Ku (kana)

ku
hiragana katakana
transliteration	ku
translit. with dakuten	gu
hiragana origin	久
katakana origin	久
spelling kana	クラブのク (Kurabu no "ku")

く, in hiragana, or ク in katakana, is one of the Japanese kana, which each represent one mora. Both represent [ku͍], 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 syllable represented, to [ɡu͍] in initial positions, and varying between [ŋu͍] and [ɣu͍] 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 [ŋu͍].

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 (Ainu language).^[1] This was developed along with other extended katakana to represent sounds in Ainu that are not found in standard Japanese katakana.

Stroke order

Stroke order in writing く

Stroke order in writing ク

Stroke order in writing く

Stroke order in writing ク

Other communicative representations

• Computer encodings

• Braille

く / ク in Japanese Braille
く / ク ku	ぐ / グ gu	くう / クー kū	ぐう / グー gū	Other kana based on Braille く
				きゅ / キュ kyu	ぎゅ / ギュ gyu	きゅう / キュー kyū	ぎゅう / ギュー gyū

• Japanese semaphore

The Wabun code for く or ク is ・・・－.

References

Look up く, ぐ, ク, or グ in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.