| Hiragana Image: | Japanese_Hiragana_kyokashotai_HE.svg |
| Katakana Image: | Japanese_Katakana_kyokashotai_HE.svg |
| Transliteration: | He |
| Hiragana Manyogana: | 部 |
| Katakana Manyogana: | 部 |
| Other Manyogana: | 平 反 返 弁 弊 陛 遍 覇 部 辺 重 隔 閉 倍 陪 拝 戸 経 |
| Dakuten Manyogana: | 弁 便 別 部 倍 毎 |
| Unicode: | U+3078, U+30D8 |
| Flag1: | 4 |
| Footnote: | This mora was historically pronounced as "pe", with one of two different vowel sounds, which later merged. |
| Spelling: | 平和のヘ Heiwa no "he" |
| Pronunciation: | he |
へ, in hiragana, or ヘ in katakana, is one of the Japanese kana, which represents one mora. The pronounced as /ja/ sound is the only sound that is written identically in hiragana and katakana and therefore confusable according to the Unicode Standard. In the Sakhalin dialect of the Ainu language, ヘ can be written as small ㇸ to represent a final pronounced as /ja/ after an pronounced as /ja/ sound (エㇸ pronounced as /ja/).
It is usually pronounced pronounced as /ja/ with the aspirate pronounced as /ja/ before its vowel. It is also often used as a grammatical particle indicating direction, which makes only the vowel sound pronounced as /ja/.
Though the two forms へ and ヘ are usually rendered with a small difference between them, in order to match better with the appearance of other hiragana or katakana characters, they can often be rendered identically. A reader is not expected to distinguish one from the other without contextual clues.
| Forms | Rōmaji | Hiragana | Katakana | Example words (with kanji) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Normal h- (は行 ha-gyō) | he | へ | ヘ |
|
| hei hee hē | へい, へぃ へえ, へぇ へー | ヘイ, ヘィ ヘエ, ヘェ ヘー | ||
| Addition dakuten b- (ば行 ba-gyō) | be | べ | ベ |
|
| bei bee bē | べい, べぃ べえ, べぇ べー | ベイ, ベィ ベエ, ベェ ベー | ||
| Addition handakuten p- (ぱ行 pa-gyō) | pe | ぺ | ペ |
|
| pei pee pē | ぺい, ぺぃ ぺえ, ぺぇ ぺー | ペイ, ペィ ペエ, ペェ ペー |
The stroke order is identical between hiragana and katakana.