ち, 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 チ 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, which each represent one mora. Both are phonemically , reflected in the Nihon-shiki and Kunrei-shiki romanization ti, although, for phonological reasons, the actual pronunciation is , which is reflected in the

Hepburn romanization is the main system of Romanization of Japanese, romanization for the Japanese language. The system was originally published in 1867 by American Christian missionary and physician James Curtis Hepburn as the standard in the first edition of h ...

chi. The kanji for one thousand (千, ''sen''), appears similar to チ, and at one time they were related, but today チ is used as phonetic, while the kanji carries an entirely unrelated meaning. Many onomatopoeic words beginning with ち pertain to things that are small or quick.Hiroko Fukuda, ''Jazz Up Your Japanese with Onomatopoeia: For All Levels'', trans. Tom Gally. New York: Kodansha International (2003): 19 - 20, Introduction, Words Beginning with ち Chi, Indicating Smallness or Quickness. The dakuten forms ぢ, ヂ, are uncommon. They are primarily used for indicating a voiced consonant in the middle of a compound word (see rendaku), and they don't usually begin a word. The dakuten form of the shi character is sometimes used when transliterating "di", as opposed to チ's dakuten form; for example, ''Aladdin'' is written as アラジン ''Arajin'', and radio is written as ラジオ. It is, however, more common to use ディ instead, such as ディオン to translate the name ''Dion''. In the Ainu language, チ by itself is pronounced , and can be combined with the katakana ヤ, ユ, エ, and ヨ to write the other sounds. The combination チェ (pronounced ), is interchangeable with セ゚.

Stroke order

Other communicative representations

See also

References