Japanese

Noun

片仮名 ‎(shinjitai kanji, kyūjitai kanji 片假名, hiragana かたかな, katakana カタカナ, romaji katakana)

1. 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.

See also

• 平仮名 (ひらがな) ‎(hiragana)
• 漢字 (かんじ) ‎(kanji)
• ローマ字 (じ) ‎(rōmaji)

References

1. ↑ 2006, 大辞林 (Daijirin), Third Edition (in Japanese), Tōkyō: Sanseidō, ISBN 4-385-13905-9
2. 1 2 1998, NHK日本語発音アクセント辞典 (NHK Japanese Pronunciation Accent Dictionary) (in Japanese), Tōkyō: NHK, ISBN 978-4-14-011112-3
3. 1 2 1997, 新明解国語辞典 (Shin Meikai Kokugo Jiten), Fifth Edition (in Japanese), Tōkyō: Sanseidō, ISBN 4-385-13143-0