Hiragana Image: | Japanese Hiragana kyokashotai E.svg |
Katakana Image: | Japanese Katakana kyokashotai E.svg |
Transliteration: | e |
Hiragana Manyogana: | 衣 |
Katakana Manyogana: | 江 |
Other Manyogana: | 衣 依 愛 榎 曳 延 要 遥 叡 兄 江 吉 枝 |
Spelling: | 英語のエ (Eigo no "e") |
Footnote: | The Man'yōgana represented either the "e" or "ye" mora, which merged in later pronunciation. |
In Japanese writing, the kana え (hiragana) and エ (katakana) (romanised e) occupy the fourth place, between う and お, in the modern Gojūon (五十音) system of collating kana. In the Iroha, they occupy the 34th, between こ and て. In the table at right (ordered by columns, from right to left), え lies in the first column (あ行, "column A") and the fourth row (え段, "row E"). Both represent pronounced as /[e]/.
Form | Rōmaji | Hiragana | Katakana |
---|---|---|---|
Normal a/i/u/e/o (あ行 a-gyō) | e | え | エ |
ei ee ē | えい, えぃ ええ, えぇ えー | エイ, エィ エエ, エェ エー |
え and エ originate, via man'yōgana, from the kanji 衣 and 江, respectively.
The archaic kana ゑ (we), as well as many non-initial occurrences of the character へ (he), have entered the modern Japanese language as え. The directional particle へ is today pronounced "e", though not written as え. Compare this to は (ha) and を (wo), which are pronounced "wa" and "o" when used as grammatical particles.
For the kana romanized sometimes as "e", see we (kana).
Scaled-down versions of the kana (ぇ, ェ) are used to express morae foreign to the Japanese language, such as ヴェ (ve). In several Okinawan writing systems, a small ぇ is also combined with the kana く(ku) and ふ (fu or hu) to form the digraphs くぇ kwe and ふぇ hwe.
In the Hepburn, Kunrei-shiki and Nihon-shiki systems of romanization, both え and エ are transliterated as "e". In the Polivanov system of cyrillization, the kana are transliterated as "э".
The hiragana え is made with two strokes:
The katakana エ is made with three strokes:
This is also the way to make the Latin letter "I" (although the correct upper case form does not look like the lower case Latin letter "l")