| Hiragana Image: | Japanese Hiragana kyokashotai HA.svg |
| Katakana Image: | Japanese Katakana kyokashotai HA.svg |
| Transliteration: | ha, wa |
| Hiragana Manyogana: | 波 |
| Katakana Manyogana: | 八 |
| Other Manyogana: | 八 方 芳 房 半 伴 倍 泊 波 婆 破 薄 播 幡 羽 早 者 速 葉 歯 |
| Dakuten Manyogana: | 伐 婆 磨 魔 |
| Unicode: | U+306F, U+30CF |
| Flag1: | 10 |
| Footnote: | This mora was historically pronounced as "pa". |
| Spelling: | はがきのハ Hagaki no "ha" |
Ha (hiragana: は, katakana: ハ) is one of the Japanese kana, each of which represent one mora. Both represent pronounced as /[ha]/. They are also used as a grammatical particle (in such cases, they denote pronounced as /[wa]/, including in the greeting "kon'nichiwa") and serve as the topic marker of the sentence. は originates from 波 and ハ from 八.
In the Sakhalin dialect of the Ainu language, the katakana ハ can be written as small ㇵ to represent a final h sound after an a sound (アㇵ ah).[1] This, along with other extended katakana, was developed by Japanese linguists to represent sounds in Ainu not present in standard Japanese katakana.
When used as a particle, は is pronounced as わ [wa]. は is also pronounced as わ in some words (e.g. もののあはれ pronounced as mono no aware).
| Form | Rōmaji | Hiragana | Katakana |
|---|---|---|---|
| Normal h- (は行 ha-gyō) | ha | は | ハ |
| haa hā | はあ, はぁ はー | ハア, ハァ ハー | |
| Addition dakuten b- (ば行 ba-gyō) | ba | ば | バ |
| baa bā | ばあ, ばぁ ばー | バア, バァ バー | |
| Addition handakuten p- (ぱ行 pa-gyō) | pa | ぱ | パ |
| paa pā | ぱあ, ぱぁ ぱー | パア, パァ パー |
The Hiragana は is made with three strokes:
The Katakana ハ is made with two strokes:
The hiragana は is read as "wa" when it represents a particle.
| は / ハ in Japanese Braille | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| は / ハ ha | ば / バ ba | ぱ / パ pa | はあ / ハー hā | ばあ / バー bā | ぱあ / パー pā | |
| Other kana based on Braille は | ||||||
| ひゃ / ヒャ hya | びゃ / ビャ bya | ぴゃ / ピャ pya | ひゃあ / ヒャー hyā | びゃあ / ビャー byā | ぴゃあ / ピャー pyā | |