The Kana are syllabaries used to write Japanese phonological units, morae. Such syllabaries include: (1) the original kana, or magana , 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) cursive hiragana , and (3) angular katakana . There are also hentaigana , which are historical variants of the now standard hiragana. In current usage, kana can simply mean hiragana and katakana.
