Talk:Katakana

ジ and ディ (デ)

It would be nice if you could mention that ji and di are often exchanged. Like ラジオ "rajio" = radio. Which can also be googled as ラデオ. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.192.245.128 (talk) 10:31, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

headcuff

I'd just like to add that the katakana "ga" symbol all throughout the page is written incorrectly. It is shown as ガ, but that is not right. It's supposed to have the two apostrophes above it, not the maru. I would correct it, but I don't know the encryption. But if I'm wrong, whatever, I've just never seen the katakana ga symbol written that way is all. Teachers never mentioned that either. Tokimasen ka.

If it's wrong, take it up with the people who design Japanese fonts. That's a character, not a graphic. Wikipedia has no control over that. — Gwalla | Talk 07:25, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Umm, but that character does have the two "apostrophes" above it, not a maru (handakuten). May be you are just not looking closely enough. As far as I can tell, there's not really a way to accidentally type in a "ka" with a handakuten above it.--Sotaru 11:43, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Oh yea you're right. My bad. What are the apostrophes called actually? I think it was the size of the font/resolution I have on my computer that made it look like a handakuten. Thanks. --headcuff 4:27,2 February 2007 (UTC)

Dakuten, or voicing mark. The handakuten is the "half-voicing mark". — Gwalla | Talk 05:55, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

Remember, when characters are that small, the rule of thumb is that handakuten look like squares and dakuten look like diamonds. --Clorox (talk) 03:04, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Hifuka

I'm not sure if the word for dermatologist is correct, as it looks to be vandalised. the word used is hifuka, which is suspiciously like American vulgar slang. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 70.153.72.224 (talk • contribs) .

It is correct, check the Japanese article if you want to make sure. Although, it should really be hifukai for dermatologist, otherwise it just means dermatology. I fixed it. —Philip N.✉ 21:46, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

First of all, I support this fix(dermatologist -> dermatology). FYI, we can see many words hifuka on signs of japanese hospitals for Department of Dermatology. This meaning is most common for hifuka in Japanese. Still, hifuka for dermatology is also used and dosen't sounds like slang. (but is not strict term. hifukagaku is more suitable word for Dermatology). Canadie 01:48, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

Empty cells, not colspans

I replaced the empty table cells that spanned more than one column with multiple empty cells. Since the row and column placements actually have meaning (except for ン), it makes more sense for each empty cell to represent one "missing" kana than for them to be combined.

This also permits this table to be (say) copied and pasted into a spreadsheet, or transposed, or have a column cut, without the columns getting out of sync.

Matuszek 21:55, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

It seems to be OK. By the way, it is not necessary any more to use numerical values any more, you can just insert the UTF8 into the page directly. --DannyWilde 01:27, 24 November 2005 (UTC)

Another new katakana for foreign character

Please forgive intrusion, errors, any breaches of etiquette, but -- I don't know how else to go about this. I have here a book, ISBN #4473014304, published by Tankosha in 1995, where the name "König" has consistently been rendered into the kana as: ケーニッヒ. Someone more knowledgeable than I might wish to look into that reduplicated final -hi. I am a librarian trying to catalogue this and am at a loss as to the correct Romaji transliteration (Kēnihhi??). Thank you for your patience and forebearance. -- non-user, StJ Tremayne, 05:30, 13 September 2005.

That 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). "Kēnihhi" is probably the correct romanization according to the system Wikipedia uses. (Of course there are many other systems.)

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).

Typing ケーニッヒ into the Search box of the Japanese Wikipedia brought up three hits: one for Rudolph, one for Karen, and one for a company in the automobile industry. The article on Rudolph gives his name in the original German, not a double transliteration; the others give no romanization.

Fg2 07:20, 14 September 2005 (UTC)

I saw that the article did not mention anything about the small tsu, so I added a small bit. Please check this, as I know very little Japanese. -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 12:28, 14 September 2005 (UTC)

Edits by Ryoske

The recent edits by Ryoske seem to be speculation not based on any facts. Further, several of his/her statements are extremely dubious. For example, the stuff about "gomi" being because of Japanese people associating litter with foreigners sounds like utter drivel to me. For the time being, I've commented out the problematic paragraph.--DannyWilde 06:59, August 26, 2005 (UTC)

I agree that the passage is highly speculative, and rather dubious. There are many opinions as to why words are being katakanaized. Some people just say it makes them eye-catching and "cool". The sentence: "The established use of katakana as being to write foreign loanwords has become somewhat of a myth spread through overly simplistic explanation of its usage in education of Japanese as a second language." is nonsense. The use of katakana for loanwords was set by the education ministry 60 years ago. Nothing mythical about it. --JimBreen 23:37, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

