Ya (kana)

Ya (hiragana: や, katakana: ヤ) is one of the Japanese kana, each of which represents one mora. The hiragana is written in three strokes, while the katakana is written in two. Both represent. Their shapes have origins in the character 也.

When small and preceded by an -i kana, this kana represents a palatalization of the preceding consonant sound with the vowel (see yōon).

や can be used by itself as a grammatical particle to connect words in a nonexhaustive list (see Japanese particles).

Other communicative representations

 * Full Braille representation
 * The yōon characters ゃ and ャ are encoded in Japanese Braille by prefixing "-a" kana (e.g. Ka, Sa) with a yōon braille indicator, which can be combined with the "Dakuten" or "Handakuten" braille indicators for the appropriate consonant sounds.


 * Computer encodings