Kana - Hiragana and Katakana | Hiragana Katakana

Hiragana and Katakana

The following table reads, in gojūon order, as a, i, u, e, o (down first column), then ka, ki, ku, ke, ko (down second column), and so on. n appears on its own at the end. Asterisks mark unused combinations.

Japanese kana: hiragana (left) and katakana (right)
	–	k	s	t	n	h	m	y	r	w
a	あア	かカ	さサ	たタ	なナ	はハ	まマ	やヤ	らラ	わワ
i	いイ	きキ	しシ	ちチ	にニ	ひヒ	みミ	*	りリ	ゐヰ
u	うウ	くク	すス	つツ	ぬヌ	ふフ	むム	ゆユ	るル	*
e	えエ	けケ	せセ	てテ	ねネ	へヘ	めメ	*	れレ	ゑヱ
o	おオ	こコ	そソ	とト	のノ	ほホ	もモ	よヨ	ろロ	をヲ


んン (n)

There are no kana for ye, yi or wu, as corresponding syllables do not occur in Japanese natively. The sound is believed to have existed in pre-Classical Japanese, mostly prior to the advent of kana, and is generally represented for purposes of reconstruction by the kanji 江, although an archaic hiragana we/ye, ゑ, does exist. In later periods, the syllabogram we came to be realized as, as demonstrated by 17th century-era European sources, but it later merged with the vowel e and was eliminated from official orthography in 1946. In modern orthography, may be written いぇ, イェ.
While no longer part of standard Japanese orthography, wi and we are sometimes used stylistically, as in ウヰスキー for whisky and ヱビス for Yebisu, a brand of beer. Hiragana wi and we are still used in certain Okinawan writing systems, while katakana wi and we are still used in Ainu.
wo is preserved only in a single use, as a grammatical particle, normally written in hiragana.
si, ti, tu, hu, wi and we are often transcribed into English as shi, chi, tsu, fu, i and e instead, according to contemporary pronunciation.