Wu (hiragana: , katakana: ) is a Japanese mora or a kana used to write it, though it has never been in standard use.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"
History It is presumed that would have represented . Along with and (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. and wu are thought to have never occurred as morae in Japanese, and was merged with and .
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. and 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 う綴字篇 (Hiragana) 𛀋 (A variant form of う. Hiragana.) 𛀍音韻啓蒙 : 2巻. 上巻 (A variant form of う. Hiragana.) ウ (Katakana) Constructed kana (A part of 傴. Katakana.)
wu Traditional kana う (Hiragana) 𛀋日本新文典 (A variant form of う. Hiragana.) ウ (Katakana) 𛄢 (An old variant form of ウ. Katakana.) Constructed kana ゔ小学日本文典入門. 巻之1(う with dots. Hiragana.) 𛄟 (A cursive script style of 汙.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" Hiragana.) (A cursive script style of 紆. Hiragana.) 国語仮字つかい (A cursive script style of 迂. Hiragana,) 辞礎 (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).
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References
See also Yi (kana) Ye (kana)