kana

Japanese syllabic writing. The characters are simplified kanji and are usually used with kanji primarily to write inflections, particles, and function words and to show the pronunciations of some kanji and of all foreign words.

Any of the characters used in this system.

Japanese writing as distinguished from Chinese, which is also used in Japan.

The hiragana and katakana syllabaries. These are used to write Japanese words and particles using characters that represent syllables. Kana are derived from kanji.

A hiragana or katakana character.

Plural form of kana.