We (kana)

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

we
hiragana katakana
transliteration	e, we
hiragana origin	恵
katakana origin	恵
unicode	U+3091, U+30F1
braille

It is presumed that ゑ represented [ɰe] (listen) and that ゑ and え indicated different pronunciations until somewhere between the Kamakura period and the Taishō period when they both came to be pronounced as イェ [je] (listen), later shifting to the modern エ [e]. Along with the kana for wi (ゐ in hiragana, ヰ in katakana), this kana was deemed obsolete in Japanese in 1946 and replaced with え and エ. It is now rare in everyday usage; in onomatopoeia or foreign words, the katakana form ウェ (U-[small-e]) is preferred, as in "ウェスト" for "west".

The kana still sees some modern-day usage. Ebisu is usually written "えびす", but sometimes "ゑびす" like Kyōto Ebisu Shrine (京都ゑびす神社, Kyōto Ebisu Jinja),[1] and name of the beer Yebisu (ヱビス), which is actually pronounced "Ebisu". The Japanese title of the Rebuild of Evangelion series is Evangelion: New Theatrical Edition (ヱヴァンゲリヲン新劇場版, Evangerion Shin Gekijōban). 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 and the combination ヴェ is far more common.

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

"Not to be confused with"... info

While being confused with E (kana) and We (kana) because their katakana are similar.

Stroke order

Stroke order in writing ゑ

Stroke order in writing ヱ

Stroke order in writing ゑ

The Hiragana ゑ is made with one stroke. It resembles a Hiragana る that continues with a double-humped ん shape underneath.

Stroke order in writing ヱ

The Katakana ヱ is made with three strokes:

1. A horizontal line that hooks down and to the left.
2. A vertical line, just grazing the end of the first stroke.
3. A long horizontal line across the bottom.

Other communicative representations

Japanese radiotelephony alphabet	Wabun code
かぎのあるヱ Kagi no aru "We"	▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄

Japanese Navy Signal Flag	Japanese semaphore	Japanese manual syllabary (fingerspelling)	Braille dots-235 Japanese Braille

• Full Braille representation

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

• Computer encodings

Character information

Preview	ゑ		ヱ		𛅑		𛅥		ヹ
Unicode name	HIRAGANA LETTER WE		KATAKANA LETTER WE		HIRAGANA LETTER SMALL WE		KATAKANA LETTER SMALL WE		KATAKANA LETTER VE
Encodings	decimal	hex	decimal	hex	decimal	hex	decimal	hex	decimal	hex
Unicode	12433	U+3091	12529	U+30F1	110929	U+1B151	110949	U+1B165	12537	U+30F9
UTF-8	227 130 145	E3 82 91	227 131 177	E3 83 B1	240 155 133 145	F0 9B 85 91	240 155 133 165	F0 9B 85 A5	227 131 185	E3 83 B9
UTF-16	12433	3091	12529	30F1	55340 56657	D82C DD51	55340 56677	D82C DD65	12537	30F9
Numeric character reference	ゑ	ゑ	ヱ	ヱ	𛅑	𛅑	𛅥	𛅥	ヹ	ヹ
Shift JIS (plain)[2]	130 239	82 EF	131 145	83 91
Shift JIS (KanjiTalk 7)[3]	130 239	82 EF	131 145	83 91					136 108	88 6C
Shift JIS-2004[4]	130 239	82 EF	131 145	83 91					132 148	84 94
EUC-JP (plain)[5]	164 241	A4 F1	165 241	A5 F1
EUC-JIS-2004[6]	164 241	A4 F1	165 241	A5 F1					167 244	A7 F4
GB 18030[7]	164 241	A4 F1	165 241	A5 F1	147 54 132 51	93 36 84 33	147 54 134 51	93 36 86 33	129 57 167 55	81 39 A7 37
EUC-KR[8] / UHC[9]	170 241	AA F1	171 241	AB F1
Big5 (non-ETEN kana)[10]	198 245	C6 F5	199 171	C7 AB
Big5 (ETEN / HKSCS)[11]	199 120	C7 78	199 237	C7 ED

References

1. 京都ゑびす神社
2. Unicode Consortium (2015-12-02) [1994-03-08]. "Shift-JIS to Unicode".
3. Apple Computer (2005-04-05) [1995-04-15]. "Map (external version) from Mac OS Japanese encoding to Unicode 2.1 and later". Unicode Consortium.
4. Project X0213 (2009-05-03). "Shift_JIS-2004 (JIS X 0213:2004 Appendix 1) vs Unicode mapping table".
5. Unicode Consortium; IBM. "EUC-JP-2007". International Components for Unicode.
6. Project X0213 (2009-05-03). "EUC-JIS-2004 (JIS X 0213:2004 Appendix 3) vs Unicode mapping table".
7. Standardization Administration of China (SAC) (2005-11-18). GB 18030-2005: Information Technology—Chinese coded character set.
8. Unicode Consortium; IBM. "IBM-970". International Components for Unicode.
9. Steele, Shawn (2000). "cp949 to Unicode table". Microsoft / Unicode Consortium.
10. Unicode Consortium (2015-12-02) [1994-02-11]. "BIG5 to Unicode table (complete)".
11. van Kesteren, Anne. "big5". Encoding Standard. WHATWG.

See also

• U (kana)
• E (kana)