片仮名
Meaning in Englishkatakana, Japanese syllabary
Animated kanji stroke order
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Word context
What it means
片仮名 (katakana) is one of Japan's two kana syllabaries: a set of standardized phonetic characters used to represent Japanese morae as a writing system distinct from kanji and hiragana, recognizable for its generally angular strokes and one-symbol-per-syllable mapping.
Main meanings
- Primary orthographic system for transcribing foreign loanwords and foreign personal/place names into Japanese.
- Graphic device for emphasis or stylistic effect in advertising, signage, and headings.
- Standard script for onomatopoeia and mimetic words (sound-symbolic vocabulary).
- Notation for scientific terms, plant and animal names, and technical vocabulary when kanji is impractical.
- Computing and typesetting distinction: full-width vs half-width katakana characters used in legacy digital contexts.
How to use it
Used across registers: in everyday language for loanwords and foreign names, in literature and comics for emphasis or onomatopoeia, in scientific and technical documents to render Latinized names and specialist terms, and in branding and packaging for visual impact; half-width katakana appears in legacy computing and some stylized typography while full-width is standard in print.
Variants and close terms
- 平仮名 (hiragana): hiragana — the other Japanese syllabary, more cursive and used for native words and grammar.
- 漢字 (kanji): kanji — logographic characters used for lexical roots and content words.
- 半角カタカナ (hankaku katakana): half-width katakana — a narrow, legacy typographic variant used in older digital systems.
Composition
- 片 (kata): originally means "one-sided, fragment, piece" — here it suggests a portion or subset of kana characters.
- 仮 (ka): means "temporary, provisional, pseudo" and in this compound relates to phonetic/phonemic notation rather than true names.
- 名 (na): means "name" or "character/notation"; combined the characters yield the sense of a specific set of kana used as an alternate notation.
Origin
Developed from manyogana shorthand by Heian-period Buddhist scholars (around the 9th–10th centuries) as a set of simplified characters for phonetic annotation; it evolved through medieval usage into a standardized syllabary and was codified for modern functions during the Edo–Meiji transitions as Japan encountered more foreign vocabulary.
Word class
syllabary (kana 仮名)