Ya (kana)

ya
hiragana
japanese hiragana ya
katakana
japanese katakana ya
transliterationya
hiragana origin
katakana origin
Man'yōgana也 移 夜 楊 耶 野 八 矢 屋
spelling kana大和のヤ Yamato no "ya"
unicodeU+3084, U+30E4
braille⠌

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 [ja]. 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 [a] vowel (see yōon).[1]

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

Form Rōmaji Hiragana Katakana
Normal y-
(や行 ya-gyō)
ya
yaa
やあ, やぁ
やー
ヤア, ヤァ
ヤー
  1. ^ Jim Gleeson (2013). "Contracted sounds". Japanese Hiragana: An Introductory Japanese Language Workbook. Tuttle Publishing. ISBN 9781462913978.