E (kana)

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The hiragana え.

The katakana エ

	kana - gojūon
n	wa	ra	ya	ma	ha	na	ta	sa	ka	a
tsu	wi	ri		mi	hi	ni	chi	shi	ki	i
゛		ru	yu	mu	fu	nu	tsu	su	ku	u
ー	we	re		me	he	ne	te	se	ke	e
	wo	ro	yo	mo	ho	no	to	so	ko	o

In Japanese writing, the kana え (hiragana) and エ (katakana) (romanised e) occupy the fourth place, between う and お, in the modern Gojūon (五十音) system of collating kana. In the Iroha, they occupy the 34th, between こ and て. In the table at right (ordered by columns, from right to left), え lies in the first column (あ行, "column A") and the fourth row (え段, "row E").

Their pronunciation is normally transcribed [e]; more precisely, it is [e̞] or [ɛ̝].

Form	Rōmaji	Hiragana	Katakana
Normal a/i/u/e/o (あ行 a-gyō)	e	え	エ
	ei ee ē	えい, えぃ ええ, えぇ えー	エイ, エィ エエ, エェ エー

Contents 1 Derivation 2 Variant forms 3 Transliteration 4 Strokes 5 Representations in other writing systems

[edit] Derivation

え and エ originate, via man'yōgana, from the kanji 衣 and 江, respectively.

The archaic kana ゑ (we), as well as many non-initial occurrences of the character へ (he), have entered the modern Japanese language as え. The directional particle へ is today pronounced "e", though not written as え. Compare this to は (ha) and を (wo), which are pronounced "wa" and "o" when used as grammatical particles.

[edit] Variant forms

Scaled-down versions of the kana (ぇ, ェ) are used to express morae foreign to the Japanese language, such as ヴェ (ve).

[edit] Transliteration

In the Hepburn, Kunrei-shiki and Nihon-shiki systems of romanization, both え and エ are transliterated as "e". In the Polivanov system of cyrillization, the kana are transliterated as "э".

[edit] Strokes

The hiragana え is made with two strokes:

1. At the top, a short diagonal stroke proceeding downward and to the right.
2. At the bottom, a stroke composed of a horizontal line, a diagonal proceeding downward and to the left, and a rightward stroke resembling a tilde (~).

The katakana エ is made with three strokes:

1. At the top, a horizontal stroke from right to left.
2. A downward vertical stroke starting in the center of the first stroke.
3. At the bottom, a horizontal stroke parallel to the first stroke, and touching the second. This stroke is usually slightly longer than the first.

[edit] Representations in other writing systems

• Braille:

●● ●－ －－

• Phonetic alphabet: 「英語のエ」 ("e as in eigo")
• Morse code: －・－－－