wu
hiragana katakana
transliteration	wu
hiragana origin	汙/于
katakana origin	汙
unicode	U+1B11F, U+1B122

Wu (hiragana: 𛄟, katakana: 𛄢) is a hentaigana, a variant kana or Japanese syllable.^[1]

History

It is presumed that 𛄟 would have represented /β̞u/.^{[2][lower-alpha 1]} Along with 𛀆 and 𛀁 (yi and ye respectively), the syllable wu has no officially recognized kana, as these syllables do not occur in native Japanese words; however, during the Meiji period, linguists almost unanimously agreed on the kana for yi, ye, and wu. 𛀆 and wu are thought to have never occurred as syllables in Japanese, and 𛀁 was merged with え and エ.

Characters

In the Edo period and the Meiji period, some Japanese linguists tried to separate kana u and kana wu. The shapes of characters differed with each linguist. 𛄟 and 𛄢 were just two of many shapes.

They were phonetic symbols to fill in the blanks of the gojuon table. Japanese people didn't separate them in normal writing.

• u
  • Traditional kana
    • う^[3] (Hiragana)
    • 𛀋^[4] (Hentaigana of う. Hiragana.)
    • 𛀍^[5] (Hentaigana of う. Hiragana.)
    • ウ^[6] (Katakana)
  • Constructed kana
    • ^[7] (A part of 傴. Katakana.)

• wu
  • Traditional kana
    • う^[8] (Hiragana)
    • 𛀋^[9] (Hentaigana of う. Hiragana.)
    • ウ^[10] (Katakana)
    • 𛄢^[11][12] (An old variant form of ウ. Katakana.)
  • Constructed kana
    • う^〻[13](う with dots. Hiragana.)
    • 𛄟^[14] (A cursive script style of 汙.^[1] Hiragana.)
    • ^[15] (A cursive script style of 紆. Hiragana.)
    • ^[16] (A cursive script style of 迂. Hiragana,)
    • ^[17] (A cursive script style of 卯. Hiragana.)
    • ウ^〻[18](ウ with dots. Katakana.)

These suggestions weren't accepted.

Unicode

This kana has been encoded into Unicode 14.0 since September 14, 2021 as HIRAGANA LETTER ARCHAIC WU (U+1B11F), and KATAKANA LETTER ARCHAIC WU (U+1B122).

Notes

References

See also

• Yi (kana)
• Ye (kana)