Is there anything in the paragraph that can be salvaged into something useful, or should it just be deleted? At the moment it is commented out, since it doesn't make much sense, but Wikipedia asks to modify things rather than delete them. Can it be modified into something worth saying? Or should it just be removed?--DannyWilde 00:50, August 27, 2005 (UTC)

I don't deny it was officially established as being used for loanwords. But what I mean is that when Japanese is taught as a second language, the bread-and-butter rules are taught that hiragana is used for native words, and katakana for foreign loanwords. The "myths" of the Jōyō Kanji list are described in that article, so why shouldn't the "only used for foreign words" misunderstanding not be considered a myth? What I should have written is that, although katakana is mostly used for foreign words, other usages include:...--Ryoske 07:05:45, 2005-08-27 (UTC)

I can't find any support for anything you added to the katakana article. See sci.lang.japan newsgroup for a discussion about your article. I don't like deleting stuff without a very good reason, but your comments in the katakana article seem highly dubious and speculative to me.

You mean that all my edits were bad?! Ouch. That paragraph wasn't the only edit I made - I added in the comment about Modern Chinese loanwords, the stylistic purposes as well as the use of the chōon in ローソク. But I forgot to tag them - my bad. I only joined yesterday, so I haven't entirely gotten used to things yet. Also, sorry about that stupid gomi comment - I heard someone speculate that on a message board, I think it was Japan Today. I found this Japanese article today suggesting as to why gomi is written in katakana: [1] It basically suggests that it is written in katakana to highlight that it is dirty, smelly, dangerous and otherwise unpleasant. 兎に角、出々しで躓いて済みません!--Ryoske 10:02:03, 2005-08-27 (UTC).

I've read the sci.lang.japan thread. I have had a native Japanese speaker suggest that 椅子 is considered a foreign object.

I'll take care not to write such baseless speculative comments in future.

I've found another Japanese article [2] which supports the argument that in the absence of kanji, writing words in katakana makes them easier to read.--Ryoske 05:58:55, 2005-08-28 (UTC)

Sorry to cut the colons short. I think that is true. The problem is about the foreign nature of gomi or isu. Anyway, why don't you try to salvage what you wrote in the light of other people's comments, and maybe something useful will come from this discussion.--DannyWilde 06:37, August 28, 2005 (UTC)

I've just attempted to salvage the "nutty" paragraph in light of all your comments. I've added those two sources in, some examples of katakana in verbs and adjectives, and gotten rid of the stupid ゴミ comment as well as the stuff about タバコ, as I thought it was unnecessary. On another note, I wonder if I should get rid of those examples of Chinese loanwords using katakana? I'm sure there's a list of Chinese and Korean loanwords already, but I just can't find it.--Ryoske 10:20:27, 2005-08-28 (UTC)

While we're on the topic of speculative and improbable bits, where did this come from? "In this case they may indicate 'words spoken with a foreign accent'." adamrice 15:15, 27 August 2005 (UTC)

Unfortunately, Ryoske added most of the paragraph back again. I really do not think he is correct. I moved the examples he gave into "emphasis". Incidentally Ryoske made some edits to the kanji page as well, some of which I disagree with. The characters in "gaiji" may translate to "external characters" but I have a lot of doubts whether "gaiji" are called "external characters". The only links I found on the web which supported that view were links to Wikipedia or copies of it. Also, Ryoske edited the hiragana page, but I'm not sure whether I agree with his edits there. These pages are fairly mature and it would be good to be cautious about adding lots of stuff to them. In the case of "gomi" I think it's just being used for emphasis - I haven't seen any evidence of anything else. Anyway I expect this will all get changed back again, but I'd like to register a protest about it. --DannyWilde 23:19, September 2, 2005 (UTC)

Actually, "external characters" is exactly how Ken Lunde refers to gaiji in his authoritative book Understanding Japanese Information Processing, so I don't have a problem with that. The rest of it, yes. The Japan-related pages in Wikipedia have for some time had the mixed blessing of contributors with more enthusiasm than scholarship. adamrice 13:56, 3 September 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for your input. This is going into the realms of nitpicking, but I have a copy of the same book, and I found that Ken Lunde used the term, but he says that "These are referred to here as external characters". He doesn't say "These are called external characters". So it seems to be his translation. Can you find anyone else who uses the term? I had a rapid web search, but the only references to "external characters" I found were copies of the Wikipedia kanji page. Further, I found "gaiji" being used in romaji in some fairly solid web resources. Actually even Ken Lunde himself uses it on the next page of his book! I don't think there is enough justification for the "external characters" translation to put it into the kanji page. --DannyWilde 00:25, September 4, 2005 (UTC)

Older comments follow

All of these characters except VA ヷ, VI ヸ, VE ヹ, VO ヺ, and Katakana middle dot ・ are showing up in my browser. Anyone have any suggestions? --Koyaanis Qatsi

(Originally I listed the incorrect characters above, and 63.192.137.xxx corrected them. Thanks. --Koyaanis Qatsi)

You should as well indicate the Operating system and Web browser you are using... -- HJH

The characters VA, VI, VE, VO are included in the Unicode standard but they are not in the "traditional" Katakana set. Apparently, they are new characters added to the Japanese language (any Japanese native to confirm this?), that may explain why the browser fails to display them until the fonts are updated with the new glyphs. On my IE 5.5, the missing characters are shown as dots, but they are different from the middle dot ・ character.

