Katakana

Katakana (片仮名、カタカナ, IPA: [katakaꜜna, kataꜜkana]) is a Japanese syllabary, one component of the Japanese writing system along with hiragana,[2] kanji and in some cases the Latin script (known as rōmaji).

Quick facts: Katakana 片仮名 カタカナ, Script type, Time period, ... ▼

Katakana 片仮名 カタカナ
Script type	Syllabary
Time period	~800 CE to the present
Direction	vertical right-to-left, left-to-right
Languages	Japanese, Ryukyuan, Ainu[1] Taiwanese Hokkien, Palauan (formerly)
Related scripts
Parent systems	Oracle bone script Seal script Clerical script Regular script (kanji) Man'yōgana Katakana
Sister systems	Hiragana
ISO 15924
ISO 15924	Kana (411), ​Katakana
Unicode
Unicode alias	Katakana
Unicode range	Katakana: U+30A0–U+30FF Katakana Phonetic Extensions: U+31F0–U+31FF Enclosed CJK Letters and Months: U+3200–U+32FF Halfwidth and Fullwidth Forms: U+FF00–U+FFEF Kana Extended-B: U+1AFF0–U+1AFFF Kana Supplement: U+1B000–U+1B0FF Kana Extended-A: U+1B100–U+1B12F Small Kana Extension: U+1B130–U+1B16F
This article contains phonetic transcriptions in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, see Help:IPA. For the distinction between [ ], / / and ⟨ ⟩, see IPA § Brackets and transcription delimiters.

Japanese writing
Components
Kanji Stroke order Radicals Kyōiku kanji Jōyō kanji Jinmeiyō kanji Hyōgai kanji List of kanji by stroke count
Kana Hiragana Katakana Hentaigana Man'yōgana Sōgana Gojūon
Typographic symbols Japanese punctuation Iteration mark
Uses
Syllabograms Furigana Okurigana Braille
Transliteration
Rōmaji Hepburn (colloquial) Kunrei (ISO) Nihon (ISO transliteration) JSL (transliteration) Wāpuro (keyboard)
Cyrillization Polivanov system
v t e

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 either like English m, n or ng ([ŋ]) or like the nasal vowels of Portuguese or Galician.

In contrast to the hiragana syllabary, which is used for Japanese words not covered by kanji and for grammatical inflections, the katakana syllabary usage is comparable to italics in English; specifically, it is used for transcription of foreign-language words into Japanese and the writing of loan words (collectively gairaigo); for emphasis; to represent onomatopoeia; for technical and scientific terms; and for names of plants, animals, minerals and often Japanese companies.

Katakana evolved from Japanese Buddhist monks transliterating Chinese texts into Japanese.[3]