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Wo (kana)

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wo
hiragana
japanese hiragana wo
katakana
japanese katakana wo
transliterationo, wo
hiragana origin
katakana origin
Man'yōgana乎 呼 遠 鳥 怨 越 少 小 尾 麻 男 緒 雄
spelling kana尾張のヲ (W)owari no "(w)o"
unicodeU+3092, U+30F2
braille⠔

, in hiragana, or in katakana, is one of the Japanese kana, each of which represents one mora. Historically, both are phonemically /wo/, reflected in the Nihon-shiki wo, although the contemporary pronunciation is [o] , reflected in the Hepburn romanization and Kunrei-shiki romanization[1] o. Thus it is pronounced identically to the kana o. Despite this phonemic merger, the kana wo is sometimes regarded as a distinct phoneme from /o/, represented as /wo/, to account for historical pronunciation and for orthographic purposes.

Modern usage

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In the 1946 orthographic reforms, を was largely replaced by お. In Japanese, this kana is used almost exclusively for a particle for both forms; therefore, the katakana form (ヲ) is rare in everyday language mostly seen in all-katakana text. A "wo" sound is usually represented as うぉ or ウォ instead.

Despite originally representing [wo], the mora is pronounced [o] by almost all modern speakers. Singers may pronounce it with the [w], as a stylistic effect. Apart from some literate speakers who have revived [wo] as a spelling pronunciation[citation needed], though, this [w] sound is extinct in the modern spoken language. Some non-standard dialectal Japanese still pronounce it [wo], notably dialects in the Ehime Prefecture.[citation needed]

In Romaji, the kana is transliterated variably as ⟨o⟩ or ⟨wo⟩, with the former being faithful to standard pronunciation, but the latter avoiding confusion with お and オ, and being in line with the structure of the gojūon. is transliterated as o in Modified Hepburn and Kunrei and as wo in Traditional Hepburn and Nippon-shiki.

Katakana ヲ can sometimes be combined with a dakuten, ヺ, to represent a /vo/ sound in foreign words; however, most IMEs lack a convenient way to do this as this usage has largely fallen into disuse. The digraph ヴォ is used far more frequently to represent the /vo/ sound.

Form Rōmaji Hiragana Katakana
Normal w-
(わ行 wa-gyō)
(w)o

Hiragana を is still used in several Okinawan orthographies for the mora /o~wo/; in the Ryukyu University system it is /o/, whereas お is /ʔo/. Katakana ヲ is used in Ainu for /wo/.

Stroke order

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Stroke order in writing を
Stroke order in writing を
Stroke order in writing ヲ
Stroke order in writing ヲ
Stroke order in writing を
Stroke order in writing ヲ

Other communicative representations

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  • Full Braille representation
を / ヲ in Japanese Braille
を / ヲ
wo
をう / ヲー
wō

vo
ヺー
⠔ (braille pattern dots-35) ⠔ (braille pattern dots-35)⠒ (braille pattern dots-25) ⠐ (braille pattern dots-5)⠔ (braille pattern dots-35) ⠐ (braille pattern dots-5)⠔ (braille pattern dots-35)⠒ (braille pattern dots-25)
Character information
Preview
Unicode name HIRAGANA LETTER WO KATAKANA LETTER WO HALFWIDTH KATAKANA LETTER WO CIRCLED KATAKANA WO
Encodings decimal hex dec hex dec hex dec hex
Unicode 12434 U+3092 12530 U+30F2 65382 U+FF66 13054 U+32FE
UTF-8 227 130 146 E3 82 92 227 131 178 E3 83 B2 239 189 166 EF BD A6 227 139 190 E3 8B BE
GB 18030 164 242 A4 F2 165 242 A5 F2 132 49 150 50 84 31 96 32 129 57 214 50 81 39 D6 32
Numeric character reference を を ヲ ヲ ヲ ヲ ㋾ ㋾
Shift JIS[2] 130 240 82 F0 131 146 83 92 166 A6
EUC-JP[3] 164 242 A4 F2 165 242 A5 F2 142 166 8E A6
EUC-KR[4] / UHC[5] 170 242 AA F2 171 242 AB F2
Big5 (non-ETEN kana)[6] 198 246 C6 F6 199 172 C7 AC
Big5 (ETEN / HKSCS)[7] 199 121 C7 79 199 238 C7 EE
Character information
Preview 𛅒 𛅦
Unicode name HIRAGANA LETTER SMALL WO KATAKANA LETTER SMALL WO KATAKANA LETTER VO
Encodings decimal hex dec hex dec hex
Unicode 110930 U+1B152 110950 U+1B166 12538 U+30FA
UTF-8 240 155 133 146 F0 9B 85 92 240 155 133 166 F0 9B 85 A6 227 131 186 E3 83 BA
UTF-16 55340 56658 D82C DD52 55340 56678 D82C DD66 12538 30FA
GB 18030 147 54 132 52 93 36 84 34 147 54 134 52 93 36 86 34 129 57 167 56 81 39 A7 38
Numeric character reference 𛅒 𛅒 𛅦 𛅦 ヺ ヺ
Shift JIS (KanjiTalk 7)[8] 136 109 88 6D
Shift JIS-2004[9] 132 149 84 95
EUC-JIS-2004[10] 167 245 A7 F5

References

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  1. ^ "文化庁 | 国語施策・日本語教育 | 国語施策情報 | 内閣告示・内閣訓令 | ローマ字のつづり方 | 第1表・第2表".
  2. ^ Unicode Consortium (2015-12-02) [1994-03-08]. "Shift-JIS to Unicode".
  3. ^ Unicode Consortium; IBM. "EUC-JP-2007". International Components for Unicode.
  4. ^ Unicode Consortium; IBM. "IBM-970". International Components for Unicode.
  5. ^ Steele, Shawn (2000). "cp949 to Unicode table". Microsoft / Unicode Consortium.
  6. ^ Unicode Consortium (2015-12-02) [1994-02-11]. "BIG5 to Unicode table (complete)".
  7. ^ van Kesteren, Anne. "big5". Encoding Standard. WHATWG.
  8. ^ Apple Computer (2005-04-05) [1995-04-15]. "Map (external version) from Mac OS Japanese encoding to Unicode 2.1 and later". Unicode Consortium.
  9. ^ Project X0213 (2009-05-03). "Shift_JIS-2004 (JIS X 0213:2004 Appendix 1) vs Unicode mapping table".{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  10. ^ Project X0213 (2009-05-03). "EUC-JIS-2004 (JIS X 0213:2004 Appendix 3) vs Unicode mapping table".{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)