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

This article relies largely or entirely on a single source. Relevant discussion may be found on the talk page. Please help improve this article by introducing citations to additional sources. Find sources: "Wu" kana – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (December 2020)

Wu (hiragana: 𛄟, katakana: 𛄢) is a Japanese mora or a kana used to write it, though it has never been in standard use.

History

It is presumed that 𛄟 would have represented /β̞u/. Along with 𛀆 and 𛀁 (yi and ye respectively), the mora wu has no officially recognized kana, as these morae 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 morae 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 (Hiragana)
    • 𛀋 (Hentaigana of う. Hiragana.)
    • 𛀍 (Hentaigana of う. Hiragana.)
    • ウ (Katakana)
  • Constructed kana
    • (A part of 傴. Katakana.)

• wu
  • Traditional kana
    • う (Hiragana)
    • 𛀋 (Hentaigana of う. Hiragana.)
    • ウ (Katakana)
    • 𛄢 (An old variant form of ウ. Katakana.)
  • Constructed kana
    • う(う with dots. Hiragana.)
    • 𛄟 (A cursive script style of 汙. Hiragana.)
    • (A cursive script style of 紆. Hiragana.)
    • (A cursive script style of 迂. Hiragana,)
    • (A cursive script style of 卯. Hiragana.)
    • ウ(ウ with dots. Katakana.)

These suggestions were not 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

1. /β̞/ corresponds to what is typically represented as /w/ in modern Japanese, which is still phonetically a bilabial approximant.

References

1. ^ Iannacone, Jake (2020). "Reply to The Origin of Hiragana /wu/ 平仮名のわ行うの字源に対する新たな発見"
2. Gross, Abraham (2020-01-05), Proposal to Encode Missing Japanese Kana (PDF), p. 1
3. 綴字篇
4. 村山自彊; 中島幹事 (1891). 仮名遣. 開新堂. p. 19.
5. 音韻啓蒙 : 2巻. 上巻
6. 綴字篇
7. 音韻啓蒙 : 2巻. 上巻
8. 音韻啓蒙 : 2巻. 上巻
9. 日本新文典
10. 音韻啓蒙 : 2巻. 上巻
11. 綴字篇
12. 有賀長隣. 片仮名元字. p. 4.
13. 小学日本文典入門. 巻之1
14. 綴字篇
15. 綴字篇
16. 国語仮字つかい
17. 辞礎
18. 小学日本文典入門. 巻之1

See also

• Yi (kana)
• Ye (kana)

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