Ka (kana)

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. 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.