I'm sure it's a matter of having the right fonts installed. I can see them all correctly, but I have the entire set of Chinese Han ideographic fonts installed. These few characters may not be present in some limited Japanese font set. Either get a more complete Japanese font, or bite the bullet and install the whole CJK set. --LDC

Ok, thanks. I had something I thought was a font set up, but everytime I went into a browser it brought up a window asking which keyboard set I wanted, and after that got tiresome enough I uninstalled it through DOS, since Windows wouldn't cooperate about it. --Koyaanis Qatsi

This table is quite confusing. Index (name) should be on the left, and value (symbol) on the right. Or at least column pair should be better separated, like in bold. Is there any particular reason why it's reversed ? --Taw

I'd also like to see the table reorganized. In the traditional Japanese layout ( begins in the upper right with A, with five kana per column ( A E U E O in the first column, KA, KI KU KE KO in the second, etc. ) This format does naturally group the kana with the beginning consonant sound, which is very helpful. Note that I wouldn't want to see this format exactly, just noting some things which seem helpful about it. I also prefer the Hepburn ( SA SHI SU SE SO, TA CHI TSU TE TO) romanizations, but that's a style decision. -- Olof

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The table goes from right to left and from top to bottom , just as Japanese is written. The syllables "va, vi, ve, vu" are not traditional. They have been added to accomodate the Japanese version of foreign words. In fact, the only one I remember seeing is "vi," in "whiskey."

I don't understand this comment: In my browsers ( IE Mac OS 9 and IE Windows NT ) I see a table going from left to right. Furthemore, the contemporary kana representation of 'whiskey' is usually with U and small I : ウィスキー -- Olof

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What are small KA and small KE use for ? --User:Taw

Small KE is used in some place names, even though it is usually pronounced 'ga'. For example, Kasumigaseki is written 霞 ヶ 関, Ichigaya is 市 ヶ 谷

Small KA is used in counting word combinations , i.e. to write ヵ月 to mean number of months or ヵ国 to mean number of countries. -- Olof

FYI The counter prefix ka Japman 09:17, 22 Aug 2003 (UTC)

I wrote about little KA and KE on ja:wikipedia(in Japanese). It's believed that these two characters are not KATAKANA strictly, and small KE was derived from KANJI character '个' (KA or KO, simplified from '箇') . That's why small 'KE' can't be read as 'KE' usually, and is often read as 'KA' or 'KO'. I believe that this confusion derives small 'KA' accidentally. In fact, small 'KA' can be used as small 'KE' alternatively only when small 'KE' is read as 'KA'.Canadie 07:20, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

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Recently some special characters have been added for transliteration of the Ainu language.

So, uh, what are they? --Brion 17:34 Feb 2, 2003 (UTC)

Katakana Phonetic Extensions Japman 09:17, 22 Aug 2003 (UTC)

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VA, VI, VE, and VO, as well as VU (ヴ), WI, and WE, are no more in use in Japanese (both hiragana and katakana). I believe they were dropped at the reform performed right after the World War II. Until that time katakana was used which every letters we now use hiragana for. -- Duckie

Actually, the "U+small vowel kana" spelling for WI and WE (ウィ, ウェ), the "U with handakuten" spelling of VU　(ヴ), and the "U with handakuten + small vowel kana" spelling for VA, VI, VE, and VO (ヴァ, ヴィ, ヴェ, ヴォ) are modern additions, used for foreign words. They shouldn't be confused with the stand-alone WI (ヰ) and WE (ヱ) kana, which are archaic. — Gwalla | Talk 22:11, 6 Aug 2004 (UTC)

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FYI Re: About ヴ Japman 09:17, 22 Aug 2003 (UTC)

uses of katakana

Beginning at some point in the mists of Japanese history, and lasting until some point in the 20th century (1945?--I'm not sure) katakana was used almost everywhere that hiragana is now--for okurigana, etc. I'm not sure about the history. Anyone have more specific information on this? I'd like to update this article to mention that.

