Katakana

[kah-tuh-kah-nuh; Japn. kah-tah-kah-nah]

is a Japanese syllabary, one component of the Japanese writing system along with hiragana, kanji, and in some cases the Latin alphabet. The word katakana means "fragmentary kana", as the katakana scripts are derived from components of more complex kanji.

Katakana are characterized by short, straight strokes and angular corners, and are the simplest of the Japanese scripts.

There are two main systems of ordering katakana: the old-fashioned iroha ordering, and the more prevalent gojūon ordering.

Usage

In modern Japanese, katakana are most often used for transcription of words from foreign languages (called gairaigo). For example, "television" is written . Similarly, katakana is usually used for country names, foreign places, and personal names. For example America is written アメリカ Amerika (America also has its own kanji (ateji) or for short, which literally means "Rice Country").

Katakana are also used for onomatopoeia, words used to represent sounds; for example , the "ding-dong" sound of a doorbell, would usually be written in katakana.

Technical and scientific terms, such as the names of animal and plant species and minerals, are also commonly written in katakana.

Katakana are also often, but not always, used for transcription of Japanese company names. For example Suzuki is written スズキ, and Toyota is written トヨタ. Katakana are also used for emphasis, especially on signs, advertisements, and hoardings (i.e., billboards). For example, it is common to see ココ koko ("here"), ゴミ gomi ("trash") or メガネ megane ("glasses"), and words to be emphasized in a sentence are also sometimes written in katakana, mirroring the European usage of italics.

Pre-World War II official documents mix katakana and kanji in the same way that hiragana and kanji are mixed in modern Japanese texts, that is, katakana were used for okurigana and particles such as wa or o.

Katakana were also used for telegrams in Japan before 1988, and for computer systems - before the introduction of multibyte characters - in the 1980s. Most computers in that era used katakana instead of kanji and/or hiragana for output.

Although words borrowed from ancient Chinese are usually written in kanji, loanwords from modern Chinese dialects which are borrowed directly rather than using the Sino-Japanese on'yomi readings, are often written in katakana. Examples include:

マージャン (麻將/麻雀), mājan (mahjong); in Mandarin májiàng
ウーロン茶 (烏龍茶), ūroncha (Oolong tea), from Mandarin wūlóng
チャーハン (炒飯), chāhan (fried rice)
チャーシュー (叉焼), chāshū (barbecued pork), from Cantonese cha siu
シューマイ (焼売), shūmai (a kind of dim sum), from Cantonese siu maai.

The very common Chinese loanword ラーメン (rāmen) is rarely written with its kanji 拉麺.

There are rare cases where the opposite has occurred, with kanji forms created from words originally written in katakana. An example of this is コーヒー (kōhī), "coffee", which can be alternatively written as 珈琲. This kanji usage is occasionally employed by coffee manufacturers or coffee shops for novelty.

Katakana are sometimes used instead of hiragana as furigana to give the pronunciation of a word written in Roman characters, or for a foreign word, which is written as kanji for the meaning, but intended to be pronounced as the original.

Katakana are also sometimes used to indicate words being spoken in a foreign or otherwise unusual accent, by foreign characters, robots, etc. For example, in a manga, the speech of a foreign character or a robot may be represented by, for example, コンニチワ (konnichiwa, meaning "hello") instead of the more usual hiragana こんにちは (konnichiwa).

Katakana are also used to indicate the on'yomi (Chinese-derived readings) of a kanji in a kanji dictionary.

Some Japanese personal names are written in katakana. This was more common in the past, hence elderly women often have katakana names.

It is very common to write words with difficult-to-read kanji in katakana. This phenomenon is often seen with medical terminology. For example, in the word 皮膚科 hifuka (dermatology), the second kanji, 膚, is considered difficult to read, and thus the word hifuka is commonly written as 皮フ科 or ヒフ科, mixing kanji and katakana. Similarly, difficult-to-read kanji such as 癌 gan (cancer) are often written in katakana or hiragana.

Katakana is also used for traditional musical notations, as in the Tozan-ryū of shakuhachi, and in sankyoku ensembles with koto, shamisen, and shakuhachi.

Orthography

Foreign phrases are sometimes transliterated with a middle dot called or a space separating the words. However, in cases where it is assumed that the reader knows the separate gairaigo words in the phrase, the middle dot is not used. For example, the phrase コンピュータゲーム ("konpyūta gēmu", or "computer game"), containing two very well-known gairaigo, is not written with a middle dot.

