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(: , : ) is a nearly-obsolete Japanese (Japanese phonetic characters, each of which represents one
mora Mora may refer to: People * Mora (surname) Places Sweden * Mora, Säter, Sweden * Mora, Sweden, the seat of Mora Municipality * Mora Municipality, Sweden United States * Mora, Louisiana, an unincorporated community * Mora, Minnesota, a city * M ...
). The combination of a W-column kana letter with in was introduced to represent iin the 19th century and 20th century. It is presumed that represented , and that and represented distinct pronunciations before merging to some time between the
Kamakura is a city in Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan. Kamakura has an estimated population of 172,929 (1 September 2020) and a population density of 4,359 persons per km² over the total area of . Kamakura was designated as a city on 3 November 1939. Kamak ...
and Taishō periods. Along with the for ( in , in ), this was deemed obsolete in Japanese with the orthographic reforms of 1946, to be replaced by in all contexts. It is now rare in everyday usage; in onomatopoeia and foreign words, the form (U- mall-i is preferred. The still sees some modern-day usage, however. The spelling of whisky is usually , but is sometimes written stylistically, such as . The name of the comedy duo
Yoiko is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Yūgo Ishikawa. It was serialized in Shogakukan's ''seinen'' manga magazine ''Weekly Big Comic Spirits'' from 1996 to 2001, with its chapters collected in fifteen ''tankōbon'' volumes. ...
is written , a character in the video game series ''
Touhou Project The , also known simply as , is a bullet hell shoot 'em up video game series created by one-man independent Japanese ''doujin'' soft developer Team Shanghai Alice. Since 1995, the team's member, Jun'ya "ZUN" Ōta, has independently developed ...
'' has the name (Tewi) and the first opening theme to the Future Diary anime series is titled (Kuusou Mesorogiwi). The is sometimes written with a , , to represent a sound in foreign words; however, most
IME Ime is a village in Lindesnes municipality in Agder county, Norway. The village is located on the east side of the river Mandalselva, along the European route E39 highway. Ime is an eastern suburb of the town of Mandal. Ime might be considered ...
s lack a convenient way to do this. It is far more common for /vi/ to be represented by the combination . is still used in one of the Okinawan orthographies, New Okinawan, for the syllable and in digraphs for . In the Ryukyu University system, the is used for , while is . The is also used in
Ainu Ainu or Aynu may refer to: *Ainu people, an East Asian ethnic group of Japan and the Russian Far East *Ainu languages, a family of languages **Ainu language of Hokkaido **Kuril Ainu language, extinct language of the Kuril Islands **Sakhalin Ainu la ...
for .


History


Nara period (710 – 794 AD)

During the Nara period, ヰ was pronounced as iand イ as In the Man'yōgana, there were characters to represent ヰ (e.g. 井, 位, 爲, 猪, 謂, 藍) and イ (e.g. 已, 五, 以, 伊, 怡, 射, 移, 異); no characters for one could be used to pronounce the other. The labial glides ク ʷiand グ ʷialso existed (though in those days small script kana were not used for glides), and were distinct from キ iand ギ i


Heian Period (794 – 1184 AD)

