I (kana)

For the kana sometimes romanized as "i", see Wi (kana).

I (い in hiragana or イ in katakana) is one of the Japanese kana each of which represents one mora. い is based on the sōsho style of the kanji character 以, and イ is from the radical (left part) of the kanji character 伊. In the modern Japanese system of sound order, it occupies the second position of the mora chart, between あ and う. Additionally, it is the first letter in Iroha, before ろ. Both represent the sound [i]. In the Ainu language, katakana イ is written as y in their Latin-based mora chart, and a small ィ after another katakana represents a diphthong.

Form	Rōmaji	Hiragana	Katakana
Normal a/i/u/e/o (あ行 a-gyō)	i	い	イ
	ii, yi ī	いい, いぃ いー	イイ, イィ イー

Other additional forms
Form (y-) Rōmaji Hiragana Katakana yi いぃ イィ ye いぇ イェ

i
Hiragana Katakana
Transliteration	i
Hiragana origin	以
Katakana origin	伊
Man'yōgana	伊 怡 以 異 已 移 射 五
Spelling kana	いろはのイ (Iroha no "i")

Variant forms

Like other vowels, scaled-down versions of the kana (ぃ, ィ) are used to express sounds foreign to the Japanese language, such as フィ (fi). In some Okinawan writing systems, a small ぃ is also combined with the kana く (ku) and ふ to form the digraphs くぃ kwi and ふぃ hwi respectively, although the Ryukyu University system uses the kana ゐ/ヰ instead.

Origin

い comes from the left part of the Kanji 以, while イ originates from the left part of the Kanji 伊.^[1] An alternate form - 𛀆, based on the full cursive form of 以 is one of the most common hentaigana, as it merged with い late in the development of modern Japanese writing.

Stroke order

Stroke order in writing い

Stroke order in writing イ

Stroke order in writing い

The Hiragana い is made in two strokes:

1. At the top left, a curved vertical stroke, ending with a hook at the bottom.
2. At the top right, a shorter stroke, slightly curving in the opposite direction.

Stroke order in writing イ

The Katakana イ is made in two strokes:

1. At the top, a curved diagonal line going from right to left.
2. In the center of the last stroke, a vertical line going down.

Other communicative representations

Japanese radiotelephony alphabet	Wabun code
いろはのイ Iroha no "I"	▄ ▄▄▄ ⓘ

Japanese Navy Signal Flag	Japanese semaphore	Japanese manual syllabary (fingerspelling)	Braille dots-12 Japanese Braille

• Full Braille representation

い / イ in Japanese Braille
い / イ i	いい / イー ī	+い / +ー chōon*

* When lengthening "-i" or "-e" morae in Japanese braille, a chōon is always used, as is standard in katakana orthography, instead of adding the い / イ kana.

• Computer encodings

Character information

Preview	い		イ		ｲ		㋑
Unicode name	HIRAGANA LETTER I		KATAKANA LETTER I		HALFWIDTH KATAKANA LETTER I		CIRCLED KATAKANA I
Encodings	decimal	hex	dec	hex	dec	hex	dec	hex
Unicode	12356	U+3044	12452	U+30A4	65394	U+FF72	13009	U+32D1
UTF-8	227 129 132	E3 81 84	227 130 164	E3 82 A4	239 189 178	EF BD B2	227 139 145	E3 8B 91
Numeric character reference	い	い	イ	イ	ｲ	ｲ	㋑	㋑
Shift JIS[2]	130 162	82 A2	131 67	83 43	178	B2
EUC-JP[3]	164 164	A4 A4	165 164	A5 A4	142 178	8E B2
GB 18030[4]	164 164	A4 A4	165 164	A5 A4	132 49 151 52	84 31 97 34	129 57 209 55	81 39 D1 37
EUC-KR[5] / UHC[6]	170 164	AA A4	171 164	AB A4
Big5 (non-ETEN kana)[7]	198 168	C6 A8	198 251	C6 FB
Big5 (ETEN / HKSCS)[8]	198 234	C6 EA	199 126	C7 7E

Character information

Preview	ぃ		ィ		ｨ
Unicode name	HIRAGANA LETTER SMALL I		KATAKANA LETTER SMALL I		HALFWIDTH KATAKANA LETTER SMALL I
Encodings	decimal	hex	dec	hex	dec	hex
Unicode	12355	U+3043	12451	U+30A3	65384	U+FF68
UTF-8	227 129 131	E3 81 83	227 130 163	E3 82 A3	239 189 168	EF BD A8
Numeric character reference	ぃ	ぃ	ィ	ィ	ｨ	ｨ
Shift JIS[2]	130 161	82 A1	131 66	83 42	168	A8
EUC-JP[3]	164 163	A4 A3	165 163	A5 A3	142 168	8E A8
GB 18030[4]	164 163	A4 A3	165 163	A5 A3	132 49 150 52	84 31 96 34
EUC-KR[5] / UHC[6]	170 163	AA A3	171 163	AB A3
Big5 (non-ETEN kana)[7]	198 167	C6 A7	198 250	C6 FA
Big5 (ETEN / HKSCS)[8]	198 233	C6 E9	199 125	C7 7D