I want to say that this began in the Meiji era and ended during the Allied occupation. It seems to be associated with the Imperial rule... all the laws, edicts, and the like from 1868 - 1945 are written in kanji and katakana, but traditional literature was written in kanji and/or hiragana. - Sekicho 19:55, Aug 9, 2004 (UTC)

Imperial edicts are AFAIK still written in katakana... or at least the certificate of the Order of the Chrysanthemum (c. 1970-something) hanging on my dad's wall is. Jpatokal 11:50, 25 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I concur with Sekicho. But I wonder why they did that. Is that because writing katakana is more efficient then hiragana? -- Taku 00:20, Aug 31, 2004 (UTC)

Question about katakana on another page

Hello. Are all of the katakana in the last section of this page currently in use? I'm trying to compile a complete chart of kana and since they're not mentioned here, I was curious. Thanks!

There's some weird stuff on the page you reference (the "twa" and "kwa" lines, which I've never seen before, the "dexi" romanization for でぃ, which shows how to type the litte-e but is meaningless beyond that). I'd like to see some sightings of that stuff in the wild. BTW, you can sign your posts by typing for tildes in a row, like this (but without the spaces) ~ ~ ~ ~.adamrice 02:12, 13 Sep 2004 (UTC)

They repeated the main chart a lot. The only new ones they have is kw (qw is a bad romanization) and tw — and they're really only used to note silence in pronunciation, not actually form new words (e.g. クィーン [kwiin] instead of クイーン [kuiin]]). This can be done on all, so it's redundant listing these — and you should probably refer to wiki's chart, as they missed a few. --Blade Hirato 02:55, 13 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Thanks, folks. One more, if you don't mind: What the heck are "dexyu" and "uxo" and the others? I tried a Google search and got almost nothing. I strongly suspect they're something nonstandard, but I've been wondering that for a while. Domo! -- J44xm 02:41, Sep 17, 2004 (UTC)

I have no idea! Fg2 03:33, Sep 17, 2004 (UTC)

Dexyu is デュ, pronounced dyu. Uxo is ウォ, wo (large u, small o, used because the kana "wo" is pronounced "o.") Sekicho 03:47, Sep 17, 2004 (UTC)

Sekicho, thanks for that information. Do you know where that romanization comes from? And whether it's actually in widespread use? I know the pronunciation, but I've never seen the letters "dexyu" before. I cannot imagine any speaker of English or any western European language saying dyu when they read the letters dexyu so I wonder who devised it. Fg2 03:53, Sep 17, 2004 (UTC)

That's how it would be typed into an input method editor. Since there's no "x" in Japanese, IME's interpret "x" to mean "make the next kana small." That's not how a sane person would romanize it. Sekicho

Now it makes sense! Thanks Fg2 06:01, Sep 17, 2004 (UTC)

Additions needed

Right, I've made a couple of minor alterations, includinding mentioning uses of katakana in furigana. I was tempted to add examples X (エックス) or 逆説 (パラドクス) and such, but really those belong on the furigana page... which is such a *lovely* big block of text, I have no idea where to put them.

Also, the uses section mentions 'Names of animal and plant species', but not other technical fields where you'd often see loanwords... the elements come to mind, ネオン and such.

In giving the table it's own heading, I realised what the page realy needs though is an equivalent of the Hiragana writing system section. Transcribing English to Japanese covers that direction quite well (though needs finishing), but nothing on this page really gives an idea what english (and to a lesser extent other languages) word you'd expect a katakana borrowing to be. As the table lists 'vi' as ヴィ it would be rather a surprise to find that it's generally rendered as ビ for japanese speakers. -- Martin 20:17, 7 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Possible external link?

Hi. I have a site with a Flash katakana writing tutor:

http://www.japanese-name-translation.com/site/write_katakana.html

Would this be a useful external link for this page? (I am new to editing Wikipedia, so I thought I should run it by you guys and see what you thought.) If you think it is good, would someone add it?

Accessibility

Hooray for colourblindness, or something. I suppose this is a broader issue than just this article, but how about denoting obsolete characters with ^† rather than colour. The same goes for table columns being green and yellow. Colour shouldn't be used to convey information other than information about colour, or aesthetics. My two cents. See http://www.webaim.org/techniques/visual/colorblind

Chinese Words

In the introductory section, it says it is used for transcription of non-chinese words. I believe that is incorrect, since the on reading of kanji is often written with katakana. Please correct me if I am wrong. --Weyoun6 20:39, 12 Apr 2005 (UTC)

You are right that by convention, kunyomi are written in hiragana and onyomi in katakana. But the article has the general spirit of katakana's usage correct. It would be misleading and hypercorrect to mention right at the top that katakana is used to represent Chinese-derived words, when in fact it is only used that way in dictionaries, a relatively trivial fact about katakana. I say let it stand. adamrice 16:17, 13 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Why not just have an aside that says "Katakana may be used for pronuciation of the onyoumi of kanji in dictionaries"? --Weyoun6 00:36, 14 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Also "non-Chinese foreign languages" is misleading, loans from *modern* chinese may bewritten in katakana, just not historical borrowings. --zippedmartin 05:32, 27 May 2005 (UTC)

