katakana

n. one of the two common Japanese phonetic alphabets

is a Japanese syllabary, one component of the Japanese writing system along with hiragana, kanji, and in some cases the Latin alphabet. The word katakana means "fragmentary kana," as they are derived from components of more complex kanji.Katakana are characterized by short straight strokes and angular corners, and are the simplest of the Japanese scripts. There are two main systems of ordering katakana, the old-fashioned iroha ordering, and the more prevalent gojūon ordering.
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<Japanese> The square-formed Japanese kana syllabary. Katakana is mostly used to write foreign names, foreign words, and loan words as well as many onomatopeia, plant and animal names.
(2001-03-18)