katakana

Where does the word "katakana" come from? It comes from Japanese katakana, and was adopted directly into English (1800s-1900s).

Katakana’s story begins in Japanese: katakana meant “an angular phonetic syllabary.” Developed as an angular phonetic script derived from fragments of Chinese characters. It reached English by 1800s-1900s as katakana. Japanese 'fragmentary kana', developed by Buddhist monks from parts of Chinese characters. Today, katakana means one of the two phonetic syllabaries used in Japanese writing, used chiefly for foreign loanwords.

1. Stage 1 · Japanese · 9th century katakana "an angular phonetic syllabary", developed as an angular phonetic script derived from fragments of Chinese characters.
2. Stage 2 · English · 1800s-1900s katakana "the angular Japanese phonetic writing system, used mainly for foreign words", Japanese 'fragmentary kana', developed by Buddhist monks from parts of Chinese characters.