Remark on viewing katakana

What does the parenthetical remark "otherwise visit the page for hiragana" at the top of the section Hepburn romanization of katakana refer to? As far as I can see, the hiragana article also requires Japanese fonts to be installed. -- Jitse Niesen 18:14, 16 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Don't understand "computer" modification

The most recent modification says that katakana are used to write technical terms etc. but surely this is already covered by the use for gairaigo? Does it mean that katakana are used for tech. terms where the word could be written in kanji? That is news to me. Otherwise, this entry is pointless and should be blasted. Unless anyone enlightens me otherwise, I'll remove the entry completely. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 202.220.243.72 (talk • contribs) on 09:06, 1 August 2005.

I agree, though I know almost no Japanese, so I've reverted that edit. -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 18:13, 3 August 2005 (UTC)

Please no speculation

Please don't use these pages to speculate or postulate your own theories about katakana usage. This was exactly the problem with Ryoske's edits. It is clear enough that words like "gomi" or "megane" are written in katakana on signs for emphasis. --DannyWilde 00:19, 8 September 2005 (UTC)

Katakana for the Ainu language

Apparently there was an unexplained extra row added to Ainu katakana table. It had corresponding halfwidth katakana instead of small katakana letters. It was probably added for systems that do not support the display of Ainu katakana letters, such as systems that use fonts that were designed for EUC-JP or Shift-JIS encoded text, which do not include Ainu katakana letters like Unicode does. I was originally thinking of adding an explanation and replacing the halfwidth row with something like this:

31F

ク

シ

ス

ト

ヌ

ハ

ヒ

フ

ヘ

ホ

ム

ラ

リ

ル

レ

ロ

However I realized that the Unicode chart PDF link should suffice already, so I simply removed it. —Tokek 04:51, 24 September 2005 (UTC)

More confusion with Katakana

Right, I found out the uses of small KA and KE, but what is small WA used for? (ヮ) About the characters WI and WE, were they used before they became obsoleted? =\

EDIT: When I looked up the Katakana transcription for Quentin, what does THIS transliterate as? クェ Kue?

--Datavi X 20:56, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

tyu, dyu, and fyu

Is there any reason why tyu, dyu, and fyu don't have the same background cell colour of the characters above them (i.e., beige instead of green)? Just wondering if that colour indicates some kind of grouping that isn't clear in the table.

That would be because I forgot to change their background color when I moved them under the yōon category. Fixed. Matuszek 04:06, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

Installing Japanese fonts

For what it's worth I couldn't see the Japanese characters on this page at first; I had to download a special language pack. The Japanese language pack for Windows XP can be downloaded here. --Cyde Weys 2M-VOTE 03:32, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

The subtle differences in characters.

Could someone please explain the differences between ソ and ン along with シ and ツ? Those four characters give me fits by being so frustratingly similar, and I've never seen anything even mention for a way to tell them apart. I'm assuming it partly has to do with the stroke direction, but that hardly seems to matter with some of the more facy fonts that get used which don't have any variation in thickness. Perhaps mention it in the article? Also, additional tips would be helpful.

On a similar note, what about differences between similar katakana and kanji (e.g. ロ and 口) or between kantana and hiragana (e.g.り and リ)? That's a more minor issue though, as they are usually easier to tell apart and surrounding contexts give better clues. But still, some fonts and handwritting styles make them nigh impossible see a difference. --SeizureDog 23:17, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

One of difference of these katakana's(ソ/ン,ツ/シ) is direction of strokes. Last stroke of ソ and ツ are drawn from upper right to lower left. ン and シ, lower left to upper right. In addition, angles of first stroke of ソ/ツ and ン/シ are different. (first strokes of ン/シ are more horizontal). And more, ツ is drawn left to right, シ is drawn upper to lower, just same as hiragana form of each characters(つ and し). Even Japanese sometimes confuse these characters, especially, in handwriting.

ロ and 口 are almost same as well as エ(katakana) and 工(kanji), ニ(katakana) and 二(kanji), へ(hiragana) and ヘ(katakana). り(hiragana) often (but not always) has upward brushstroke at end of first stroke and リ(katakana) usually has not.

This is very serious problem for developers of Japanese OCR system or something like that. Canadie 04:09, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

Canadie is pretty much spot on, but I just wanted to add a point about alignment from the perspective of how the characters are mapped. If you think of each character as existing in a square, then the beginning of the strokes for ン and シ are all pretty much on a vertical line parallel to the left boundary of the imaginary square. Similarly, the inception of the strokes for ソ and ツ are along a horizontal line parallel to the top boundary. This is generally how calligraphy teachers describe it, so as to make the differentiation clear. But Canadie is write, sometimes in handwriting you can only tell by context.

katakana for 'ryi', 'nyi', etc.?

