Wi (kana)

Wi (hiragana: ゐ, katakana: ヰ) is a nearly obsolete Japanese kana, each of which represent one mora. The combination of an W-column kana letter with ゛ ゐ゙ in hiragana was introduced to represent [vi] in the 19th century and 20th century. It is presumed that ゐ represented [ɰi] (listen) and that ゐ and い indicated different pronunciations until somewhere between the Kamakura period and the Taishō period when they both came to be pronounced [i]. Along with the kana for we (ゑ in hiragana, ヱ in katakana), this kana was deemed obsolete in Japanese in 1946, and replaced with い and イ. It is now rare in everyday usage; in onomatopoeia and foreign words, the katakana form ウィ (U-[small-i]) is preferred.

wi
hiragana
katakana
transliterationi, wi
hiragana origin
katakana origin
Man'yōgana位 為 謂 井 猪 藍
spelling kanaゐどのヰ (W)ido no "(w)i"
unicodeU+3090, U+30F0
braille

The kana still sees some modern-day usage. The spelling of whisky is usually "ウイスキー" (uisukī), but sometimes written "ウヰスキー" (uwisukī) stylistically, such as Nikka Whisky (ニッカウヰスキー, nikka uwisukī). The name of the comedy duo Yoiko is written "よゐこ" (yowiko), a character in the video game series Touhou Project has the name "てゐ" (Tewi) and the first opening theme to the Future Diary anime series is titled "空想メソロギヰ" (Kuusou Mesorogiwi). Katakana ヰ is sometimes written with a dakuten, ヸ, to represent a /vi/ sound in foreign words; however, most IMEs lack a convenient way to do this. It is far more common for /vi/ to be represented by the combination ヴィ.

Hiragana ゐ is still used in one of the Okinawan orthographies, New Okinawan, for the syllable /wi/ and in digraphs for /kwi, ɡwi/. In the Ryukyu University system, katakana ヰ is used for /i/, while い is /ʔi/. Katakana ヰ is also used in Ainu for /wi/.

History

Nara period (710 – 794 AD)

During the Nara period, ヰ was pronounced as [wi] and イ as [i]. In the Man'yōgana, there were characters to represent ヰ (e.g. 井, 位, 爲, 猪, 謂, 藍) and イ (e.g. 已, 五, 以, 伊, 怡, 射, 移, 異); no characters for one could be used to pronounce the other. The labial glides ク [kʷi] and グ [gʷi] also existed (though in those days small script kana were not used for glides), and were distinct from キ [ki] and ギ [gi].

Heian Period (794 – 1184 AD)

During the Heian period, ゐ and い were still recognized as separately pronounced characters. In the mid-to-late 11th century, the Iroha song was developed, and い, え, and お (i, e, and o) were differentiated from ゐ, ゑ, and を (wi, we, and wo). In the Gojūon ordering (developed around 1075 by the scholar Hirotomo, based on the Siddhaṃ script), there were no sounds for “yi”, “ye”, “wu”, or “wo”. Although the distinction had been lost between オ (o) and ヲ (wo), there was still a distinction between ア/ワ (a/wa), イ/ヰ (i/wi), and エ/ヱ (e/we).

In Ki no Tsurayuki's literary work, the Tosa Nikki (originally written in 935, transcribed in 1236), the phrase “海賊報いせむ” (kaizoku mukui semu) is written as “かいぞくむくせむ” (kaizoku mukuwi semu), with ゐ where い should be. In this way, examples of confusion between ゐ and い were emerging, little by little; however, during the Heian period these confusions were few and far between.

Since the Nara period, /h/ began to be pronounced as [w] in word-medial position; by the beginning of the 11th century, this phenomenon, called the "Ha-line shift", had become more widespread. In word-medial or word-final position, ひ [ɸi] would be pronounced [wi], therefore becoming the same as ゐ. Because of this, the use of ひ and ゐ also became confused.

At the end of the 12th century, the literary work “Shinkyō Shiki Chū” (which contained katakana, from the last years of the Insei period) attests examples of ゐ and い losing their distinction, such as “率て” (wite) being written “イテ” (ite).

Furthermore, in Heian period literature, special kanji readings such as “クヰヤウ” [kʷʲau] and “ヰヤウ” [wʲau] were used, but were not well established.