Katakana spelling differs slightly from hiragana. While hiragana spells long vowels with the addition of a second vowel kana, katakana usually uses a vowel extender mark called a chōon. This mark is a short line following the direction of the text, horizontal in yokogaki, or horizontal text, and vertical in tategaki, or vertical text. However, it is more often used when writing foreign loanwords; long vowels in Japanese words written in katakana are usually written as they would be in hiragana. There are exceptions such as ローソク(蝋燭)(rōsoku)(candle) or ケータイ(携帯)(kētai)(mobile phone).

A small tsu ッ called a sokuon indicates a geminate consonant, which is represented in rōmaji by doubling the following consonant. For example, bed is written in katakana as ベッド (beddo).

The sokuon is sometimes used in places which have no equivalent in native sounds. For example, double-h in place of "ch" is common in German names. Bach, for example, comes out as バッハ (Bahha); Mach is マッハ (Mahha). The doubling of the "h" in Bach and Mach (via use of the underlying small tsu) is probably the kana that best fits those German names.

Related sounds in various languages are hard to express in Japanese, so Khrushchev becomes フルシチョフ (Furushichofu). Ali Khamenei is アリー・ハーメネイー (Arī Hāmeneī). The Japanese Wikipedia has references to both イツハク・パールマン (Itsuhaku Pāruman) and イツァーク・パールマン (Itsāku Pāruman), Itzhak Perlman.

Table of katakana

This is a table of katakana together with their Hepburn romanization. Katakana with dakuten or handakuten follow the gojūon kana without them. Characters in red are obsolete, and characters in green are modern additions, used mainly to represent sounds from other languages. Learning to read katakana is often complicated by the similarities between different characters. For example, shi シ and tsu ツ , as well as so ソ and n ン , look very similar in print except for the slant and stroke shape. (These differences in slant and shape are more prominent when written with an ink brush.)

ア a	イ i	ウ u	エ e	オ o	ya	yu	yo
vowels					yōon

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 ²	ヰャ wya	ヰュ wyu	ヰョ wyo
				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	ヂャ (ja)	ヂュ (ju)	ヂョ (jo)
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

¹: These now-obsolete katakana appeared in some textbooks as early as 1873 (Meiji 6), but never became widespread.

²: In modern times, ウォ ("wo") is used as the representation of a "wo" sound instead. The katakana version of the wo kana, ヲ, is primarily used, albeit rarely, to represent the particle を in katakana. The particle is commonly pronounced the same as the o kana.

History

Katakana was developed in the early Heian Period from parts of man'yōgana characters as a form of shorthand. For example, ka カ comes from the left side of ka 加 "increase". The table below shows the origins of each katakana: the red markings of the original Chinese character eventually became each corresponding symbol.

Computer encoding

In addition to fonts intended for Japanese text and Unicode catch-all fonts (like Arial Unicode MS), many fonts intended for Chinese text also include katakana (such as MS Song).

Katakana have two forms of encoding, halfwidth and fullwidth . The halfwidth forms come from JIS X 0201 originally. This includes halfwidth katakana in right side area of ASCII. That is, most halfwidth katakana could be represented by one byte each. In the late 1970s, two-byte character sets such as JIS X 0208 were introduced to represent hiragana, kanji, and other characters. JIS_X_0208 has its own katakana area independently of one-byte character set such as JIS_X_0201. katakana of JIS_X_0208 takes two-byte (at least), so many (especially old) devices output these katakana as two-byte-width. This is why katakana of JIS_X_0201 is called halfwidth and JIS_X_0208, fullwidth. Therefore, most encodings have no halfwidth hiragana.

Although often said to be obsolete, in fact the halfwidth katakana are still used in many systems and encodings. For example, the titles of mini discs can only be entered in ASCII or halfwidth katakana, and halfwidth katakana were commonly used in computerized cash register displays, on shop receipts, and Japanese digital television and DVD subtitles. Several popular Japanese encodings such as EUC-JP, Unicode and Shift-JIS have halfwidth katakana code as well as fullwidth. By contrast, ISO-2022-JP has no halfwidth katakana, and is mainly used over SMTP and NNTP. Halfwidth katakana are commonly used to save memory space.

