i
hiragana
japanese hiragana i
katakana
japanese katakana i
transliterationi
hiragana origin
katakana origin
Man'yōgana伊 怡 以 異 已 移 射 五
spelling kanaいろはのイ
(Iroha no "i")

I ( in hiragana or in katakana) is one of the Japanese kana each of which represents one mora. い is based on the sōsho style of the kanji character 以, and イ is from the radical (left part) of the kanji character 伊. In the modern Japanese system of sound order, it occupies the second position of the syllable chart, between and . Additionally, it is the first letter in Iroha, before ろ. Both represent the sound [i]. In the Ainu language, katakana イ is written as y in their Latin-based syllable chart, and a small ィ after another katakana represents a diphthong.

Form Rōmaji Hiragana Katakana
Normal a/i/u/e/o
(あ行 a-gyō)
i
ii, yi
ī
いい, いぃ
いー
イイ, イィ
イー
Other additional forms
Form (y-)
Rōmaji Hiragana Katakana
yi いぃ イィ
ye いぇ イェ

Variant forms

Like other vowels, scaled-down versions of the kana (ぃ, ィ) are used to express sounds foreign to the Japanese language, such as フィ (fi). In some Okinawan writing systems, a small ぃ is also combined with the kana く (ku) and ふ to form the digraphs くぃ kwi and ふぃ hwi respectively, although the Ryukyu University system uses the kana ゐ/ヰ instead.

Origin

い comes from the left part of the Kanji 以, while イ originates from the left part of the Kanji 伊.[1] An alternate form - 𛀆, based on the full cursive form of 以 is one of the most common hentaigana, as it merged with い late in the development of modern Japanese writing.

Stroke order

Stroke order in writing い
Stroke order in writing い
Stroke order in writing イ
Stroke order in writing イ
Stroke order in writing い
Stroke order in writing い

The Hiragana い is made in two strokes:

  1. At the top left, a curved vertical stroke, ending with a hook at the bottom.
  2. At the top right, a shorter stroke, slightly curving in the opposite direction.
Stroke order in writing イ
Stroke order in writing イ

The Katakana イ is made in two strokes:

  1. At the top, a curved diagonal line going from right to left.
  2. In the center of the last stroke, a vertical line going down.

Other communicative representations

  • Full Braille representation
い / イ in Japanese Braille
い / イ
i
いい / イー
ī
+い / +ー
chōon*
⠃ (braille pattern dots-12) ⠃ (braille pattern dots-12) ⠒ (braille pattern dots-25) ⠒ (braille pattern dots-25)

* When lengthening "-i" or "-e" syllables in Japanese braille, a chōon is always used, as is standard in katakana orthography, instead of adding the い / イ kana.

Character information
Preview
Unicode name HIRAGANA LETTER I KATAKANA LETTER I HALFWIDTH KATAKANA LETTER I CIRCLED KATAKANA I
Encodingsdecimalhexdechexdechexdechex
Unicode12356U+304412452U+30A465394U+FF7213009U+32D1
UTF-8227 129 132E3 81 84227 130 164E3 82 A4239 189 178EF BD B2227 139 145E3 8B 91
Numeric character referenceいいイイイイ㋑㋑
Shift JIS[2]130 16282 A2131 6783 43178B2
EUC-JP[3]164 164A4 A4165 164A5 A4142 1788E B2
GB 18030[4]164 164A4 A4165 164A5 A4132 49 151 5284 31 97 34129 57 209 5581 39 D1 37
EUC-KR[5] / UHC[6]170 164AA A4171 164AB A4
Big5 (non-ETEN kana)[7]198 168C6 A8198 251C6 FB
Big5 (ETEN / HKSCS)[8]198 234C6 EA199 126C7 7E
Character information
Preview
Unicode name HIRAGANA LETTER SMALL I KATAKANA LETTER SMALL I HALFWIDTH KATAKANA LETTER SMALL I
Encodingsdecimalhexdechexdechex
Unicode12355U+304312451U+30A365384U+FF68
UTF-8227 129 131E3 81 83227 130 163E3 82 A3239 189 168EF BD A8
Numeric character referenceぃぃィィィィ
Shift JIS[2]130 16182 A1131 6683 42168A8
EUC-JP[3]164 163A4 A3165 163A5 A3142 1688E A8
GB 18030[4]164 163A4 A3165 163A5 A3132 49 150 5284 31 96 34
EUC-KR[5] / UHC[6]170 163AA A3171 163AB A3
Big5 (non-ETEN kana)[7]198 167C6 A7198 250C6 FA
Big5 (ETEN / HKSCS)[8]198 233C6 E9199 125C7 7D

Footnotes

  1. Where do the kana come from
  2. 1 2 Unicode Consortium (2015-12-02) [1994-03-08]. "Shift-JIS to Unicode".
  3. 1 2 Unicode Consortium; IBM. "EUC-JP-2007". International Components for Unicode.
  4. 1 2 Standardization Administration of China (SAC) (2005-11-18). GB 18030-2005: Information Technology—Chinese coded character set.
  5. 1 2 Unicode Consortium; IBM. "IBM-970". International Components for Unicode.
  6. 1 2 Steele, Shawn (2000). "cp949 to Unicode table". Microsoft / Unicode Consortium.
  7. 1 2 Unicode Consortium (2015-12-02) [1994-02-11]. "BIG5 to Unicode table (complete)".
  8. 1 2 van Kesteren, Anne. "big5". Encoding Standard. WHATWG.
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