In Japanese writing, the

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 characters (kanji) used phonetically to transcribe Japanese, the most p ...

お (

hiragana is a Japanese syllabary, part of the Japanese writing system, along with ''katakana'' as well as ''kanji''. It is a phonetic lettering system. The word ''hiragana'' literally means "flowing" or "simple" kana ("simple" originally as contrast ...

) and オ (

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 rōmaji). The word ''katakana'' means "fragmentary kana", as the katakana characters are derived f ...

) occupy the fifth place, between え and

か Ka (hiragana: か, katakana: カ) is one of the Japanese kana, which each represent one mora. Both represent . The shapes of these kana both originate from 加. The character can be combined with a dakuten, to form が in hiragana, ガ in kat ...

, in the modern

Gojūon In the Japanese language, the is a traditional system ordering kana characters by their component phonemes, roughly analogous to alphabetical order. The "fifty" (''gojū'') in its name refers to the 5×10 grid in which the characters are disp ...

(五十音) system of collating

. In the

Iroha The is a Japanese poem. Originally the poem was attributed to the founder of the Shingon Esoteric sect of Buddhism in Japan, Kūkai, but more modern research has found the date of composition to be later in the Heian period (794–1179). Th ...

, they occupy the 27th, between の and く. In the table at right (ordered by columns, from right to left), お lies in the first column (あ行, "column A") and the fifth row (お段, "row O"). Both represent .

Derivation

お and オ originate, via

man'yōgana is an ancient writing system that uses Chinese characters to represent the Japanese language. It was the first known kana system to be developed as a means to represent the Japanese language phonetically. The date of the earliest usage of thi ...

, from the

kanji are the logographic Chinese characters taken from the Chinese family of scripts, Chinese script and used in the writing of Japanese language, Japanese. They were made a major part of the Japanese writing system during the time of Old Japanese ...

於.

Variant forms

Scaled-down versions of the kana (ぉ, ォ) are used to express morae foreign to the Japanese language, such as フォ (fo).

Stroke order

The hiragana お is made with three strokes: #A horizontal line from left to right. #A stroke consisting of a vertical line, a small diagonal line going upwards and to the left, and an open curve heading right and downwards. #A small curved stroke on the right. The katakana オ is made with three strokes: # At the top, a horizontal stroke from left to right. # A downward vertical stroke cutting through the first stroke, with a small hook at the end facing left. # At the intersection of the first two strokes, a diagonal line going downwards and to the left.

Other communicative representations

* Full Braille representation When lengthening "-o" syllables in Japanese braille, a chōon is always used, as in standard katakana usage instead of adding an お / オ. * Computer encodings

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:O (Kana) Specific kana