No (kana)

の, in hiragana, and ノ, in katakana, are Japanese kana, both representing one mora. In the gojūon system of ordering of Japanese morae, it occupies the 25th position, between ね (ne) and は (ha). It occupies the 26th position in the iroha ordering. Both represent the sound [no]. The katakana form is written similar to the Kangxi radical 丿, radical 4.

Form	Rōmaji	Hiragana	Katakana
Normal n- (な行 na-gyō)	no	の	ノ
	nou noo nō	のう, のぅ のお, のぉ のー	ノウ, ノゥ ノオ, ノォ ノー

no
hiragana katakana
transliteration	no
hiragana origin	乃
katakana origin	乃
Man'yōgana	努 怒 野 乃 能 笑 荷
spelling kana	野原のノ (Nohara no no)
unicode	U+306E, U+30CE
braille
Note: These Man'yōgana originally represented morae with one of two different vowel sounds, which merged in later pronunciation

Stroke order

Stroke order in writing の

Stroke order in writing ノ

To write の, begin slightly above the center, stroke downward diagonally, then round upward and continue curve around, leaving a small gap at the bottom. To write ノ, simply do a swooping curve from top-right to bottom left.

Other communicative representations

Japanese radiotelephony alphabet	Wabun code
野原のノ Nohara no "No"	▄ ▄ ▄▄▄ ▄▄▄ ⓘ

Japanese Navy Signal Flag	Japanese semaphore	Japanese manual syllabary (fingerspelling)	Braille dots-234 Japanese Braille

• Full Braille representation

の / ノ in Japanese Braille
の / ノ no	のう / ノー nō/nou	Other kana based on Braille の
		にょ / ニョ nyo	にょう / ニョー nyō/nyou

• Computer encodings

Character information

Preview	の		ノ		ﾉ		㋨
Unicode name	HIRAGANA LETTER NO		KATAKANA LETTER NO		HALFWIDTH KATAKANA LETTER NO		CIRCLED KATAKANA NO
Encodings	decimal	hex	dec	hex	dec	hex	dec	hex
Unicode	12398	U+306E	12494	U+30CE	65417	U+FF89	13032	U+32E8
UTF-8	227 129 174	E3 81 AE	227 131 142	E3 83 8E	239 190 137	EF BE 89	227 139 168	E3 8B A8
Numeric character reference	の	の	ノ	ノ	ﾉ	ﾉ	㋨	㋨
Shift JIS[1]	130 204	82 CC	131 109	83 6D	201	C9
EUC-JP[2]	164 206	A4 CE	165 206	A5 CE	142 201	8E C9
GB 18030[3]	164 206	A4 CE	165 206	A5 CE	132 49 153 55	84 31 99 37
EUC-KR[4] / UHC[5]	170 206	AA CE	171 206	AB CE
Big5 (non-ETEN kana)[6]	198 210	C6 D2	199 102	C7 66
Big5 (ETEN / HKSCS)[7]	199 85	C7 55	199 202	C7 CA

History

Main articles: Hiragana and Katakana

Like every other hiragana, the hiragana の developed from man'yōgana, kanji used for phonetic purposes, written in the highly cursive, flowing grass script style. In the picture on the left, the top shows the kanji 乃 written in the kaisho style, and the centre image is the same kanji written in the sōsho style. The bottom part is the kana for "no", a further abbreviation.

Hentaigana and gyaru-moji variant kana forms of no can also be found.

Usage

Main articles: Japanese phonology and Japanese grammar

の is a dental nasal consonant, articulated on the upper teeth, combined with a close-mid back rounded vowel to form one mora.

In the Japanese language, as well as forming words, の may be a particle showing possession. For example, the phrase "わたしのでんわ” watashi no denwa means "my telephone."

In Chinese

Usage of の in place of 的 (and 犬 in place of 狗) in Taipei

の has also proliferated on signs and labels in the Chinese-speaking world. It is used in place of the Modern Chinese possessive marker 的 de or Classical Chinese possessive marker 之 zhī, and の is pronounced in the same way as the Chinese character it replaces. This is usually done to "stand out" or to give an "exotic/Japanese feel", e.g. in commercial brand names, such as the fruit juice brand 鲜の每日C, where the の can be read as both 之 zhī, the possessive marker, and as 汁 zhī, meaning "juice".^[8] In Hong Kong, the Companies Registry has extended official recognition to this practice, and permits の to be used in Chinese names of registered businesses; it is thus the only non-Chinese symbol to be granted this treatment (aside from punctuation marks with no pronunciation value).^[9]