I (kana)

For the kana sometimes romanized as "i", see Wi (kana).

Character of the Japanese writing system

|  Hiragana
|  Katakana

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Transliteration| i
Hiragana origin| 以
Katakana origin| 伊
Man'yōgana| 伊 怡 以 異 已 移 射 五
Spelling kana| いろはのイ
(Iroha no "i")
kana gojūon

| wa| ra| ya| ma| ha| na| ta| sa| ka| a

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wi| ri| (yi)| mi| hi| ni| chi| shi| ki| i
(wu)| ru| yu| mu| fu| nu| tsu| su| ku| u
we| re| (ye)| me| he| ne| te| se| ke| e
wo| ro| yo| mo| ho| no| to| so| ko| o
| | | n| | | | | |
Kana modifiers and marks

* sokuonfu (gemination)
* yōon (palatalization)
* chōonpu (vowel lengthener)
* Iteration marks
* dakuten/handakuten (voiced & semi-voiced marks)

Multi-moraic kana

* iu
* kashiko
* koto
* sama
* shite
* toki
* tomo
* nari
* mairasesoro
* yori

* v
* t
* e

I (い in hiragana or イ 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 mora chart, between あ and う. 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 mora chart, and a small ィ after another katakana represents a diphthong.

Form  | Rōmaji | Hiragana | Katakana

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Normal a/i/u/e/o
(あ行 a-gyō)  | i | い  | イ
ii, yi
ī | いい, いぃ
いー  | イイ, イィ

Other additional forms

Form (y-) | Rōmaji | Hiragana | Katakana

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yi | いぃ  | イィ
ye | いぇ  | イェ

## Variant forms

[edit]

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

[edit]

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

[edit]

Stroke order in writing い | Stroke order in writing イ

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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

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

[edit]

Japanese radiotelephony alphabet | Wabun code

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いろはのイ
Iroha no "I" |  ▄ ▄▄▄ ⓘ

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Japanese Navy Signal Flag | Japanese semaphore | Japanese manual syllabary (fingerspelling)  | Braille dots-12
Japanese Braille

* Full Braille representation

い / イ in Japanese Braille

い / イ
i | いい / イー
ī | +い / +ー
chōon*
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* When lengthening "-i" or "-e" morae in Japanese braille, a chōon is always used, as is standard in katakana orthography, instead of adding the い / イ kana.

* Computer encodings

Character information  Preview | い | イ | ｲ | ㋑

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Unicode name  | HIRAGANA LETTER I  | KATAKANA LETTER I  | HALFWIDTH KATAKANA LETTER I  | CIRCLED KATAKANA I
Encodings | decimal | hex | dec | hex | dec | hex | dec | hex
Unicode | 12356 | U+3044 | 12452 | U+30A4 | 65394 | U+FF72 | 13009 | U+32D1
UTF-8 | 227 129 132 | E3 81 84 | 227 130 164 | E3 82 A4 | 239 189 178 | EF BD B2 | 227 139 145 | E3 8B 91
Numeric character reference | &#12356; | &#x3044; | &#12452; | &#x30A4; | &#65394; | &#xFF72; | &#13009; | &#x32D1;
Shift JIS[2] | 130 162 | 82 A2 | 131 67 | 83 43 | 178 | B2 |  |
EUC-JP[3] | 164 164 | A4 A4 | 165 164 | A5 A4 | 142 178 | 8E B2 |  |
GB 18030[4] | 164 164 | A4 A4 | 165 164 | A5 A4 | 132 49 151 52 | 84 31 97 34 | 129 57 209 55 | 81 39 D1 37
EUC-KR[5] / UHC[6] | 170 164 | AA A4 | 171 164 | AB A4 |  |  |  |
Big5 (non-ETEN kana)[7] | 198 168 | C6 A8 | 198 251 | C6 FB |  |  |  |
Big5 (ETEN / HKSCS)[8] | 198 234 | C6 EA | 199 126 | C7 7E |  |  |  |
Character information  Preview | ぃ | ィ | ｨ

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Unicode name  | HIRAGANA LETTER SMALL I  | KATAKANA LETTER SMALL I  | HALFWIDTH KATAKANA LETTER SMALL I
Encodings | decimal | hex | dec | hex | dec | hex
Unicode | 12355 | U+3043 | 12451 | U+30A3 | 65384 | U+FF68
UTF-8 | 227 129 131 | E3 81 83 | 227 130 163 | E3 82 A3 | 239 189 168 | EF BD A8
Numeric character reference | &#12355; | &#x3043; | &#12451; | &#x30A3; | &#65384; | &#xFF68;
Shift JIS[2] | 130 161 | 82 A1 | 131 66 | 83 42 | 168 | A8
EUC-JP[3] | 164 163 | A4 A3 | 165 163 | A5 A3 | 142 168 | 8E A8
GB 18030[4] | 164 163 | A4 A3 | 165 163 | A5 A3 | 132 49 150 52 | 84 31 96 34
EUC-KR[5] / UHC[6] | 170 163 | AA A3 | 171 163 | AB A3 |  |
Big5 (non-ETEN kana)[7] | 198 167 | C6 A7 | 198 250 | C6 FA |  |
Big5 (ETEN / HKSCS)[8] | 198 233 | C6 E9 | 199 125 | C7 7D |  |

## Footnotes

[edit]

Look up い, ぃ, イ, or ィ in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

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

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