Kana

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A set of written characters or syllabary used in the Japanese language
2. Specifically, one of the two phonetic scripts in Japanese, used for native words and grammatical elements
3. Referring to both hiragana and katakana, which represent sounds in Japanese writing

Etymology: The word "kana" is a Japanese term that English borrowed directly, and its literal meaning is "borrowed character." That name points to how the scripts were made: the kana were originally Chinese characters, kanji, whose meanings were set aside and whose sounds were kept. A character used for its sound alone, regardless of what it meant, was a "borrowed" character in this sense. The kana are the phonetic scripts of Japanese, and they are used for native Japanese words and grammatical elements, such as verb endings and particles, which kanji could not easily represent on their own. Writers in Japanese typically combine the two systems, with kanji carrying the main content words and kana filling in the rest.

Synonyms: Japanese syllabary, hiragana, katakana