Unicode

In Unicode, fullwidth katakana occupy code points U+30A0 to U+30FF

30A

゠

ァ

ア

ィ

イ

ゥ

ウ

ェ

エ

ォ

オ

カ

ガ

キ

ギ

ク

30B

グ

ケ

ゲ

コ

ゴ

サ

ザ

シ

ジ

ス

ズ

セ

ゼ

ソ

ゾ

タ

30C

ダ

チ

ヂ

ッ

ツ

ヅ

テ

デ

ト

ド

ナ

ニ

ヌ

ネ

ノ

ハ

30D

バ

パ

ヒ

ビ

ピ

フ

ブ

プ

ヘ

ベ

ペ

ホ

ボ

ポ

マ

ミ

30E

ム

メ

モ

ャ

ヤ

ュ

ユ

ョ

ヨ

ラ

リ

ル

レ

ロ

ヮ

ワ

30F

ヰ

ヱ

ヲ

ン

ヴ

ヵ

ヶ

ヷ

ヸ

ヹ

ヺ

・

ー

ヽ

ヾ

ヿ

Encoded in this block along with the katakana are the nakaguro word separation middle dot, the chōon vowel extender, the katakana iteration marks, and a ligature of コト sometimes used in vertical writing.

Halfwidth equivalents to the fullwidth katakana also exist. 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):

FF6

｠

｡

｢

｣

､

･

ｦ

ｧ

ｨ

ｩ

ｪ

ｫ

ｬ

ｭ

ｮ

ｯ

FF7

ｰ

ｱ

ｲ

ｳ

ｴ

ｵ

ｶ

ｷ

ｸ

ｹ

ｺ

ｻ

ｼ

ｽ

ｾ

ｿ

FF8

ﾀ

ﾁ

ﾂ

ﾃ

ﾄ

ﾅ

ﾆ

ﾇ

ﾈ

ﾉ

ﾊ

ﾋ

ﾌ

ﾍ

ﾎ

ﾏ

FF9

ﾐ

ﾑ

ﾒ

ﾓ

ﾔ

ﾕ

ﾖ

ﾗ

ﾘ

ﾙ

ﾚ

ﾛ

ﾜ

ﾝ

ﾞ

ﾟ

This block also includes the halfwidth dakuten and handakuten. The fullwidth versions of these characters are found in the hiragana block.

Code points 32D0 to 32FE list circled katakana. A circled ン is not included.

32D

㋐

㋑

㋒

㋓

㋔

㋕

㋖

㋗

㋘

㋙

㋚

㋛

㋜

㋝

㋞

㋟

32E

㋠

㋡

㋢

㋣

㋤

㋥

㋦

㋧

㋨

㋩

㋪

㋫

㋬

㋭

㋮

㋯

32F

㋰

㋱

㋲

㋳

㋴

㋵

㋶

㋷

㋸

㋹

㋺

㋻

㋼

㋽

㋾

Katakana uses in non-Japanese languages

Ainu

Katakana is sometimes used to write the Ainu language. In Ainu language katakana usage, the consonant that comes at the end of a syllable is represented by a small version of a katakana that corresponds to that final consonant and with an arbitrary vowel. For instance "up" is represented by ウㇷ゚ (ウ_プ—u followed by small pu). Ainu also requires three additional sounds, represented by セ゜ ([tse]), ツ゜ ([tu̜]) and ト゜ ([tu̜]). In Unicode, the Katakana Phonetic Extensions block (U+31F0–U+31FF)

exists for Ainu language support. These characters are used mainly for the Ainu language only:

31F

ㇰ(_ク)

ㇱ(_シ)

ㇲ(_ス)

ㇳ(_ト)

ㇴ(_ヌ)

ㇵ(_ハ)

ㇶ(_ヒ)

ㇷ(_フ)

ㇸ(_ヘ)

ㇹ(_ホ)

ㇺ(_ム)

ㇻ(_ラ)

ㇼ(_リ)

ㇽ(_ル)

ㇾ(_レ)

ㇿ(_ロ)

Taiwanese

Taiwanese kana (タイヲァヌギイカアビェン) is a katakana-based writing system once used to write Holo Taiwanese, when Taiwan was ruled by Japan. It functioned as a phonetic guide to hanzi, much like furigana in Japanese or Zhuyin fuhao in Chinese. There were similar systems for other languages in Taiwan as well, including Hakka and Formosan languages.

Unlike Japanese or Ainu, Taiwanese kana are used similarly to the Zhùyīn fúhào characters, with kana serving as initials, vowel medials and consonant finals, marked with tonal marks. A dot below the initial kana represented aspirated consonants, and チ, ツ, サ, セ, ソ, ウ and オ with a superpositional bar represented sounds found only in Taiwanese.