The article Tales of Legendia and the Japanese Wikipedia version [3] have シャーリィ (on the English page romanized as Shāryi) as the transliteration of the name Shirley. Has anyone seen this use of the small ィ katakana, as analagous to the yōon constructions before? Or is this just an alternate way to write シャーリー, and thus properly romanized as Shārī? (As far as I know, the sound 'yi' isn't found in Japanese, as it has no hiragana or katakana, so it would be odd if it existed only in yōon-type forms.) I also found an article on Kevin Kurányi (ケビン・クラニィ, but redirects to ケビン・クラニー), [4]. The fact that this redirects to nī as seems to suggest that リィ, ニィ don't read as ryi, nyi, etc. but are just non-standard alternates to using ー and romanize to rī, nī; but if anyone knows the answer for sure, I'd be interested in hearing it. Thanks. Speight 06:20, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

What? I highly doubt such kana exists for "ryi" "nyi" "kyi" etc. They're even difficult for me to pronounce. --FlareNUKE 08:58, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

In Nihongo no Hyōki 日本語の表記 by TAKEBE Yoshiaki 武部良明 there are no such usage. Officialy they should be written as シャーリイ or シャーリー。Romanizations for both are Shārii. (Long 'i' is written as 'ii'.) Some people use this for last letter 'y'.--RedDragon 15:10, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

I've tried to ask around and find out what the intention in popular usage is with ostensibly redundant combinations such as "デェ" and "フゥ". I've gotten two general answers. 1) I've heard "デェ" is more aesthetically pleasing than "デー". 2) I've heard "デェ" is pronounced (in length) somewhere between "デ" and "デー".--68.143.188.113 (talk) 21:48, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

Coffee

The word "coffee" is listed as being originally katakana (コーヒー) and alternatively written as 珈琲. Technically, there's a bit more behind it - the word "珈琲" is actually derived from the Mandarin word 咖啡 (purely phonetic characters, pronounced "ka fei") where each character has the left 口 replaced with 王 for some reason. Exactly why the characters changed, I don't know. --Quietust 20:13, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

Why not Hepburn?

My edit of Kompyūta was reverted to Konpyūta. Did'nt you use Hepburn system in en.wiki?--RedDragon 15:10, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

Depends on what variant of Hepburn transcription is used. Konpyūta is revised Hepburn, which, according to the Wikipedia page about Hepburn romanisation, is the most common variant. 213.10.112.111 21:47, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

Where did you define revised Hepburn? The Ministry of Foreign Affairs defines Hepburn style [[5]]. In this style "n" is replaced by "m" before "m", "p", and "b". And station names of JR are like Shimbashi not Shinbashi according to Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport requires. We think "Shinbashi" is in Kunrei-shiki. Only road signs use "Shinbashi".--RedDragon 04:42, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

"Shinbashi" is definitely not Kunreishiki. In Kunrei it would be "Sinbasi". --Allgaeuer (talk) 23:04, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

Yōroppa

Is it certain that ヨーロッパ / Yōroppa is from English? Isn't it more likely that the word is derived from Dutch or Portuguese? 惑乱 分からん 17:00, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

No, Yoroppa is the Katakana spelling for "Europe", so it can't be derived from Dutch or Portuguese. --Burai 22:15, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

Was that seriously meant as an explanation? If it was derived from English, I think a spelling like ユーロップ / Yūroppu or similar would have been more likely... 惑乱 分からん 23:21, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

[[6]] says ヨーロッパ is derived from Portuguese 'Europa'.--RedDragon 05:52, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, I figured that. The Portuguese came before the English, and the -a-spelling looked suspicious? "Ajia" and the other continents as well? 惑乱 分からん 12:42, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

The spelling ヨー doesn't match with any European language that I know of. From either Portuguese or Dutch one would expect エウローパ. But I agree that if it had been from English, I'd expect final プ. —Largo Plazo (talk) 12:39, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

Beikoku

Hello. Isn't it slightly wrong to say "beikoku" means "A country of America". Doesn't it literally mean "rice country", albeit that 米　has come to also mean America. Fillanfloppy 18:52, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

I think its referring to the other complex kanji. "THROUGH FIRE, JUSTICE IS SERVED!" 02:56, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

亜米利加?

