Katakana カタカナ

Katakana (片仮名, literally: "fragmentary kana") is a Japanese syllabary, one of four Japanese writing systems (the others are hiragana, kanji and rōmaji).

Katakana characters are characterized by squarish lines and are the simplest of the Japanese scripts.

Katakana are used for:

• Emphasis, like italics in English.
• Onomatopoeia, for example hii ヒー means "sigh".
• Names of animal and plant species.
• Transliteration of words from foreign languages (called gairaigo 外来語) except Chinese. For example, "television" is written terebi テレビ. Foreign phrases are usually transliterated with a middle dot separating the words.

If you have a font set including Japanese characters, you can view the following charts of katakana together with their Hepburn romanization.

History

The first kana system called man'yōgana was invented in the Heian period (9th century), reportedly by the Buddhist priest Kūkai who brought the Siddham script to Japan on his return from China in 806. He believed that Japanese would be better represented by a phonetic alphabet than by the kanji. The present set of kana was codified in 1900, and rules for their usage in 1946.

Table of katakana

The first chart sets out the standard katakana (characters in red are obsolete):
ア a	イ i	ウ u	エ e	オ o
カ ka	キ ki	ク ku	ケ ke	コ ko	キャ kya	キュ kyu	キョ kyo
サ sa	シ shi	ス su	セ se	ソ so	シャ sha	シュ shu	ショ sho
タ ta	チ chi	ツ tsu	テ te	ト to	チャ cha	チュ chu	チョ cho
ナ na	ニ ni	ヌ nu	ネ ne	ノ no	ニャ nya	ニュ nyu	ニョ nyo
ハ ha	ヒ hi	フ fu	ヘ he	ホ ho	ヒャ hya	ヒュ hyu	ヒョ hyo
マ ma	ミ mi	ム mu	メ me	モ mo	ミャ mya	ミュ myu	ミョ myo
ヤ ya		ユ yu		ヨ yo
ラ ra	リ ri	ル ru	レ re	ロ ro	リャ rya	リュ ryu	リョ ryo
ワ wa	ヰ wi		ヱ we	ヲ wo
				ン n
ガ ga	ギ gi	グ gu	ゲ ge	ゴ go	ギャ gya	ギュ gyu	ギョ gyo
ザ za	ジ ji	ズ zu	ゼ ze	ゾ zo	ジャ ja	ジュ ju	ジョ jo
ダ da	ヂ ji	ヅ zu	デ de	ド do
バ ba	ビ bi	ブ bu	ベ be	ボ bo	ビャ bya	ビュ byu	ビョ byo
パ pa	ピ pi	プ pu	ペ pe	ポ po	ピャ pya	ピュ pyu	ピョ pyo
The second chart sets out modern additions to the katakana. These are used mainly to represent the sounds in words in other languages.
			イェ ye
	ウィ wi		ウェ we	ウォ wo
ヴァ va	ヴィ vi	ヴ vu	ヴェ ve	ヴォ vo
			シェ she
			ジェ je
			チェ che
	ティ ti	トゥ tu
		テュ tyu
	ディ di	ドゥ du
		デュ dyu
ツァ tsa	ツィ tsi		ツェ tse	ツォ tso
ファ fa	フィ fi		フェ fe	フォ fo
		フュ fyu

Katakana are also sometimes used to write the Ainu language; there, consonants without a following vowel are indicated by writing the symbol for consonant+u (in the case of sh, consonant+i) small. Thus, for instance, a small プ represents p.

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Links:

• Katakana system may be Korean

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