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We (kana)
Character of the Japanese writing system From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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ゑ in hiragana, or ヱ in katakana, is an obsolete Japanese kana that is normally pronounced [e] in current-day Japanese. The combination of a W-column kana letter with "ゑ゙" in hiragana was introduced to represent [ve] in the 19th and 20th centuries.[citation needed]
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It is presumed that 'ゑ' represented [we] ⓘ, and that ゑ and え indicated different pronunciations until somewhere between the Kamakura and Taishō periods, when they both came to be pronounced as 'イェ' [je] ⓘ, later shifting to the modern 'エ' [e].[citation needed] Along with the kana for wi ('ゐ' in hiragana, 'ヰ' in katakana), this kana was deemed obsolete in Japanese in 1946 and replaced with え and エ. It is now rare in everyday usage; in onomatopoeia or foreign words, the katakana form 'ウェ' (U-[small-e]) is used, as in "ウェスト" for "west".
The kana still sees some modern-day usage as a stylistic variant of 'え/エ'. Ebisu is usually written as "えびす", but sometimes "ゑびす" like Kyoto Ebisu Shrine (京都ゑびす神社, Kyōto Webisu Jinja),[1] and name of the beer Yebisu (ヱビス), which is actually pronounced "Ebisu". The Japanese title of the Rebuild of Evangelion series is Evangelion: New Theatrical Edition (ヱヴァンゲリヲン新劇場版, Wevangeriwon Shin Gekijōban). VTuber Sakamata Chloe (沙花叉クロヱ) of Hololive Production uses Katakana ヱ (we) in place of the pronounced エ (e). Katakana ヱ is sometimes written with a dakuten, ヹ, to represent a /ve/ sound in foreign words; however, most IMEs lack a convenient way to write this, and the digraph ヴェ is far more common. The Meiji-era Classical Japanese version of the Bible renders Jehovah as ヱホバ (Yehoba), and ヱ (ye) is also used to transcribe any Hebrew name spelled with Je in English (pronounced "ye" in Hebrew, though), such as Jephthah (ヱフタ, Yefuta); the modern Japanese version, on the other hand, only uses エ (e), hence エホバ (Ehoba) and エフタ (Efuta).
Hiragana ゑ is still used in several Okinawan orthographies for the mora /we/. In the Ryūkyū University system, ゑ is also combined with a small ぃ (ゑぃ/ヱィ), to represent the sound /wi/. Katakana ヱ is used in Ainu for /we/.
In wāpuro rōmaji—that is, the string of letters used for input to produce ゑ or ヱ—the sequence is wye.
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Stroke order
The hiragana ゑ is made with one stroke. It resembles a hiragana る that continues with a double-humped ん shape underneath.
The katakana ヱ is made with three strokes:
- A horizontal line that hooks down and to the left.
- A vertical line, just grazing the end of the first stroke.
- A long horizontal line across the bottom.
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Other communicative representations
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| Japanese radiotelephony alphabet | Wabun code |
| かぎのあるヱ Kagi no aru "We" |
ⓘ |
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| Japanese Navy Signal Flag | Japanese semaphore | Japanese manual syllabary (fingerspelling) | Braille dots-235 Japanese Braille |
- Full Braille representation
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References
See also
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