather than a meaning, and it plays a specific role in the overall Japanese writing system.
AI-generated from the Wikipedia summary — may contain errors.
Key facts
- Writing system.name
- Katakana
- Writing system.type
- Syllabary
- Writing system.languages
- Japanese, Ryukyuan, Hachijō, AinuTaiwanese Hokkien, Hakka, Palauan (formerly)
- Writing system.time
- present
- Writing system.fam1
- Oracle bone script
- Writing system.fam2
- Seal script
- Writing system.fam3
- Clerical script
- Writing system.fam4
- Regular script (kanji)
- Writing system.fam5
- Man'yōgana
- Writing system.sisters
- Hiragana
- Writing system.sample
- Japanese Katakana kyokashotai KA.svg
- Writing system.imagesize
- 100px
Article
23 sectionsContents
- Writing system
- Overview
- Japanese
- Syllabary and orthography
- Extensions
- Usage
- Ainu
- Taiwanese
- Okinawan
- Table of katakana
- Extended katakana
- History
- Obsolete kana
- Variant forms
- Polysyllabic kana
- Yi, Ye and Wu
- Stroke order
- Computer encoding
- Hiragana and katakana
- Unicode
- See also
- References
- External links
is a Japanese syllabary, one component of the Japanese writing system along with hiragana, kanji and in some cases the Latin script (known as rōmaji).
The word katakana means "fragmentary kana", as the katakana characters are derived from components or fragments of more complex kanji. Katakana and hiragana are both kana systems. With one or two minor exceptions, each syllable (strictly mora) in the Japanese language is represented by one character or kana in each system. Each kana represents either a vowel such as "a" (katakana ア); a consonant followed by a vowel such as "ka" (katakana カ); or "n" (katakana ン), a nasal sonorant which, depending on the context, sounds like English m, n or ng () or like the nasal vowels of Portuguese or Galician.