Ku (kana)


Ku is one of the Japanese kana, which each represent one mora. Both represent and their shapes come from the kanji 久.
This kana may have a dakuten added, transforming it into ぐ in hiragana, グ in katakana and gu in Hepburn romanization. The dakuten's addition also changes the sound of the mora represented, to in initial positions and varying between and in the middle of words.
A handakuten does not occur with ku in normal Japanese text, but it may be used by linguists to indicate a nasal pronunciation.
In the Ainu language, the katakana ク can be written as small ㇰ, representing a final k sound as in アイヌイタㇰ Ainu itak. This was developed along with other extended katakana to represent sounds in Ainu that are not found in standard Japanese katakana.
FormsRōmajiHiraganaKatakana
Normal k-
kuくク
Normal k-
kuu, kwu
kū
くう, くぅ
くー
クウ, クゥ
クー
Addition dakuten g-
guぐグ
Addition dakuten g-
guu, gwu
gū
ぐう, ぐぅ
ぐー
グウ, グゥ
グー

Other communicative representations