We (kana)

in hiragana, or in katakana, is a nearly obsolete Japanese kana. The combination of an W-column kana letter with ゛ゑ゙ in hiragana was introduced to represent [ve] in the 19th century and 20th century.

we
hiragana
katakana
transliteratione, we
hiragana origin
katakana origin
Man'yōgana廻 恵 面 咲
unicodeU+3091, U+30F1
braille

It is presumed that ゑ represented [ɰe] (listen) and that ゑ and え indicated different pronunciations until somewhere between the Kamakura period and the Taishō period when they both came to be pronounced as イェ [je] (listen), later shifting to the modern エ [e]. 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 preferred, as in "ウェスト" for "west".

The kana still sees some modern-day usage. Ebisu is usually written "えびす", but sometimes "ゑびす" like Kyōto Ebisu Shrine (京都ゑびす神社, Kyōto Ebisu 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, Evangerion Shin Gekijōban). 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 combination ヴェ is far more common.

Hiragana ゑ is still used in several Okinawan orthographies for the syllable /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

Stroke order in writing ゑ
Stroke order in writing ヱ
Stroke order in writing ゑ

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

Stroke order in writing ヱ

The Katakana ヱ 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

  • Full Braille representation
ゑ / ヱ in Japanese Braille
ゑ / ヱ
we

ve
ゑい / ヱー
/wei
ヹー
/vei
Character information
Preview𛅑
Unicode nameHIRAGANA LETTER WEKATAKANA LETTER WEHIRAGANA LETTER SMALL WE
Encodingsdecimalhexdecimalhexdecimalhex
Unicode12433U+309112529U+30F1110929U+1B151
UTF-8227 130 145E3 82 91227 131 177E3 83 B1240 155 133 145F0 9B 85 91
UTF-161243330911252930F155340 56657D82C DD51
Numeric character referenceゑゑヱヱ𛅑𛅑
Shift JIS[2]130 23982 EF131 14583 91
EUC-JP[3]164 241A4 F1165 241A5 F1
GB 18030[4]164 241A4 F1165 241A5 F1147 54 132 5193 36 84 33
EUC-KR[5] / UHC[6]170 241AA F1171 241AB F1
Big5 (non-ETEN kana)[7]198 245C6 F5199 171C7 AB
Big5 (ETEN / HKSCS)[8]199 120C7 78199 237C7 ED
Character information
Preview𛅥
Unicode nameKATAKANA LETTER SMALL WEKATAKANA LETTER VECIRCLED KATAKANA WE
Encodingsdecimalhexdecimalhexdecimalhex
Unicode110949U+1B16512537U+30F913053U+32FD
UTF-8240 155 133 165F0 9B 85 A5227 131 185E3 83 B9227 139 189E3 8B BD
UTF-1655340 56677D82C DD651253730F91305332FD
Numeric character reference𛅥𛅥ヹヹ㋽㋽
Shift JIS (KanjiTalk 7)[9]136 10888 6C
Shift JIS (JIS X 0213)[10]132 14884 94
EUC-JP (JIS X 0213)[11]167 244A7 F4
GB 18030[4]147 54 134 5193 36 86 33129 57 167 5581 39 A7 37

References

See also

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