We (kana)
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we | |||
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transliteration | e, we | ||
hiragana origin | 恵 | ||
katakana origin | 恵 | ||
Man'yōgana | 廻 恵 面 咲 | ||
spelling kana | かぎのあるヱ Kagi no aru "e" | ||
unicode | U+3091, U+30F1 | ||
braille | ![]() |
kana gojūon | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Kana modifiers and marks | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Multi-moraic kana | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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]
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/.
Stroke order
[edit]![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/fb/Oldsign-withwehiragana-tokyo-2015jan25.jpg/220px-Oldsign-withwehiragana-tokyo-2015jan25.jpg)
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/2b/Katakana_letter_We_on_a_curtain_sign_-_Shinjuku_-_2024_Feb_13.jpeg/220px-Katakana_letter_We_on_a_curtain_sign_-_Shinjuku_-_2024_Feb_13.jpeg)
Animated | Diagram |
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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.
Other communicative representations
[edit]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
ゑ / ヱ in Japanese Braille | |||
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ゑ / ヱ we | ヹ ve | ゑい / ヱー wē/wei | ヹー vē/vei |
![]() | ![]() ![]() | ![]() ![]() | ![]() ![]() ![]() |
Preview | ゑ | ヱ | 𛅑 | 𛅥 | ||||
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Unicode name | HIRAGANA LETTER WE | KATAKANA LETTER WE | HIRAGANA LETTER SMALL WE | KATAKANA LETTER SMALL WE | ||||
Encodings | decimal | hex | dec | hex | dec | hex | dec | hex |
Unicode | 12433 | U+3091 | 12529 | U+30F1 | 110929 | U+1B151 | 110949 | U+1B165 |
UTF-8 | 227 130 145 | E3 82 91 | 227 131 177 | E3 83 B1 | 240 155 133 145 | F0 9B 85 91 | 240 155 133 165 | F0 9B 85 A5 |
UTF-16 | 12433 | 3091 | 12529 | 30F1 | 55340 56657 | D82C DD51 | 55340 56677 | D82C DD65 |
Numeric character reference | ゑ | ゑ | ヱ | ヱ | 𛅑 | 𛅑 | 𛅥 | 𛅥 |
Shift JIS[2] | 130 239 | 82 EF | 131 145 | 83 91 | ||||
EUC-JP[3] | 164 241 | A4 F1 | 165 241 | A5 F1 | ||||
GB 18030[4] | 164 241 | A4 F1 | 165 241 | A5 F1 | 147 54 134 51 | 93 36 86 33 | ||
EUC-KR[5] / UHC[6] | 170 241 | AA F1 | 171 241 | AB F1 | ||||
Big5 (non-ETEN kana)[7] | 198 245 | C6 F5 | 199 171 | C7 AB | ||||
Big5 (ETEN / HKSCS)[8] | 199 120 | C7 78 | 199 237 | C7 ED |
Preview | | ヹ | ㋽ | |||
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Unicode name | HALFWIDTH KATAKANA LETTER WE | KATAKANA LETTER VE | CIRCLED KATAKANA WE | |||
Encodings | decimal | hex | dec | hex | dec | hex |
Unicode | 127683 | U+1F2C3 | 12537 | U+30F9 | 13053 | U+32FD |
UTF-8 | 240 159 139 131 | F0 9F 8B 83 | 227 131 185 | E3 83 B9 | 227 139 189 | E3 8B BD |
UTF-16 | 55356 57027 | D83C DEC3 | 12537 | 30F9 | 13053 | 32FD |
Numeric character reference | 🋃 | 🋃 | ヹ | ヹ | ㋽ | ㋽ |
Shift JIS (KanjiTalk 7)[9] | 136 108 | 88 6C | ||||
Shift JIS (JIS X 0213)[10] | 132 148 | 84 94 | ||||
EUC-JP (JIS X 0213)[11] | 167 244 | A7 F4 | ||||
GB 18030[4] | 147 54 132 51 | 93 36 84 33 | 129 57 167 55 | 81 39 A7 37 |
References
[edit]- ^ 京都ゑびす神社
- ^ Unicode Consortium (2015-12-02) [1994-03-08]. "Shift-JIS to Unicode".
- ^ Unicode Consortium; IBM. "EUC-JP-2007". International Components for Unicode.
- ^ a b Standardization Administration of China (SAC) (2005-11-18). GB 18030-2005: Information Technology—Chinese coded character set.
- ^ Unicode Consortium; IBM. "IBM-970". International Components for Unicode.
- ^ Steele, Shawn (2000). "cp949 to Unicode table". Microsoft / Unicode Consortium.
- ^ Unicode Consortium (2015-12-02) [1994-02-11]. "BIG5 to Unicode table (complete)".
- ^ van Kesteren, Anne. "big5". Encoding Standard. WHATWG.
- ^ Apple Computer (2005-04-05) [1995-04-15]. "Map (external version) from Mac OS Japanese encoding to Unicode 2.1 and later". Unicode Consortium.
- ^ Project X0213 (2009-05-03). "Shift_JIS-2004 (JIS X 0213:2004 Appendix 1) vs Unicode mapping table".
- ^ Project X0213 (2009-05-03). "EUC-JIS-2004 (JIS X 0213:2004 Appendix 3) vs Unicode mapping table".
See also
[edit]![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/4/4a/Commons-logo.svg/30px-Commons-logo.svg.png)
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