Wa (kana)


Hiragana

Katakana
Transliteration: wa
Hiragana Man'yōgana:
Katakana Man'yōgana:
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

, in hiragana, or in katakana, is one of the Japanese kana, which each represent one mora. It represents [wa] and has origins in the character 和. There is also a small ゎ/ヮ, that is used to write the morae /kwa/ and /gwa/ (くゎ, ぐゎ), which are obsolete in contemporary standard Japanese but still exist in the Ryukyuan languages. Katakana ワ is also sometimes written with dakuten, ヷ, to represent a /va/ sound in foreign words; however, most IMEs lack a convenient way to write this. It is far more common to represent the /va/ sound with the combination ヴァ.

Form Rōmaji Hiragana Katakana
Normal w-
(わ行 wa-gyō)
wa
waa
, wah
わあ, わぁ
わー
ワア, ワァ
ワー

The kana は (ha) is read as “wa” when it represents a particle.