We (kana)

we
Hiragana Katakana
Transliteration	e, we
Hiragana origin	恵
Katakana origin	恵
Braille
Unicode	U+3091, U+30F1
Semaphore
kana gojūon
wa ra ya ma ha na ta sa ka a wi ri mi hi ni chi shi ki i n ru yu mu fu nu tsu su ku u we re me he ne te se ke e wo ro yo mo ho no to so ko o
sokuon dakuten chōonpu

ゑ, in hiragana, or ヱ in katakana, is a nearly obsolete Japanese kana.

It is presumed that ゑ represented [we] ( listen). It is thought that, after ゑ and え came to denote the same pronunciation as イェ [je] ( listen) in the Kamakura period, they came to be pronounced as the modern エ [e]^{[citation needed]}; there is also the view that the pronunciation difference between the two kana remained until the Taishō period.

Along with the kana for wi (ゐ in hiragana, ヰ in katakana), this kana became obsolete in 1946 for Japanese, and is now rare in everyday usage; in onomatopoeia or foreign words, the katakana form ウェ (we) is preferred (as, ウェスト for "west"). One modern-day usage of this kana is in the name of the beer Yebisu, which is actually pronounced "Ebisu", and is occasionally written "ヱビス" or "ゑびす". 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. The combination ヴェ is far more commonly used.

Hiragana ゑ is still used in several Okinawan orthographies for the syllable /we/. In the Ryukyu 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

Other Representations

• Computer encodings

ゑ / ヱ in Japanese Braille
ゑ / ヱ we	ヹ ve	ゑい / ヱー wē/wei	ヹー vē/vei

See also

• U (kana)
• E (kana)

Look up ゑ or ヱ in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.