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 gojūon table, but Japanese people did not separate them in normal writing.

  • u Traditional kana う (Hiragana) 𛀋 (A variant form of う. Hiragana.) 𛀍 (A variant form of う. Hiragana.) ウ (Katakana) Constructed kana (A part of 傴. Katakana.)
  • wu Traditional kana う (Hiragana) 𛀋 (A variant form of う. Hiragana.) ウ (Katakana) 𛄢 (An old variant form of ウ. Katakana.) Constructed kana ゔ(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.) ヴ(ウ with dakuten. 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

See also