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Each kana character corresponds to one sound or whole syllable in the Japanese language, unlike kanji regular script, which corresponds to a meaning. Apart from the five vowels, it is always CV (consonant onset with vowel nucleus ), such as ka , ki , sa , shi , etc., with the sole exception of the C grapheme for nasal codas usually romanised as n .
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.
Yōon sounds, such as しょう shō or きょう kyō, are not written with a small kana (ゃ, ゅ, ょ); depending on the word, they are written with either two or three full-sized kana. If written with two kana and the last one is や ya, ゆ yu, or よ yo, then it represents a short syllable of one mora, such as きよ kyo.
The modern Japanese writing system uses a combination of logographic kanji, which are adopted Chinese characters, and syllabic kana.Kana itself consists of a pair of syllabaries: hiragana, used primarily for native or naturalized Japanese words and grammatical elements; and katakana, used primarily for foreign words and names, loanwords, onomatopoeia, scientific names, and sometimes for emphasis.
The gojūon contains all the basic kana, but it does not include: versions of kana with a dakuten such as が (ga) or だ (da), or kana with handakuten such as ぱ (pa) or ぷ (pu), smaller kana (sutegana), such as the sokuon (っ) or in the yōon (ゃ,ゅ,ょ). The gojūon order is the prevalent system for collating Japanese in Japan. For ...
Like other vowels, scaled-down versions of the kana (ぃ, ィ) are used to express sounds foreign to the Japanese language, such as フィ (fi).In some Okinawan writing systems, a small ぃ is also combined with the kana く (ku) and ふ to form the digraphs くぃ kwi and ふぃ hwi respectively, although the Ryukyu University system uses the kana ゐ/ヰ instead.
The kana ん and ン and the various sounds they represent are known by the names hatsuon (撥音) and haneru-on (撥ねる音). [9] One of the various meanings of the verb haneru ( 撥ねる ) is to "make an upward brush-stroke" when writing, [ 10 ] which is a gesture that is involved in writing the kana ん and ン.
よ, in hiragana or ヨ in katakana, is one of the Japanese kana, each of which represents one mora. The hiragana is made in two strokes, while the katakana in three. Both represent [jo]. When small and preceded by an -i kana, this kana represents a palatalization of the preceding consonant sound with the [o] vowel (see yōon). [1]