Kana or hoshino kana

Kana is a general term for the syllabic Japanese scripts hiragana (ひらがな) and katakana (カタカナ) as well as the old system known as man'yōgana. These were developed from the logographic characters of Chinese origin known in Japan as Kanji (Japanese: 漢字; Chinese pronunciation "hànzì"), as an alternative and adjunct to these latter.

In addition, kana were borrowed into Taiwanese to indicate the pronunciation of Chinese characters like furigana during the Japanese occupation of Taiwan. See Taiwanese kana.