Is there a reason to why I've never seen this kanji? Even on learning Japanese sites, I've never seen it. I'm more familar with 米国. "THROUGH FIRE, JUSTICE IS SERVED!" 02:55, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

Ateji for country names like 亜米利加 are completely obsolete in modern Japanese. 米国, however, remains used as an abbreviation.--Ryoske 03:18, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

Chart characters transposed

In the chart next to the Computer Encoding section characters are transposed. Characters for 'fu' + 'he' and 'ru' + 're' are in the wrong columns. --Jobble 20:56, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

I noticed that too! I've GIMPed the characters around so they sit in the right columns. Sicherman 02:51, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

The chart in the History section is wrong again. CapnPrep 10:46, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Hmm. 'ru' and 're' (ル and レ respectively) are in the correct places. Only 'fu' and 'he' (フ and ヘ respectively) are in the wrong places. And yet, judging from http://www.biocrawler.com/encyclopedia/Katakana (which seems to be an older version of this wikipedia article, the historical man'yōgana equivalents are in the proper cells, and only the katakana are in the wrong spot. I hope this isn't some insidious misinformation plot. My theory is that there was an attempt to replace a plain image with an SVG equivalent, and something went wrong in the process. At any rate, this is confusing and I'm not aware of any reason for them to be out of order, and nobody has commented on this thread with an explanation... So I'm going to try my hand at fixing it. JMCorey 17:19, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

OK, fixed. JMCorey 18:02, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

missing something?

Fullwidth go from U+30A0 to U+30FF. (total: 96 characters) Halfwidth go from U+FF65 to U+FF9F. (total: 59 characters)

Even allowing for the U+31F0–U+31FF extension (16 characters of unspecified width), the numbers don't match up. What is going on? Why are there more fullwidth than halfwidth, and how wide is the extension? What about the circled ones?

24.110.145.57 19:30, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

In Halfwidth, there are no combination characters with the diacritics (eg, to make ガ (30AC) you need to have two characters FF76 and FF9E) Neier 21:41, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

"ji" and "zu" in the "d" consonant section

Well, in the "D" consonant section, there would be "dji" as in "padjii" based on "pudgy", and "dzu" as in "badzu" based on the plural, "buds" if for a title name. --PJ Pete

I'm not sure what the problem here is. "There would be" when? Both of these kana belong in the d-column (since they are voiced versions of t-column kana), but neither is romanized with a "d" in any recognized romāji scheme. — Gwalla | Talk 15:30, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

As far as I know, they're in the "d" section when ordered alphabetically, though its pronunciaton is ji, zu. And there is a rōmaji (not romāji) scheme that writes di and du: Nihon-shiki. Not sure if it is used, anyways.

—Nethac DIU, would never stop to talk here—
23:04, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

The "KW" Kana

I looked at the page about transcribing English to Japanese, and it says that the "WI" kana is written as "UI." Wouldn't same thing change "KWI" to "KUI"?

クィック is quick in Japanese. If transcribed to roomaji, it would be kwikku. The reason behind this is kuikku would be クイック. It could be argued that there is no difference since they are pronounced the same. However, timing wise they are different: クィ is 1 syllable, クイ is 2. They are different... technically. Neoprofit (talk) 22:30, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

Right-to-left katakana

I bought a box of Sakuma Drops in Japan in June. The tin that I bought even has a picture of Setsuko from Grave of the Fireflies peering into a tin. (Memories of that film meant that I took several minutes to compose myself before I could buy it.) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sakuma_drops

Notice that the katakana is written backwards. Not mirror-reversed, but right-to-left. I have also seen old posters and beer labels in this order. Example: ルービ "Biiru" Yebisu beer labels from 1890 to 1933. (That date range is just taken from the examples, not an attempt to constrain the impact.) Reference ”ビールのラベル” "Beer Labels" from Sapporo Breweries.

It might just be an artefact of the right-to-left order of kana at that time. Trivial, but will save someone else a lot of confusion when trying to work out what "Makusa Supurrodo" might be.

I haven't edited the article: where would it fit in?--In no sense nonsense 06:11, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

This is explained at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horizontal_and_vertical_writing_in_East_Asian_scripts#Right-to-left_horizontal_writing , which is linked to from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_writing_system#Direction_of_writing . Not sure if the katakana article has a good place you could put that link. 130.89.228.82 16:01, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

hm

• 1. Why is it "エヌ" instead of "エン"?
• 2. Why is it "メール" instead of "メイル"?

Ya, yu, yo in the table

Why are the katakana ya, yu, yo shown in a separate row under a, u, o instead of at the top of their own columns on the right? —Largo Plazo 23:46, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

Additional Forms

For each individual katakana's article, there are addtional forms listed in a table. These additional katakana should be included in the table.68.148.164.166 (talk) 08:36, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

Freeze on nations and cities

Is it time to put a freeze on the list of nations and cities? I figure the value of the table in the context of the article is to give a flavor for how names from different languages are dealt with in Japanese, not to provide a comprehensive worldwide list. —Largo Plazo (talk) 12:12, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

I agree with you. Oda Mari (talk) 15:38, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

Additional thought: it would be reasonable to add a country or two from Africa and Oceania, and maybe another one or two from Latin America, since the list is currently skewed to the Northern Hemisphere. But at this point I think no further additions for North America, Europe, or Asia are warranted. —Largo Plazo (talk) 16:33, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

That sounds nice. Instead, how about remove some? Names not so different from en pronunciation like Brasil, Finland, Mexico, Philippines, Singapore, Belfast, Hong Kong, New York, Seattle, and Toronto. Oda Mari (talk) 15:42, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

Hakka Kana?

