Wu (

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", ...

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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 ...

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mora Mora may refer to: People * José Maria Mora (1847–1926), Cuban-American photographer, often credited as "Mora" * Mora (singer) (born 1996), a Puerto Rican singer * Mora (surname), a Spanish name (includes a list of people with the name) Plac ...

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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 ...

used to write it, though it has never been in standard use.Iannacone, Jake (2020)
"Reply to The Origin of Hiragana /wu/ 平仮名のわ行うの字源に対する新たな発見"
/ref>

History

It is presumed that would have represented . Along with and (''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''. and ''wu'' are thought to have never occurred as morae in Japanese, and was merged with and .

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. and were just two of many shapes. They were phonetic symbols to fill in the blanks of the gojuon table. Japanese people didn't separate them in normal writing. *u **Traditional kana ***う綴字篇
/ref> (Hiragana) ***𛀋 (A variant form of う. Hiragana.) ***𛀍音韻啓蒙 : 2巻. 上巻
/ref> (A variant form of う. Hiragana.) ***ウ (Katakana) **Constructed kana *** Katakana U3

(A part of 傴. Katakana.) *wu **Traditional kana ***う (Hiragana) ***𛀋 (A variant form of う. Hiragana.) ***ウ (Katakana) ***𛄢 (An old variant form of ウ. Katakana.) **Constructed kana ***ゔ小学日本文典入門. 巻之1
/ref>(う with dots. Hiragana.) ***𛄟 (A cursive script style of 汙.Iannacone, Jake (2020)

/ref> Hiragana.) *** (A cursive script style of 紆. Hiragana.) *** Hiragana Wu 3

(A cursive script style of 迂. Hiragana,) *** Hiragana Wu 4

辞礎
/ref> (A cursive script style of 卯. Hiragana.) ***ヴ(ウ with dots. 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).

History

Characters

Unicode

Notes

References

See also