Wu (kana)

Character of the Japanese writing system From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Wu (hiragana: 𛄟, katakana: 𛄢) is a Japanese mora or a kana used to write it, though it has never been in standard use.[1]

This article contains Hentaigana characters. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Hentaigana.
Transliterationu, wu
Hiragana origin汙,于
Katakana origin汙
Man'yōgana傴 汙 紆 迂 于 宇 卯
Quick facts Transliteration, Hiragana origin ...
wu
Hiragana
japanese hiragana wu		 Katakana
japanese katakana wu
Transliterationu, wu
Hiragana origin汙,于
Katakana origin汙
Man'yōgana傴 汙 紆 迂 于 宇 卯
UnicodeU+1B11F, U+1B122
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History

It is presumed that 𛄟 would have represented /β̞u/.[2][a] Along with 𛀆 and 𛀁 (yi and ye respectively), the mora wu has no officially recognized kana, as these morae do not occur in native Japanese words; however, during the Meiji period, linguists almost unanimously agreed on the kana for yi, ye, and wu. 𛀆 and wu are thought to have never occurred as morae in Japanese, and 𛀁 was merged with え and エ.

Characters

In the Edo period and the Meiji period, some Japanese linguists tried to separate kana u and kana wu. The shapes of characters differed with each linguist. 𛄟 and 𛄢 were just two of many shapes.

They were phonetic symbols to fill in the blanks of the gojūon table, but Japanese people did not separate them in normal writing.

  • u
    • Traditional kana
      • う[3] (Hiragana)
      • 𛀋[4] (A variant form of う. Hiragana.)
      • 𛀍[5] (A variant form of う. Hiragana.)
      • ウ[3] (Katakana)
    • Constructed kana
      • [5] (A part of 傴. Katakana.)
  • wu
    • Traditional kana
      • う[5] (Hiragana)
      • 𛀋[6] (A variant form of う. Hiragana.)
      • ウ[5] (Katakana)
      • 𛄢[3][7] (An old variant form of ウ. Katakana.)
    • Constructed kana
      • ゔ[8](う with dots. Hiragana.)
      • 𛄟[3] (A cursive script style of 汙.[1] Hiragana.)
      • [3] (A cursive script style of 紆. Hiragana.)
      • [9] (A cursive script style of 迂. Hiragana,)
      • [10] (A cursive script style of 卯. Hiragana.)
      • ヴ[8](ウ with dakuten. Katakana.)

These suggestions were not accepted.

Unicode

This kana has been encoded into Unicode 14.0 since September 14, 2021 as HIRAGANA LETTER ARCHAIC WU (U+1B11F), and KATAKANA LETTER ARCHAIC WU (U+1B122).

Notes

  1. [a]
    /β̞/ corresponds to what is typically represented as /w/ in modern Japanese, which is still phonetically a bilabial approximant.

References

See also

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