KATAKANA · DAKUTEN KANA
za
ザ · paired with ざ
Sound and use
Katakana commonly writes loanwords, names, onomatopoeia, species names and visual emphasis.
See ざ, the hiragana counterpart →
Kana represent sounds and spelling functions. They do not have lexical meanings of their own.
How the shape formed
This is サ with a voicing mark (dakuten). Its base form is associated with the source character 散.
History and change
Japanese writers used Chinese characters for their sounds. The source character 散 belonged to that wider practice; the kanji meaning was not inherited by ザ.
Hiragana and katakana developed as Japanese syllabaries in the early Heian period (794–1185). This is the script-level period, not a first attested date for ザ.
Katakana commonly writes loanwords, names, onomatopoeia, species names and visual emphasis.
What is documented?
The sources above support the script’s broad period and the conventional parent-character account for ザ. A first surviving appearance of this exact modern shape has not been established for this entry.
For a look at earlier hiragana variants, use the NINJAL hentaigana index ↗.