Japanese writing The modern Japanese writing system uses a combination of logographic kanji, which are adopted Chinese characters, and syllabic kana. Kana itself consists of a pair of syllabaries: hiragana, used primarily for native or naturalised Japanese wor ...

, the kana え ( hiragana) and エ ( katakana) (

romanised Romanization or romanisation, in linguistics, is the conversion of text from a different writing system to the Roman (Latin) script, or a system for doing so. Methods of romanization include transliteration, for representing written text, and ...

''e'') occupy the fourth place, between

う U (う in hiragana or ウ in katakana) is one of the Japanese kana, each of which represents one mora. In the modern Japanese system of alphabetical order, they occupy the third place in the modern Gojūon (五十音) system of collating kana. ...

and

お In Japanese writing, the kana お ( hiragana) and オ ( katakana) occupy the fifth place, between え and か, in the modern Gojūon (五十音) system of collating kana. In the Iroha, they occupy the 27th, between の and く. In the tabl ...

, in the modern Gojūon (五十音) system of

collating Collation is the assembly of written information into a standard order. Many systems of collation are based on numerical order or alphabetical order, or extensions and combinations thereof. Collation is a fundamental element of most office filin ...

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"). Both represent .

Derivation

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

ゑ in , or in , is a nearly obsolete Japanese . The combination of a W-column kana letter with in was introduced to represent ein the 19th century and 20th century. It is presumed that represented , and that and indicated different pronun ...

(we), as well as many non-initial occurrences of the character

へへ, in hiragana, or ヘ in katakana, is one of the Japanese kana The term may refer to a number of syllabaries used to write Japanese phonological units, morae. Such syllabaries include (1) the original kana, or , which were Chinese c ...

(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

をを, in hiragana, or ヲ in katakana, is one of the Japanese kana, each of which represents one mora. The combination of a W-column kana letter with ゛を゙ in hiragana was introduced to represent oin the 19th century and 20th century. Mo ...

(wo), which are pronounced "wa" and "o" when used as grammatical particles. For the kana romanized sometimes as "e", see

we (kana) in , or in , is a nearly obsolete Japanese . The combination of a W-column kana letter with in was introduced to represent ein the 19th century and 20th century. It is presumed that represented , and that and indicated different pro ...

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). In several

Okinawan writing system Okinawan, spoken in Okinawa Island, was once the official language of the Ryukyu Kingdom. At the time, documents were written in kanji and hiragana, derived from Japan. Although generally agreed among linguists to be a distinct language, most ...

s, a small ぇ is also combined with the kana く(''ku'') and ふ (''fu'' or ''hu'') to form the digraphs くぇ ''kwe'' and ふぇ ''hwe''.

Transliteration

In the

Hepburn Hepburn may refer to: Surname People with the surname Hepburn (the most famous in recent times being actresses Katharine Hepburn and Audrey Hepburn): * Hepburn (surname) Linguistics * Hepburn romanization, a system for the romanization of Japa ...

, Kunrei-shiki and Nihon-shiki systems of romanization, both え and エ are transliterated as " e". In the

Polivanov Polivanov () is a Russian surname. Notable people with the surname include: *Alexei Polivanov (1855–1920) Russian military general *Mikhail Polivanov (1930–1992) Russian theoretical physicist *Yevgeny Polivanov (1891–1938) Russian linguist, O ...

system of

cyrillization Cyrillization or Cyrillisation is the process of rendering words of a language that normally uses a writing system other than Cyrillic script into (a version of) the Cyrillic alphabets, Cyrillic alphabet. Although such a process has often been ca ...

, the kana are transliterated as " э".

Stroke order

The hiragana え is made with two

stroke A stroke is a medical condition in which poor blood flow to the brain causes cell death. There are two main types of stroke: ischemic, due to lack of blood flow, and hemorrhagic, due to bleeding. Both cause parts of the brain to stop functionin ...

s: #At the top, a short diagonal stroke proceeding downward and to the right. #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: # At the top, a horizontal stroke from left to right. # A downward vertical stroke starting in the center of the first stroke. # At the bottom, a horizontal stroke parallel to the first stroke, and touching the second. This stroke is usually slightly longer than the first. This is also the way to make the Latin letter "I" (although the correct upper case form does not look like the

lower case Letter case is the distinction between the letters that are in larger uppercase or capitals (or more formally ''majuscule'') and smaller lowercase (or more formally ''minuscule'') in the written representation of certain languages. The writing ...

Latin letter "l")

Other communicative representations

* Full Braille representation * Computer encodings :* Archaic and Hentaigana

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:E (Kana) Specific kana