👉 Katakana is a system of writing characters and letters, also known as kanji. It was developed by Japanese mathematician Shōwa Hanazawa in 1786, but it wasn't until the 20th century that it became widely used outside Japan. In katakana, each letter can be represented by a character or symbol that is derived from its root syllable. For example, "H" can represent "he" (meaning "they"), "I