片仮名

Japanese

kanjitab
Definitions
  • Katakana, a set of Japanese syllabary characters, secondary to hiragana, derived from portions of Chinese characters whose sounds approximate the Japanese sound being represented. Katakana is mostly used for transliteration from Western languages.

Etymology

Compound from Japanese 片 (one-sided, side, part, flat thing, one, one side, broad) + Japanese 仮名 (kana, the hiragana katakana syllabaries, Japanese phonetic syllabary characters, syllabic letter, a syllabary character).

Origin

Japanese

仮名

Gloss

kana, the hiragana katakana syllabaries, Japanese phonetic syllabary characters, syllabic letter, a syllabary character

Timeline

Distribution of cognates by language

Geogrpahic distribution of cognates

Cognates and derived terms