Katakana

Katakana (片仮名) are a Japanese syllabary, one of the four Japanese writing systems. The others are hiragana, kanji and rōmaji. The word katakana means "partial kana".

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

The main uses of katakana in modern Japanese are

• Onomatopoeia, letters used to represent sounds, for example hii ヒー meaning "sigh" would usually be written in katakana.
• Technical and scientific terms, such as the names of animal and plant species and minerals.
• Transcription of words from foreign languages (called gairaigo). For example, "television" is written terebi テレビ.
• Emphasis, roughly analogous to italics in English. For example it is common to see katakana names on signs like ゴミ gomi (trash) or メガネ megane (glasses), and words to be emphasized in a sentence are also sometimes written in katakana.

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

Usage

It is very difficult to give hard and fast rules of when katakana is and is not used. Here are some examples of where katakana may be found.

Pre-world war 2 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.

Telegrams are written in katakana, and before the introduction of multibyte characters in computer systems in the 1980s, computer output was entirely in katakana.

Although words borrowed from ancient Chinese are usually written in kanji, loanwords from modern Chinese 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 (麻雀), mājan (mahjong)
• ウーロン (烏龍茶), ūroncha (oolong tea)
• チャーハン (炒飯), chāhan, (fried rice)
• チャーシュー(叉焼), chāshū, from Chinese Char Siew, roast pork
• シューマイ (焼売), shūmai, from Chinese shāomài, a kind of dim sum.

These are usually written in katakana when not written in kanji. The very common Chinese loanword ラーメン (rāmen) is rarely written with its kanji 拉麺.

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 may be used for stylistic purposes, as they are perceived as having a stark, angular, masculine and futuristic appearance.

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 コンニチワ (konnichiwa) instead of the more usual hiragana こんにちは (konnichi wa).

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 "dermatologist", 皮膚科, hifuka, the second kanji, 膚, is considered difficult, and thus the word hifuka is commonly written as 皮フ科 or ヒフ科 in katakana. Similarly, difficult 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 ryu of shakuhachi, and in sankyoku ensembles with koto, shamisen and shakuhachi.

Orthography

Foreign phrases are sometimes transliterated with a middle dot called nakaguro (中黒) 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 (kompyūta gēmu)(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 König, Bach, Mach (or 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 Khruschev 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 イツハク・パールマン (Itsuhaku Pāruman).

Table of katakana

This is a table of katakana together with their Hepburn romanization. The first chart sets out the standard katakana (characters in red are obsolete).

vowels					yōon
ア a	イ i	ウ u	エ e	オ o	ャ ya	ュ yu	ョ yo
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	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
Below are modern additions to the katakana, used mainly to represent sounds from other languages.
			イェ ye
	ウィ wi		ウェ we	ウォ wo
ヷ va	ヸ vi		ヹ ve	ヺ vo
ヴァ va	ヴィ vi	ヴ vu	ヴェ ve	ヴォ vo	ヴャ vya	ヴョ vyu	ヴュ vyo
			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

History

Katakana was developed in the early Heian Period from parts of man'yōgana characters to indicate kanji pronunciation (furigana) in kanbun. For example, ka カ comes from the left side of ka 加 "increase". The figure below shows the derivation of katakana from man'yōgana:

File:Katakana origin.png

Up until a series of orthographic reforms immediately following World War II, katakana was used for okurigana in official documents, and frequently in other contexts. Katakana was also used to display text in telegrams, and early computer environments that did not support multibyte encodings, nor had fonts with a high enough resolution to display hiragana and kanji characters. The more angular and cleaner shape of katakana enabled it to be displayed at lower resolutions than hiragana. The half-width katakana set is a legacy of this era. Katakana is still used today to display text on cash registers and other low-resolution displays.

Computer encoding

Katakana have two forms of encoding, halfwidth hankaku (半角) and fullwidth zenkaku (全角). The halfwidth forms were the original form used on computers when only ASCII and katakana could be used.

Although often said to be obsolete, in fact the halfwidth katakana are still used in many systems. For example, the titles of mini discs can only be entered in ASCII or halfwidth katakana, and halfwidth katakana are commonly used in computerized cash register displays, and on shop receipts. In Japanese digital television and DVD subtitles, halfwidth katakana are commonly used to save screen space.

Unicode

In Unicode, fullwidth katakana occupy code points U+30A0 to U+30FF [1]:

0

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

A

B

C

D

E

F

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

Halfwidth equivalents to the fullwidth katakana also exist. These are encoded within the Halfwidth and Fullwidth Forms block (U+FF00–U+FFEF) [2], starting at U+FF65 and ending at U+FF9F (characters U+FF60–U+FF64 are fullwidth punctuation marks):

0

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

A

B

C

D

E

F

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

Katakana for the Ainu language

Katakana is sometimes used to write the Ainu language. Unique to 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 (u followed by small pu). In Unicode, the Katakana Phonetic Extensions block (U+31F0–U+31FF) [3] exist for Ainu language support. These characters are used mainly for the Ainu language only:

0

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

A

B

C

D

E

F

31F

ㇰ

ㇱ

ㇲ

ㇳ

ㇴ

ㇵ

ㇶ

ㇷ

ㇸ

ㇹ

ㇺ

ㇻ

ㇼ

ㇽ

ㇾ

ㇿ

See also

• Japanese phonology for pronunciation.
• Rōmaji for a comparison of romanization systems.
• Historical kana usage for a discussion of pre-war kana spelling
• Transcribing English to Japanese
• Wikipedia:Technical assistance for katakana

External links

• Katakana code chart at Unicode.org
• Katakana Online Trainer