Ye (kana)

Ye (hiragana: 𛀁, katakana: エ, sometimes distinguished as 𛄡) is a Japanese mora or a kana used to write it, no longer in standard use.^[3] 生𛀁す (payesu) is an old Japanese word, which is assumed to be the intransitive form of 生ゆ (payu; to sprout.) It is one of the only words that uses the "𛀁" kana.

ye
hiragana katakana[1] alternate katakana[2]
transliteration	e, ye
hiragana origin	江
katakana origin	江
another katakana origin	延
Man'yōgana	延 曳 睿 叡 盈 要 縁 裔 兄 柄 枝 吉 江 遥
unicode	U+1B001

History

It is presumed that 𛀁 would have represented [je] ^{ⓘ[citation needed]}. In the 10th century, e and ye progressively merged into ye, and then during the Edo period the pronunciation changed from /je/ to /e/.

However, during the Meiji period, linguists almost unanimously agreed on the kana for yi, ye, and wu. 𛀆 and 𛄢 are thought to have never occurred as morae in Japanese, and 𛀁 was merged with え and エ.

Characters

Nara period–Heian period

Japanese people separated e and ye in Man'yōgana, early Hiragana and early Katakana.

	e	ye
Man'yōgana[4]	愛,哀,埃,衣,依,榎,荏,得,"可愛"	延,曳,睿,叡,盈,要,縁,裔,兄,柄,枝,吉,江
Hiragana[5][6]	え etc.	etc.
Katakana[7]	etc.	エ etc.

After that, e and ye merged into ye in the 10th century, before eventually evolving back to e.^[8]

Edo period–Meiji period

In the Edo period and the Meiji period, some Japanese linguists tried to separate kana e and kana ye again. The shapes of characters differed with each linguist. 𛀁 and 𛄡 were just two of many shapes.

They were phonetic symbols to fill in the blanks of gojuon table. Japanese people didn't separate them in normal writing.

	e	ye
Traditional kana	え[9] (Hiragana) (A variant form of え. Hiragana.) エ (Katakana)	え (Hiragana) 𛀁[9] (A variant form of え. Hiragana.) [10] (A variant form of え. Hiragana.) [11] (A variant form of え. Hiragana.) [10] (A variant form of え. Hiragana.) エ[9] (Katakana)
Constructed kana	[9] (A part of 衣. Katakana.) [10] (A part of 衣. Katakana.) [10] (A part of 衣. Katakana.) [10] (A part of 衣. Katakana.) [10] (A part of 衣. Katakana.)	え゙[12] (え with dots. Hiragana.) エ゙[12] (エ with dots. Katakana.) [13] (A part of 衣. Katakana.) [14][15][16] (A part of 衣. Katakana.) [17][18] (A part of 衣. Katakana.) 𛄡[19][20][10] (A part of 延. Katakana.) [21] (A part of 兄. Katakana.) [11] (A part of 延. Katakana.)

These suggestions weren't accepted.

Unicode

The hiragana version is encoded as HIRAGANA LETTER ARCHAIC YE (with the normative alias of HENTAIGANA LETTER E-1) in the position U+1B001. The katakana version is encoded as KATAKANA LETTER ARCHAIC YE, in the position of U+1B121.