^ 服部四郎・知里真志保(Shirō Hattori & Mashiho Chiri) (1960) 『アイヌ語諸方言の基礎語彙統計学的研究』「民族學研究」(Ainu Go Shohōgen No Kiso Goi Tōkeigaku Teki Kenkyū, “A Lexicostatistic Study on the Ainu Dialects”)[1] (in Japanese), Japan: 日本文化人類学会(“Japanese Society of Cultural Anthropology”)
^ 服部四郎(Shirō Hattori) (1964) アイヌ語方言辞典(Ainu Go Hōgen Jiten, “An Ainu Dialect Dictionary”)[2] (in Japanese), Japan: 岩波書店(“Iwanami Shoten”)
The katakana syllable ク(ku). Its equivalent in hiragana is く(ku). It is the eighth syllable in the gojūon order; its position is カ行ウ段(ka-gyō u-dan, “row ka, section u”).
The katakana syllabary is used primarily for transcription of foreign language words into Japanese and the writing of gairaigo (loan words), as well as to represent onomatopoeias, technical and scientific terms, and the names of plants, animals, and minerals. It is also occasionally used in some words for emphasis, or to ease reading; katakana may be preferred for words becoming buried in the text if they are written under their canonical form in hiragana. Names of Japanese companies, as well as certain Japanese language words such as colloquial terms, are also sometimes written in katakana rather than the other systems. Formerly, female firstnames would often be written in katakana.
