We (kana)

We (hiragana: ゑ, katakana: ヱ) is an obsolete kana (Japanese phonetic character) that is pronounced [e] (same pronunciation as e (kana): え) in current-day Japanese.

Transliteratione, we

Hiragana origin恵

Katakana origin恵

Man'yōgana廻 恵 面 咲

Quick facts Transliteration, Hiragana origin ...

we
Hiragana Katakana
Transliteration	e, we
Hiragana origin	恵
Katakana origin	恵
Man'yōgana	廻 恵 面 咲
Spelling kana	かぎのあるヱ Kagi no aru "e"
Unicode	U+3091, U+30F1
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It is presumed that 'ゑ' represented [we] ^ⓘ, while ゑ and え indicated different pronunciations until somewhere between the Kamakura and Taishō periods, when they both came to be pronounced as 'いぇ' [je] ^ⓘ, later shifting to the modern 'え' [e].^{[citation needed]} The combination of ゑ or ヱ with dakuten (ゑ゙ ヹ) were introduced to represent [ve] in the 19th and 20th centuries.^{[citation needed]} Along with the kana for wi ('ゐ' in hiragana, 'ヰ' in katakana), this kana was deemed obsolete in Japanese in 1946 and replaced with え and エ. It is now rare in everyday usage; in onomatopoeia or foreign words, the katakana form 'ウェ' (U-[small-e]) is used, as in "ウェスト" for "west".

The kana still sees some modern-day usage as a stylistic variant of 'え/エ'. Ebisu is usually written as "えびす", but sometimes "ゑびす" like Kyoto Ebisu Shrine (京都ゑびす神社, Kyōto Webisu Jinja),^[1] and name of the beer Yebisu (ヱビス), which is actually pronounced "Ebisu". The Japanese title of the Rebuild of Evangelion series is Evangelion: New Theatrical Edition (ヱヴァンゲリヲン新劇場版, Evangerion Shin Gekijōban) which stylistically substitutes エ and オ with ヱ and ヲ. VTuber Sakamata Chloe of Hololive Production uses Katakana ヱ (we) in place of the pronounced エ (e). Katakana ヱ is sometimes written with a dakuten, ヹ, to represent a /ve/ sound in foreign words; however, most IMEs lack a convenient way to write this, and the digraph ヴェ is far more common. The Meiji-era Classical Japanese version of the Bible renders Jehovah as ヱホバ (Yehoba), and ヱ (ye) is also used to transcribe any Hebrew name spelled with Je in English (pronounced "ye" in Hebrew, though), such as Jephthah (ヱフタ, Yefuta); the modern Japanese version, on the other hand, only uses エ (e), hence エホバ (Ehoba) and エフタ (Efuta).

Hiragana ゑ is still used in several Okinawan orthographies for the mora /we/. In the Ryūkyū University system, ゑ is also combined with a small ぃ (ゑぃ/ヱィ), to represent the sound /wi/. Katakana ヱ is used in Ainu for /we/.

In wāpuro rōmaji—that is, the string of letters used for input to produce ゑ or ヱ—the sequence is wye.