Ra (kana)

ra
hiragana katakana
transliteration	ra, la
hiragana origin	良
katakana origin	良
Man'yōgana	良 浪 郎 楽 羅 等
spelling kana	ラジオのラ Rajio no "ra"
unicode	U+3089, U+30E9
braille

Ra (hiragana: ら; katakana: ラ) is one of the Japanese kana, which each represent one mora. Both versions are written with two strokes and have origins in the character 良; both characters represent the sound [ɾa] ^ⓘ. The Ainu language uses a small katakana ㇻ to represent a final r sound after an a sound (アㇻ ar). The combination of an R-column kana letter with handakuten ゜- ら゚ in hiragana, and ラ゚ in katakana was introduced to represent [la] in the early 20th century.^{[according to whom?]}