I (kana)


Hiragana
Katakana
Transliteration: i
Hiragana Man'yōgana: 以
Katakana Man'yōgana: 伊
Unicode: U+3044, U+30A4
kana gojūon
n wa ra ya ma ha na ta sa ka a
sokuon wi ri mi hi ni chi shi ki i
dakuten ru yu mu fu nu tsu su ku u
chōonpu we re me he ne te se ke e
wo ro yo mo ho no to so ko o

い in hiragana or イ in katakana (romanised as i) is one of the Japanese kana each of which represents one mora. い is based on the sōsho style of the kanji character 以, and イ is from the radical (left part) of the kanji character 伊. In the modern Japanese system of alphabetical order, it occupies the second position of the alphabet, between あ and う. Additionally, it is the first letter in Iroha, before ろ. In order to write the hiragana い, draw a curve, not entirely unlike a parenthesis, downward stroke with a hook, and then draw a smaller, floating curve to the right side. Both represent the sound [i]. In the Ainu language, katakana イ is written as y in their Latin-based alphabet, and a small ィ after another katakana represents a diphthong.

Form Rōmaji Hiragana Katakana
Normal a/i/u/e/o
(あ行 a-gyō)		 I い イ
Ī いい, いぃ
いー		 イイ, イィ
イー
Other additional forms
Form (y-)
Rōmaji Hiragana Katakana
Ye いぇ イェ イェロウ Yerō Yellow

Contents

Variant forms

Scaled-down versions of the kana (ぃ, ィ) are used to express sounds foreign to the Japanese language, such as フィ (fi).

Origin

The い comes from the left part of the Kanji 以, while the イ origins from the right part of it.[1]

Stroke order

The Hiragana い is made in two strokes:

  1. At the top left, a curved vertical stroke, ending with a hook at the bottom.
  2. At the top right, a shorter stroke, slightly curving in the opposite direction.

The Katakana イ is made in two strokes:

  1. At the top, a curved diagonal line going from right to left.
  2. In the center of the last stroke, a vertical line going down.

Other communicative representations

In Japanese Braille, い or イ is represented as:

● －
● －
－ －

The Morse code for い or イ, is ・－.

In Japanese phonetic alphabet, one would say "いろはのイ" (Iroha no I.)

Footnotes

  1. ^ Where do the kana come from