Example transcriptions of katakana and foreign languages

Medicine

Katakana	Rōmaji	Source word
ビタミン	bitamin	vitamin
ミネラル	mineraru	mineral
カルシウム	karushiumu	calcium
ホルモン	horumon	hormone

Computing

Katakana	Rōmaji	Source word	Kanji and other words
マウス	mausu	mouse
キーボード	kībōdo	keyboard
ディスプレイ	disupurei	display	画面 gamen
ポインタ	pointa	pointer
プログラミング	puroguramingu	programming
ソフトウェア	sofutowea	software
ハードウェア	hādowea	hardware
オペレーティング・システム	operētingu shisutemu	operating system	基本ソフト kihonsofuto; OS ōesu
インターネット	intānetto	Internet
ウェブ	webu	Web

Personal names

from English names
Katakana	Rōmaji	Source name
ジョン	jon	John
ジョージ	jōji	George
メアリー or メリー	mearī, merī	Mary
マイケル	maikeru	Michael
ピーター	pītā	Peter
スコット	sukotto	Scott

from French names
Katakana	Rōmaji	Source name
マリー	marī	Marie
ミシェル	misheru	Michel

from German names
Katakana	Rōmaji	Source name
マリア	maria	Maria
ミハエル, ミヒャエル	mihaeru, mihyaeru	Michael

Regions

Katakana	Rōmaji	Source name	Kanji
アフリカ	afurika	Africa	阿弗利加 Afurika
アメリカ	amerika	America	亜米利加 Amerika
アジア	ajia	Asia	亜細亜 Ajia
ヨーロッパ	yōroppa	Europa	欧羅巴 Yōroppa 欧州 Ōshū
ラテンアメリカ	raten amerika	Latin America	中南米 Chūnanbei
オセアニア	oseania	Oceania	大洋州 Taiyōshū

Nations

Katakana	Rōmaji	Source name	English name
アルゼンチン	aruzenchin	Argentina	Argentina
ブラジル	burajiru	Brasil	Brazil
ブルガリア	burugaria	България, Balgariya	Bulgaria
カナダ	kanada	Canada	Canada
チェコ	cheko	Česko	Czech Republic
イギリス	igirisu	Inglês	England
フィンランド	finrando	Finland	Finland
フランス	furansu	France	France
ドイツ	doitsu	Deutschland	Germany
オランダ	oranda	Holanda	Holland (The Netherlands)
インド	indo	India	India
インドネシア	indoneshia	Indonesia	Indonesia
アイルランド	airurando	Ireland	Ireland
イタリア	itaria	Italia	Italy
リトアニア	ritoania	Lithuania	Lithuania
マレーシア	marēshia	Malaysia	Malaysia
メキシコ	mekishiko	Mexico	Mexico
フィリピン	firipin	Pilipinas	Philippines
ポーランド	pōrando	Poland	Poland
ポルトガル	porutogaru	Portugal	Portugal
ルーマニア	rūmania	România	Romania
ロシア	roshia	Росси́я, Rossiya	Russia
シンガポール	shingapōru	Singapore	Singapore

Cities

Katakana	Rōmaji	Source name	English name
ベルファスト	berufasuto	Belfast	Belfast
ベルリン	berurin	Berlin	Berlin
ブカレスト	bukaresuto	Bucharest	Bucharest
ブエノスアイレス	buenosu airesu	Buenos Aires	Buenos Aires
シカゴ	shikago	Chicago	Chicago
ハノイ	hanoi	Hà Nội	Hanoi
ホンコン	honkon	香港	Hong Kong
リスボン	risubon	Lisbon	Lisbon
ロンドン	rondon	London	London
ロサンゼルス	rosanzerusu	Los Angeles	Los Angeles
マドリッド	madoriddo	Madrid	Madrid
マニラ	manira	Manila	Manila
モスクワ	mosukuwa	Москва, Moskva	Moscow
ニューヨーク	nyū yōku	New York	New York
パリ	pari	Paris	Paris
プラハ	puraha	Praha	Prague
ローマ	rōma	Roma	Rome
サンフランシスコ	sanfuranshisuko	San Francisco	San Francisco
シアトル	shiatoru	Seattle	Seattle
シドニー	shidonī	Sydney	Sydney
トロント	Toronto	Toronto	Toronto
ワシントン	washinton	Washington	Washington