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The hiragana syllable な(na). Its equivalent in katakana is ナ(na). It is the twenty-first syllable in the gojūon order; its position is な行あ段(na-gyō a-dan, “row na, section a”).
Probably derived from mild emphatic interjection and sentence-final particle ね, itself from Old Japanese, indicating a general sense of admiration or consideration, or hope that the preceding statement comes to pass.
copula particle used after 形容動詞(keiyōdōshi, often referred to in English teaching texts as -na adjective, literally “adjective verb”) to make them function as adjectives
From Old Japanese. Probably the root na of the negative adjective ない(nai). An alternative theory is that this is the imperfective conjugation of negative auxiliary verb ず(zu).
Considered very informal and potentially brusque depending on tone of voice. This would never be used in polite conversation, where the construction ~ないで下さい(~naide kudasai) would be used instead, appended to the imperfective stem of the verb in question. Examples:
Addressing close friends, children, or possibly subordinates:
In spoken Japanese, the prohibitive na and the imperative na are also differentiated by pitch accent patterns. For prohibitive na, the pitch on the suffix follows the pitch on the verb stem; and for imperative na, the pitch is higher than on the verb stem.
Listed in various sources as the na portion in the term 刀(katana), with the na described as meaning 刃(“blade, edge”). However, there is no historical attestation for any na reading for this character.
Possibly an apophonic form of の(no₂), from assimilation with adjacency to vowels such as a or u. Usage is mostly restricted to fixed expressions like 掌(tanagokoro, “palm of the hand”, parsed as ta “hand” + na + kokoro “heart, center”, changing to gokoro due to rendaku), due to such assimilation.
Vovin (2020, pp. 119-123) suggests that this may instead be a plural marker, which is supported by some terms changing due to rendaku, typically a contraction of -no₂- or -ni-.