Ye (
hiragana
is a Japanese language, Japanese syllabary, part of the Japanese writing system, along with ''katakana'' as well as ''kanji''.
It is a phonetic lettering system. The word ''hiragana'' means "common" or "plain" kana (originally also "easy", ...
: ,
katakana
is a Japanese syllabary, one component of the Japanese writing system along with hiragana, kanji and in some cases the Latin script (known as rลmaji).
The word ''katakana'' means "fragmentary kana", as the katakana characters are derived fr ...
: , sometimes distinguished as ) is a Japanese
mora or a
kana
are syllabary, syllabaries used to write Japanese phonology, Japanese phonological units, Mora (linguistics), morae. In current usage, ''kana'' most commonly refers to ''hiragana'' and ''katakana''. It can also refer to their ancestor , wh ...
used to write it, no longer in standard use.
[Iannacone, Jake (2020)]
"Reply to The Origin of Hiragana /wu/ ๅนณไปฎๅใฎใ่กใใฎๅญๆบใซๅฏพใใๆฐใใช็บ่ฆ"
/ref> ็๐ใ (payesu) is an old Japanese word, which is assumed to be the intransitive form of ็ใ (payu; to sprout.) It is one of the only words that uses the "๐" kana.
History
It is presumed that would have represented . In the 10th century, ''e'' and ''ye'' progressively merged into ''ye'', and then during the Edo period the pronunciation changed from /je/ to /e/.
However, during the Meiji period, linguists almost unanimously agreed on the kana for ''yi'', ''ye'', and ''wu''. and are thought to have never occurred as morae in Japanese, and was merged with and .
Characters
Nara periodโHeian period
Japanese people separated ''e'' and ''ye'' in Man'yลgana, early Hiragana and early Katakana.
After that, ''e'' and ''ye'' merged into ''ye'' in the 10th century, before eventually evolving back to ''e''.[Frellesvig, Bjarke (1995). ''A Case Study in Diachronic Phonology: The Japanese Onbin Sound Changes''. Aarhus University Press. p. 73]
Edo periodโMeiji period
In the Edo period and the Meiji period, some Japanese linguists tried to separate kana ''e'' and kana ''ye'' again. The shapes of characters differed with each linguist. ๐ and ๐ก were just two of many shapes.
They were phonetic symbols to fill in the blanks of gojuon table. Japanese people didn't separate them in normal writing.
These suggestions weren't accepted.
Unicode
The hiragana version is encoded as HIRAGANA LETTER ARCHAIC YE (with the normative alias of HENTAIGANA LETTER E-1) in the position U+1B001. The katakana version is encoded as KATAKANA LETTER ARCHAIC YE, in the position of U+1B121.
References
See also
* Early Middle Japanese
is a stage of the Japanese language between 794 and 1185, which is known as the Heian period (). The successor to Old Japanese (), it is also known as Late Old Japanese. However, the term "Early Middle Japanese" is preferred, as it is closer to ...
* Old Japanese
is the oldest attested stage of the Japanese language, recorded in documents from the Nara period (8th century). It became Early Middle Japanese in the succeeding Heian period, but the precise delimitation of the stages is controversial.
Old Ja ...
* Yi (kana)
Yi (hiragana: , katakana: ) is a Japanese mora or a kana
are syllabary, syllabaries used to write Japanese phonology, Japanese phonological units, Mora (linguistics), morae. In current usage, ''kana'' most commonly refers to ''hir ...
* Wu (kana)
Specific kana
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