Wabun code is the Morse code variant developed for Japanese, mapping each katakana character (and a few additional symbols) to a unique sequence of dots and dashes. It was officially adopted in 1908 and is still used in Japanese amateur radio today.
Wabun was created when Japan modernized its telegraph system at the end of the 19th century. The Latin Morse alphabet couldn't represent kana, so a parallel set of codes was assigned to the 48 katakana characters plus dakuten (voicing marks) and handakuten (semivoicing marks).
JARL (Japan Amateur Radio League) operators still use Wabun for Japanese-language QSOs. The system is also studied as a historical artifact of how non-Latin scripts adapted to telegraph technology.
No. Wabun assigns Morse patterns to katakana characters, while International Morse covers Latin letters. The two systems can coexist on the same channel but encode different alphabets.
Both. Most Japanese hams know International Morse for working DX (foreign stations) and Wabun for domestic Japanese-language contacts. Many QSOs switch between the two.
Wabun is technically katakana-based but the codes apply to the same syllabary, so hiragana characters share the same Morse codes as their katakana counterparts.
Explore all Morse code variants → Morse Code Variants Around the World
