ヤ

Character	ヤ
Unicode name	KATAKANA LETTER YA
Codepoint	U+30E4

Japanese

Stroke order

Etymology

Simplified in the Heian period from the man'yōgana kanji 也.

Pronunciation

• IPA: [ja]

Syllable

ヤ (Hepburn romanization ya)

1. The katakana syllable ヤ (ya), whose equivalent in hiragana is や (ya). It is the thirty-sixth syllable of the gojūon order, and its position in gojūon tables is ヤ行ア段 (YA-gyō, A-dan; “row YA, section A”).

Usage notes

Unlike the hiragana system which is used for Japanese language words for which kanji does not cover, the katakana syllabary is primarily used for transcription of foreign language words into Japanese and the writing of loan words (collectively gairaigo), as well as to represent onomatopoeia, technical and scientific terms, and the names of plants, animals, and minerals. Names of Japanese companies as well as certain Japanese language words are also written in katakana rather than the other systems.^[edit]

Related terms

• For a list of words starting with ヤ (ya) see: Special:Allpages/ヤ

See also

• (Katakana) 片仮名; アァ, イィ, ウゥヴ, エェ, オォ, カヵガ, キギ, クグ, ケヶゲ, コゴ, サザ, シジ, スズ, セゼ, ソゾ, タダ, チヂ, ツッヅ, テデ, トド, ナ, ニ, ヌ, ネ, ノ, ハバパ, ヒビピ, フブプ, ヘベペ, ホボポ, マ, ミ, ム, メ, モ, ヤャ, ユュ, ヨョ, ラ, リ, ル, レ, ロ, ワヮ, ヰ, ヱ, ヲ, ン, ー, ヽ, ヾ ^[edit]