diff --git a/spacy/lang/char_classes.py b/spacy/lang/char_classes.py
index 9e5441a4f..b15bb3cf3 100644
--- a/spacy/lang/char_classes.py
+++ b/spacy/lang/char_classes.py
@@ -45,6 +45,10 @@ _hangul_syllables = r"\uAC00-\uD7AF"
 _hangul_jamo = r"\u1100-\u11FF"
 _hangul = _hangul_syllables + _hangul_jamo
 
+_hiragana = r"\u3040-\u309F"
+_katakana = r"\u30A0-\u30FFー"
+_kana = _hiragana + _katakana
+
 # letters with diacritics - Catalan, Czech, Latin, Latvian, Lithuanian, Polish, Slovak, Turkish, Welsh
 _latin_u_extendedA = (
     r"\u0100\u0102\u0104\u0106\u0108\u010A\u010C\u010E\u0110\u0112\u0114\u0116\u0118\u011A\u011C"
@@ -244,6 +248,7 @@ _uncased = (
     + _tamil
     + _telugu
     + _hangul
+    + _kana
     + _cjk
 )