Does anyone have any materials about Hakka Kana? I googled it but didn't find anything. Please, I really want to know the Hakka Kana. I've already seen Hakka Bopomofo, but never the Hakka Kana. If someone gave me a link to some material or made an article on Hakka Kana, I would appreciate it greatly. --78.88.163.38 (talk) 09:40, 29 June 2008 (UTC) (Don't ask me for registering, I will never do it).

Some of the supplemental items in the table

Are all the phonetics given in the lower half of the table genuine? For example, there's ティ ti. I know that ティ is used to transcribe [ti] where it appears in foreign words, but is it pronounced [ti] in Japanese, or it is pronounced [tei]? —Largo Plazo (talk) 12:44, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

It is pronounced [ti] in Japanese. Oda Mari (talk) 14:14, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

FWIW, a note on the "extra" kana are given in another article: "Most of these are not formally standardized." [7]. However, whether or not they have been "standardized", ティ is widely used[8]. In modern usage, it is pronounced as [ti] only. —Tokek (talk) 03:09, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

Tokushuon Katakana Listing

The Tokushuon Chart is incomplete and may have errors.

スィ & ズィ should be pronounced SWI and ZWI respectively. Example: スィッチ = switch.　citation Doing some more research, I have found some evidence that contradicts my above statement... Is there any way we can get a citation from an actual text that can confirm these characters actual sounds? I spoke to my Japanese professor on campus, スィ & ズィ ARE used for "si" and "zi". However, Japanese native speakers will pronounce them as shi an ji contrary to what the actual pronunciation is. These 2 sounds gives them problems I think, so they are pretty much omitted from most textbooks.neoprofit (talk) 19:36, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

The ウ column creates glides for some of the other syllables in the standard katakana syllabary that are identical to the way that クァ,クィ,クェ,クォ(kwa,kwi,kwe,kwo) are formed. ク, グ, ス, & ズ are the only common examples of the *w* form.　Examples: スェット = sweat citation Note "wu" does not exist.　Feel free to look at the rest of the "u" row.

Many other glides are available. ェ added to the イ column syllable creates a *ye sound for most of the standard katakana syllabary. キェ ギェ ニェ ヒェ ビェ ピェ ミェ リェ. Most of them are used just for names, very limited.

Glides for テ, デ, & フ need to be completed. ャ and ョ are both available and used.

ホゥ(hu) needs a citation or it should be removed. This is not a sound or a character combination in Japanese.

Neoprofit (talk) 21:54, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

Strange combinations

Some of the small-kana compounds seem dubious to me, especially fya/fyu/fyo and wya/wyu/wyo. Are these ever used? Any citations? — Gwalla | Talk 18:34, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

wya/wyu/wyo are dubious. But not fya/fyu/fyo. See fya, fyu, and fyo. Oda Mari (talk) 06:24, 7 October 2008 (UTC)　

Well, you learn something new every day! Thank you. — Gwalla | Talk 16:39, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

wya/wyu/wyo do not exist. I HAVE seen them written to emulate sounds, onomatopoeia. fya/fyu/fyo most definitely exist though. fyu I think is the only one that is really used with any significance　[9]　neoprofit (talk) 19:44, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

Revisiting the origin of some country names

Some of the attributions of country names in Japanese are clear enough to me. For example, "Poland" is, as far as I know, "Poland" only in English (Polish "Polska", Portuguese "Polónia", Dutch "Polen", etc.), so I have no argument with "pōrando" being attributed to English. I also agree with "oranda" from Portuguese "Holanda" because the Dutch name is "Nederland" and, besides that, the Dutch provincial name "Holland", as well as the country's English name, would go into Japanese as "orando" under the usual convention, as manifested by "finrando" and "airurando".

But would "cheko" really come from Czech "Česko"? I would expect "chesuko". How about "indo" from English "India": why wouldn't that have become "indeia" or "injia"? —Largo Plazo (talk) 14:11, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

As for the Dutch provincial name "Holland", it is Horanto in Japanese. I am not sure if Cheko really comes from Czech. But the country is called Cheko in Japan. As for Indo, I have no idea why it has not become "indeia" or "injia". Indo might come from Chinese 印度's Japanese pronunciation or the first part of French Indochine. Oda Mari (talk) 16:53, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

Parent systems

Please see Talk:Japanese_writing_system#Parent_systems for edits to the development tree.79.192.231.198 (talk) 14:02, 19 January 2009 (UTC)