During the Heian period, ゐ and い were still recognized as separately pronounced characters. In the mid-to-late 11th century, the Iroha song was developed, and い, え, and お (''i'', ''e'', and ''o'') were differentiated from ゐ, ゑ, and を (''wi'', ''we'', and ''wo''). In the Gojūon ordering (developed around 1075 by the scholar Hirotomo, based on the Siddhaṃ script), there were no sounds for “yi”, “ye”, “wu”, or “wo”. Although the distinction had been lost between オ (''o'') and ヲ (''wo'') as well as 𛀀 (''e'') and エ (''ye''), there was still a distinction between ア/ワ (''a/wa''), イ/ヰ (''i/wi''), and 𛀀/ヱ (''e/we''). In Ki no Tsurayuki's literary work, the
Tosa Nikki The ''Tosa Nikki'' (''Tosa Diary'' 土佐日記) is a poetic diary written anonymously by the tenth-century Japanese poet Ki no Tsurayuki. The text details a 55-day journey in 935 returning to Kyoto from Tosa province, where Tsurayuki had been the ...
(originally written in 935, transcribed in 1236), the phrase “海賊報いせむ” (''kaizoku mukui semu'') is written as “かいぞくむくゐせむ” (''kaizoku mukuwi semu''), with ゐ where い should be. In this way, examples of confusion between ゐ and い were emerging, little by little; however, during the Heian period these confusions were few and far between. Since the Nara period, /h/ began to be pronounced as in word-medial position; by the beginning of the 11th century, this phenomenon, called the "Ha-line shift", had become more widespread. In word-medial or word-final position, ひ iwould be pronounced i therefore becoming the same as ゐ. Because of this, the use of ひ and ゐ also became confused. At the end of the 12th century, the literary work “Shinkyō Shiki Chū” (which contained katakana, from the last years of the Insei period) attests examples of ゐ and い losing their distinction, such as “率て” (''wite'') being written “イテ” (''ite''). Furthermore, in Heian period literature, special kanji readings such as “クヰヤウ” ʷʲauand “ヰヤウ” ʲauwere used, but were not well established.


Kamakura Period (1185–1333 AD)

By the
Kamakura period The is a period of Japanese history that marks the governance by the Kamakura shogunate, officially established in 1192 in Kamakura by the first ''shōgun'' Minamoto no Yoritomo after the conclusion of the Genpei War, which saw the struggle betwee ...
, the confusion between ゐ and い had become even more widespread, and by the 13th century, ゐ and い were unified. By changing from ito ゐ had merged into い. Also, kanji that were represented by クヰ and グヰ had become pronounced iand irespectively, merging them with キ and ギ. Due to the Ha-line shift as well as the merging of a number of syllables, soon there were many kana pronounced the same way, and kana orthography was in chaos.
Fujiwara no Teika , better-known as Fujiwara no Teika"Sadaie" and "Teika" are both possible readings of ; "...there is the further problem, the rendition of the name in romanized form. Teika probably referred to himself as Sadaie, and his father probably called ...
(1162–1241), in the “Unpleasant Characters” (嫌文字事) section of Gekanshū (a poetry volume), established rules for about 60 words containing を/お, え/へ/ゑ, and い/ひ/ゐ, based on a number of writings from the mid-11th to 12th century. However, the books that Teika had referenced already contained a number of confusions, with ひ becoming ゐ, such as 遂 (formerly “つひ” ''tsuhi'') being represented as “つゐ” (''tsuwi'') and 宵 (formerly “よひ” ''yohi'') being represented as “よゐ” (''yowi''); い becoming either ひ or ゐ, such as 老い (historically “おい” ''oi'') being represented as “おゐ” (''owi'') or “おひ” (''ohi''); and various other spellings differing from their original pronunciation. Teika's syllabary particularly drew from poetry such as ''waka'' and '' renga'', but a number of examples of confusion between い, ゐ, and word-medial/final ひ were also frequently pulled from other sources.


Muromachi Period (1333–1573 AD)

In the Nanboku-chō period, the scholar Gyōa published the ''Kanamojizukai'' (Kana Character Syllabary, completed in 1363), drastically augmenting the lexicon by over 1000 words. Though the ''Kanamojizukai'' was generally as widely accepted as Teika's syllabary, in practice there were a number of kana pronunciations that did not conform to it. In Christian rōmaji documents from the 16th century (the later part of the Muromachi period), ゐ and い were written with either “i”, “j”, or “y”, but the pronunciation was understood to be in any case.


Stroke order

The Hiragana ゐ is made with one
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 ...
. It resembles the second stroke of the Hiragana , with an additional short horizontal line at the start. The Katakana ヰ is made with four strokes: # A horizontal line. # A vertical line. # A horizontal line. # A vertical line.


Other communicative representations

* Full Braille representation * Computer encodings


See also

*
U (kana) 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. In ...
*
I (kana) I (い in hiragana or イ in katakana) is one of the Japanese kana each of which represents one mora. い is based on the sōsho style of the kanji character 以, and イ is from the radical (left part) of the kanji character 伊. In the modern ...


References


External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Wi (Kana) Specific kana