We (kana)

we
hiragana
japanese hiragana we
katakana
japanese katakana we
transliteratione, we
hiragana origin
katakana origin
Man'yōgana廻 恵 面 咲
spelling kanaかぎのあるヱ
Kagi no aru "e"
unicodeU+3091, U+30F1
braille⠖

in hiragana, or 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 and 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 and . 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 is sometimes written with a dakuten, , 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 (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 (e), hence エホバ (Ehoba) and エフタ (Efuta).

Hiragana is still used in several Okinawan orthographies for the mora /we/. In the Ryūkyū University system, is also combined with a small (ゑぃ/ヱィ), to represent the sound /wi/. Katakana is used in Ainu for /we/.

Stroke order

[edit]
Sign in Tokyo reading ゑびす (Webisu...) in hiragana
Curtain sign in Tokyo reading ヤヱガキ (Yawegaki) in katakana
Stroke order of both and
Animated Diagram
Animated gif showing the stroke order. The character is drawn similarly to the Arabic numeral '3', before a small loop is formed at the base of the character, and a small, squashed and italicised 'm' is drawn below as a base.
Stroke order in writing
Diagram showing the stroke order of the character: on the left, the finished character; on the right, a grayed-out version with small red arrows showing the stroke order, with a green dot showing the beginning point of the stroke.
Stroke order in writing
Animated gif showing the stroke order. The character begins with a stroke resembling a squashed version of the Arabic numeral '7', before a separate vertical line is drawn separately beneath it, and a horizontal line forming the base of the character drawn below it, attached.
Stroke order in writing
Diagram showing the stroke order of the character: on the left, the finished character; on the right, a grayed-out version with small red arrows showing the stroke order, with green dots showing the beginning points of each stroke.
Stroke order in writing

The hiragana is made with one stroke. It resembles a hiragana that continues with a double-humped shape underneath.

The katakana is made with three strokes:

  1. A horizontal line that hooks down and to the left.
  2. A vertical line, just grazing the end of the first stroke.
  3. A long horizontal line across the bottom.

Other communicative representations

[edit]
  • Full Braille representation
ゑ / ヱ in Japanese Braille
ゑ / ヱ
we

ve
ゑい / ヱー
/wei
ヹー
/vei
⠖ (braille pattern dots-235) ⠐ (braille pattern dots-5)⠖ (braille pattern dots-235) ⠖ (braille pattern dots-235)⠒ (braille pattern dots-25) ⠐ (braille pattern dots-5)⠖ (braille pattern dots-235)⠒ (braille pattern dots-25)
Character information
Preview 𛅑 𛅥
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
Character information
Preview 🋃
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]
  1. ^ 京都ゑびす神社
  2. ^ Unicode Consortium (2015-12-02) [1994-03-08]. "Shift-JIS to Unicode".
  3. ^ Unicode Consortium; IBM. "EUC-JP-2007". International Components for Unicode.
  4. ^ a b Standardization Administration of China (SAC) (2005-11-18). GB 18030-2005: Information Technology—Chinese coded character set.
  5. ^ Unicode Consortium; IBM. "IBM-970". International Components for Unicode.
  6. ^ Steele, Shawn (2000). "cp949 to Unicode table". Microsoft / Unicode Consortium.
  7. ^ Unicode Consortium (2015-12-02) [1994-02-11]. "BIG5 to Unicode table (complete)".
  8. ^ van Kesteren, Anne. "big5". Encoding Standard. WHATWG.
  9. ^ Apple Computer (2005-04-05) [1995-04-15]. "Map (external version) from Mac OS Japanese encoding to Unicode 2.1 and later". Unicode Consortium.
  10. ^ Project X0213 (2009-05-03). "Shift_JIS-2004 (JIS X 0213:2004 Appendix 1) vs Unicode mapping table".
  11. ^ Project X0213 (2009-05-03). "EUC-JIS-2004 (JIS X 0213:2004 Appendix 3) vs Unicode mapping table".

See also

[edit]