Ka (kana)
Character of the Japanese writing system / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Ka (hiragana: か, katakana: カ) is one of the Japanese kana, which each represent one mora. Both represent [ka]. The shapes of these kana both originate from 加.
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ka | |||
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transliteration | ka | ||
translit. with dakuten | ga | ||
translit. with handakuten | (nga) | ||
hiragana origin | 加 | ||
katakana origin | 加 | ||
Man'yōgana | 可 何 加 架 香 蚊 迦 | ||
Voiced Man'yōgana | 我 何 賀 | ||
spelling kana | 為替のカ (Kawase no "ka") |
The character can be combined with a dakuten, to form が in hiragana, ガ in katakana and ga in Hepburn romanization. The phonetic value of the modified character is [ɡa] in initial positions and varying between [ŋa] and [ɣa] in the middle of words.
A handakuten (゜) does not occur with ka in normal Japanese text, but it may be used by linguists to indicate a nasal pronunciation [ŋa].
か is the most commonly used interrogatory particle. It is also sometimes used to delimit choices.
が is a Japanese case marker, as well as a conjunctive particle. It is used to denote the focus of attention in a sentence, especially to the grammatical subject.