カタカナ

Katakana (片仮名, カタカナ or かたかな) is a Japanese syllabary, one component of the Japanese writing system along with hiragana, kanji, and in some cases the Latin script (known as romaji). Katakana and hiragana are both kana systems; they have corresponding character sets in which each kana, or character, represents one mora (one sound in the Japanese language). The word katakana means "fragmentary kana", as the katakana scripts are derived from components of more complex kanji.


Katakana was developed in the early Heian Period (AD 794 to 1185) by Buddhist monks 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 adjacent table shows the origins of each katakana: the red markings of the original Chinese character eventually became each corresponding symbol.

Recent findings by Yoshinori Kobayashi, professor of Japanese at Tokushima Bunri University suggest the possibility that the comma which is used in kana grammar may have originated in the eighth century on the Korean Peninsula and been introduced to Japan through Buddhist texts.