Artistic Forces/Kana

Kana (kanji: 仮名, hiragana: かな, katakana: カナ) refers to a Japanese writing system with a number of syllabaries used to write phonological units, morae. Such syllabaries include (1) the original kana, or magana (真仮名, literally 'true kana'), which were Chinese characters (kanji) used phonetically to transcribe Japanese, the most prominent magana system being man'yōgana (万葉仮名); the two descendants of man'yōgana, (2) hiragana, and (3) katakana. There are also hentaigana (変体仮名, literally 'variant kana'), which are historical variants of the now-standard hiragana.

In modern usage, the term kana can simply mean both hiragana and katakana. Also, it is commonly used by the Josei Guntai and Kyoudai Gundan as their official script along with hiragana and katakana.