We (kana)

Common card · No. 419142

We (hiragana: ゑ, katakana: ヱ) is an obsolete kana (Japanese phonetic character) that is pronounced [e] (same pronunciation as e (kana): え) in current-day Japanese. It is presumed that 'ゑ' represented [we] , while ゑ and え indicated different pronunciations until somewhere between the Kamakura and Taishō periods, when they both came to be pronounced as 'いぇ' [je] , later shifting to the modern 'え' [e]. The combination of ゑ or ヱ with dakuten (ゑ゙ ヹ) were introduced to represent [ve] in the 19th and 20th centuries. Along with the kana for wi ('ゐ' in hiragana, 'ヰ' in katakana), this kana was deemed obsolete in Japanese in 1946 and replaced with え and エ. It is now rare in everyday usage; in onomatopoeia or foreign words, the katakana form 'ウェ' (U-[small-e]) is used, as in "ウェスト" for "west". The kana still sees some modern-day usage as a stylistic variant of 'え/エ'. Ebisu is usually written as "えびす", but sometimes "ゑびす" like Kyoto Ebisu Shrine (京都ゑびす神社, Kyōto Webisu Jinja), and name of the beer Yebisu...

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