そ, in

hiragana is a Japanese language, Japanese syllabary, part of the Japanese writing system, along with ''katakana'' as well as ''kanji''. It is a phonetic lettering system. The word ''hiragana'' means "common" or "plain" kana (originally also "easy", ...

, or ソ, in

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 fr ...

, is one of the Japanese

kana are syllabary, syllabaries used to write Japanese phonology, Japanese phonological units, Mora (linguistics), morae. In current usage, ''kana'' most commonly refers to ''hiragana'' and ''katakana''. It can also refer to their ancestor , wh ...

, each of which represents one mora. Both represent . The version of this character used by computer fonts does not match the handwritten form that most native Japanese writers use. The native way is shown here as the alternative form.

Stroke order

Alternative form

Other communicative representations

* Full Braille representation * Computer encodings

References

* The Compact Nelson Japanese-English Character Dictionary ( Andrew Nelson, John H Haig)

Tuttle Publishing Tuttle Publishing, originally the Charles E. Tuttle Company, is a book publishing company that includes Tuttle, Periplus Editions, and Journey Editions.

1999 {{reflist Specific kana