Kamakura Period (1185–1333 AD)

By the Kamakura period, the confusion between ゐ and い had become even more widespread, and by the 13th century, ゐ and い were unified. By changing from [wi] to [i], ゐ had merged into い. Also, kanji that were represented by クヰ and グヰ had become pronounced [ki] and [gi] respectively, merging them with キ and ギ.

Due to the Ha-line shift as well as the merging of a number of syllables, soon there were many kana pronounced the same way, and kana orthography was in chaos. Fujiwara no Teika (1162–1241), in the “Unpleasant Characters” (嫌文字事) section of Gekanshū (a poetry volume), established rules for about 60 words containing を/お, え/へ/ゑ, and い/ひ/ゐ, based on a number of writings from the mid-11th to 12th century. However, the books that Teika had referenced already contained a number of confusions, with ひ becoming ゐ, such as 遂 (formerly “つひ” tsuhi) being represented as “つゐ” (tsuwi) and 宵 (formerly “よひ” yohi) being represented as “よゐ” (yowi); い becoming either ひ or ゐ, such as 老い (historically “おい” oi) being represented as “おゐ” (owi) or “おひ” (ohi); and various other spellings differing from their original pronunciation. Teika's syllabary particularly drew from poetry such as waka and renga, but a number of examples of confusion between い, ゐ, and word-medial/final ひ were also frequently pulled from other sources.

Muromachi Period (1333–1573 AD)

In the Nanboku-chō period, the scholar Gyōa published the Kanamojizukai (Kana Character Syllabary, completed in 1363), drastically augmenting the lexicon by over 1000 words. Though the Kanamojizukai was generally as widely accepted as Teika's syllabary, in practice there were a number of kana pronunciations that did not conform to it.

In Christian rōmaji documents from the 16th century (the later part of the Muromachi period), ゐ and い were written with either “i”, “j”, or “y”, but the pronunciation was understood to be [i] in any case.

Stroke order

Stroke order in writing ゐ
Stroke order in writing ヰ
Stroke order in writing あ

The Hiragana ゐ is made with one stroke. It resembles the second stroke of the Hiragana , with an additional short horizontal line at the start.

Stroke order in writing ヰ

The Katakana ヰ is made with four strokes:

  1. A horizontal line.
  2. A vertical line.
  3. A horizontal line.
  4. A vertical line.

Other communicative representations

  • Full Braille representation
ゐ / ヰ in Japanese Braille
ゐ / ヰ
wi

vi
ゐい / ヰー
ヸー
 
Character information
Preview𛅐
Unicode nameHIRAGANA LETTER WIKATAKANA LETTER WIHIRAGANA LETTER SMALL WI
Encodingsdecimalhexdecimalhexdecimalhex
Unicode12432U+309012528U+30F0110928U+1B150
UTF-8227 130 144E3 82 90227 131 176E3 83 B0240 155 133 144F0 9B 85 90
UTF-161243230901252830F055340 56656D82C DD50
Numeric character referenceゐゐヰヰ𛅐𛅐
Shift JIS[1]130 23882 EE131 14483 90
EUC-JP[2]164 240A4 F0165 240A5 F0
GB 18030[3]164 240A4 F0165 240A5 F0147 54 132 5093 36 84 32
EUC-KR[4] / UHC[5]170 240AA F0171 240AB F0
Big5 (non-ETEN kana)[6]198 244C6 F4199 170C7 AA
Big5 (ETEN / HKSCS)[7]199 119C7 77199 236C7 EC
Character information
Preview𛅤
Unicode nameKATAKANA LETTER SMALL WIKATAKANA LETTER VICIRCLED KATAKANA WI
Encodingsdecimalhexdecimalhexdecimalhex
Unicode110948U+1B16412536U+30F813052U+32FC
UTF-8240 155 133 164F0 9B 85 A4227 131 184E3 83 B8227 139 188E3 8B BC
UTF-1655340 56676D82C DD641253630F81305232FC
Numeric character reference𛅤𛅤ヸヸ㋼㋼
Shift JIS (KanjiTalk 7)[8]136 10788 6B
Shift JIS (JIS X 0213)[9]132 14784 93
EUC-JP (JIS X 0213)[10]167 243A7 F3
GB 18030[3]147 54 134 5093 36 86 32129 57 167 5481 39 A7 36

See also

References

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