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.