Katakana-Hiragana Prolonged Sound Mark

The Katakana-Hiragana Prolonged Sound Mark at U+30FC lengthens the vowel sound of the preceding kana in Japanese writing. It belongs to the Katakana block, although its name reflects that it can appear with both katakana and hiragana in actual text. Its primary role is in katakana loanwords, foreign names, brand names, and technical terms. In words such as コーヒー for “coffee,” タクシー for “taxi,” and ゲーム for “game,” the mark shows that the preceding vowel is held longer, which is phonemically important in Japanese. It is also common in informal hiragana writing, manga, advertising, and expressive text, where writers stretch a sound for tone or emphasis, as in ねー or すごーい. In standard formal Japanese, long vowels in hiragana are more often written with vowel kana, so this mark can make text feel casual, stylized, or speech-like. The mark is visually similar to a horizontal dash but functions as Japanese orthography rather than punctuation. In vertical Japanese text, fonts and layout engines typically rotate or substitute it so the sound-length mark follows the writing direction.