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Shi (kana)
Character of the Japanese writing system From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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し, in hiragana, or シ in katakana, is one of the Japanese kana, which each represent one mora. Both represent the phonemes /si/, reflected in the Nihon-shiki and Kunrei-shiki romanization si, although for phonological reasons, the actual pronunciation is [ɕi] ⓘ, which is reflected in the Hepburn romanization shi. The shapes of these kana have origins in the character 之. The katakana form has become increasingly popular as an emoticon in the Western world due to its resemblance to a smiling face.
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This character may be combined with a dakuten, forming じ in hiragana, ジ in katakana, and ji in Hepburn romanization; the pronunciation becomes /zi/ (phonetically [d͡ʑi] or [ʑi] in the middle of words).
The dakuten form of this character is used when transliterating "di" occasionally, as opposed to チ's dakuten form, or a de assigned to a small i; for example, Aladdin is written as アラジン Arajin, and radio is written as ラジオ.
In the Ainu language, シ is used to represent the ʃi sound. It can also be written as a small ㇱ to represent a final s sound, pronounced ɕ.
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Other communicative representations
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Japanese radiotelephony alphabet | Wabun code |
新聞のシ Shinbun no "Shi" |
ⓘ |
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Japanese Navy Signal Flag | Japanese semaphore | Japanese manual syllabary (fingerspelling) | Braille dots-1256 Japanese Braille |
- Full Braille representation
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References
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