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 ...

え (

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 エ (

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 ...

) (

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 table a ...

, 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 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 fili ...

. 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 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 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 ...

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 is spoken natively by about 128 million people, primarily by Japanese people and primarily in Japan, the only country where it is the national language. Japanese belongs to the Japonic or Japanese- Ryukyuan language family. There have been ...

as え. The directional

particle In the physical sciences, a particle (or corpuscule in older texts) is a small localized object which can be described by several physical or chemical properties, such as volume, density, or mass. They vary greatly in size or quantity, from ...

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. Mode ...

(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 pronun ...

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,

Kunrei-shiki is the Cabinet-ordered romanization system for transcribing the Japanese language into the Latin alphabet. Its name is rendered ''Kunreisiki rômazi'' in the system itself. Kunrei-shiki is sometimes known as the Monbushō system in English bec ...

and

Nihon-shiki Nihon-shiki ( ja, 日本式ローマ字, "Japan-style," romanized as ''Nihonsiki'' in the system itself), is a romanization system for transliterating the Japanese language into the Latin alphabet. Among the major romanization systems for Japan ...

systems of

romanization 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, a ...

, both え and エ are

transliterated Transliteration is a type of conversion of a text from one script to another that involves swapping letters (thus ''trans-'' + '' liter-'') in predictable ways, such as Greek → , Cyrillic → , Greek → the digraph , Armenian → or L ...

as " e". In the Polivanov 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 alphabet. Although such a process has often been carried out in an ad h ...

, the kana are transliterated as " э".

Stroke order

The hiragana え is made with two strokes: #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 tilde () or , is a grapheme with several uses. The name of the character came into English from Spanish, which in turn came from the Latin '' titulus'', meaning "title" or "superscription". Its primary use is as a diacritic (accent) i ...

(~). 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 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 ...

form does not look like the lower case Latin letter "l")

Other communicative representations

* Full Braille representation * Computer encodings :* Archaic and

Hentaigana In the Japanese writing system, are variant forms of hiragana. History Today, with few exceptions, there is only one hiragana for each of the forty-five moras that are written without diacritics or digraphs. However, traditionally there ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:E (Kana) Specific kana