ゑ, in hiragana

Hiragana

is a Japanese syllabary, one basic component of the Japanese writing system, along with katakana, kanji, and the Latin alphabet . Hiragana and katakana are both kana systems, in which each character represents one mora...

, or ヱ in katakana

Katakana

is a Japanese syllabary, one component of the Japanese writing system along with hiragana, kanji, and in some cases the Latin alphabet . The word katakana means "fragmentary kana", as the katakana scripts are derived from components of more complex kanji. Each kana represents one mora...

, is a nearly obsolete Japanese kana

Kana

Kana are the syllabic Japanese scripts, as opposed to the logographic Chinese characters known in Japan as kanji and the Roman alphabet known as rōmaji...

.

It is presumed that ゑ represented we. It is thought that, after ゑ and え came to denote the same pronunciation as イェ je in the Kamakura period

Kamakura period

The is a period of Japanese history that marks the governance by the Kamakura Shogunate, officially established in 1192 in Kamakura by the first shogun Minamoto no Yoritomo....

, they came to be pronounced as the modern エ [e]; there is also the view that the pronunciation difference between the two kana remained until the Taishō period

Taisho period

The , or Taishō era, is a period in the history of Japan dating from July 30, 1912 to December 25, 1926, coinciding with the reign of the Taishō Emperor. The health of the new emperor was weak, which prompted the shift in political power from the old oligarchic group of elder statesmen to the Diet...

.

Along with the kana for wi

Wi (kana)

ゐ, in hiragana, or ヰ in katakana, is a nearly obsolete Japanese kana, each of which represent one mora. It is presumed that ゐ represented and that ゐ and い indicated different pronunciations until somewhere between the Kamakura period and the Taishō period when they both came to be pronounced...

 (ゐ in hiragana, ヰ in katakana), this kana became obsolete in 1946 for Japanese, and is now rare in everyday usage; in onomatopoeia or foreign words, the katakana form ウェ (we) is preferred (as, ウェスト for "west"). One modern-day usage of this kana is in the name of the beer Yebisu, which is actually pronounced "Ebisu", and is occasionally written "ヱビス" or "ゑびす". Katakana ヱ is sometimes written with a dakuten, ヹ, to represent a /ve/ sound in foreign words; however, most IMEs

Input method editor

An input method is an operating system component or program that allows any data, such as keyboard strokes or mouse movements, to be received as input. In this way users can enter characters and symbols not found on their input devices...

 lack a convenient way to write this. The combination ヴェ is far more commonly used.

Hiragana ゑ is still used in several Okinawan orthographies

Okinawan writing system

Okinawan language, spoken in Okinawa Island, was once the official language of the Ryukyuan Kingdom. At the time, documents were written in kanji and hiragana, derived from Japan. However, after Japan annexed the kingdom, the language was labeled as the "dialect" of mainland Japanese...

 for the syllable /we/. In the Ryukyu University system, ゑ is also combined with a small ぃ, ゑぃ/ヱィ, to represent the sound /wi/. Katakana ヱ is used in Ainu for /we/.

Stroke order