Ku (kana)

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). This was developed along with other extended katakana to represent sounds in Ainu that are not found in standard Japanese katakana.

Forms	Rōmaji	Hiragana	Katakana
Normal k- (か行 ka-gyō)	ku	く	ク
	kuu kū	くう, くぅ くー	クウ, クゥ クー
Addition dakuten g- (が行 ga-gyō)	gu	ぐ	グ
	guu gū	ぐう, ぐぅ ぐー	グウ, グゥ グー

Other additional forms
Form A (kw-) Romaji Hiragana Katakana kwa くぁ/くゎ クァ/クヮ kwi くぃ/くゐ クィ/クヰ kwu くぅ クゥ kwe くぇ クェ kwo くぉ クォ	Form B (gw-) Romaji Hiragana Katakana gwa ぐぁ/ぐゎ グァ/グヮ gwi ぐぃ/ぐゐ グィ/グヰ gwu ぐぅ グゥ gwe ぐぇ グェ gwo ぐぉ グォ

Stroke order

File:Hiragana く stroke order animation.gif Stroke order in writing く

File:Katakana ク stroke order animation.gif Stroke order in writing ク

File:く-bw.png

Stroke order in writing く

File:ク-bw.png

Stroke order in writing ク

Other communicative representations

• Computer encodings

Character	く		ク		ｸ		ㇰ		ぐ		グ
Unicode name	HIRAGANA LETTER KU		KATAKANA LETTER KU		HALFWIDTH KATAKANA LETTER KU		KATAKANA LETTER SMALL KU		HIRAGANA LETTER GU		KATAKANA LETTER GU
Encodings	decimal	hex	decimal	hex	decimal	hex	decimal	hex	decimal	hex	decimal	hex
Unicode	12367	U+304F	12463	U+30AF	65400	U+FF78	12784	U+31F0	12368	U+3050	12464	U+30B0
UTF-8	227 129 143	E3 81 8F	227 130 175	E3 82 AF	239 189 184	EF BD B8	227 135 176	E3 87 B0	227 129 144	E3 81 90	227 130 176	E3 82 B0
Numeric character reference	く	く	ク	ク	ｸ	ｸ	ㇰ	ㇰ	ぐ	ぐ	グ	グ
Shift JIS	130 173	82 AD	131 78	83 4E	184	B8			130 174	82 AE	131 79	83 4F

• 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 ・・・－.