We (kana)

ゑ in hiragana, or ヱ in katakana, is an obsolete Japanese kana that is normally pronounced [e] in current-day Japanese. The combination of a W-column kana letter with "ゑ゙" in hiragana was introduced to represent [ve] in the 19th and 20th centuries.^{[citation needed]}

we
hiragana katakana
transliteration	e, we
hiragana origin	恵
katakana origin	恵
Man'yōgana	廻 恵 面 咲
spelling kana	かぎのあるヱ Kagi no aru "e"
unicode	U+3091, U+30F1
braille

It is presumed that 'ゑ' represented [we] ^ⓘ, and that ゑ and え indicated different pronunciations until somewhere between the Kamakura and Taishō periods, when they both came to be pronounced as 'イェ' [je] ^ⓘ, later shifting to the modern 'エ' [e].^{[citation needed]} 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),^[1] and name of the beer Yebisu (ヱビス), which is actually pronounced "Ebisu". The Japanese title of the Rebuild of Evangelion series is Evangelion: New Theatrical Edition (ヱヴァンゲリヲン新劇場版, Wevangeriwon Shin Gekijōban). VTuber Sakamata Chloe (沙花叉クロヱ) of Hololive Production uses Katakana ヱ (we) in place of the pronounced エ (e). Katakana ヱ is sometimes written with a dakuten, ヹ, to represent a /ve/ sound in foreign words; however, most IMEs lack a convenient way to write this, and the digraph ヴェ is far more common. The Meiji-era Classical Japanese version of the Bible renders Jehovah as ヱホバ (Yehoba), and ヱ (ye) is also used to transcribe any Hebrew name spelled with Je in English (pronounced "ye" in Hebrew, though), such as Jephthah (ヱフタ, Yefuta); the modern Japanese version, on the other hand, only uses エ (e), hence エホバ (Ehoba) and エフタ (Efuta).

Hiragana ゑ is still used in several Okinawan orthographies for the mora /we/. In the Ryūkyū University system, ゑ is also combined with a small ぃ (ゑぃ/ヱィ), to represent the sound /wi/. Katakana ヱ is used in Ainu for /we/.

Stroke order

Sign in Tokyo reading ゑびす (Webisu...) in hiragana

Curtain sign in Tokyo reading ヤヱガキ (Yawegaki) in katakana

Stroke order of both ゑ and ヱ

Animated	Diagram
Stroke order in writing ゑ	Stroke order in writing ゑ
Stroke order in writing ヱ	Stroke order in writing ヱ

The hiragana ゑ is made with one stroke. It resembles a hiragana る that continues with a double-humped ん shape underneath.

The katakana ヱ is made with three strokes:

1. A horizontal line that hooks down and to the left.
2. A vertical line, just grazing the end of the first stroke.
3. A long horizontal line across the bottom.

Other communicative representations

Japanese radiotelephony alphabet	Wabun code
かぎのあるヱ Kagi no aru "We"	▄ ▄▄▄ ▄▄▄ ▄ ▄ ⓘ

Japanese Navy Signal Flag	Japanese semaphore	Japanese manual syllabary (fingerspelling)	Braille dots-235 Japanese Braille

• Full Braille representation

ゑ / ヱ in Japanese Braille
ゑ / ヱ we	ヹ ve	ゑい / ヱー wē/wei	ヹー vē/vei

• Computer encodings

Character information

Preview	ゑ		ヱ		𛅑		𛅥
Unicode name	HIRAGANA LETTER WE		KATAKANA LETTER WE		HIRAGANA LETTER SMALL WE		KATAKANA LETTER SMALL WE
Encodings	decimal	hex	dec	hex	dec	hex	dec	hex
Unicode	12433	U+3091	12529	U+30F1	110929	U+1B151	110949	U+1B165
UTF-8	227 130 145	E3 82 91	227 131 177	E3 83 B1	240 155 133 145	F0 9B 85 91	240 155 133 165	F0 9B 85 A5
UTF-16	12433	3091	12529	30F1	55340 56657	D82C DD51	55340 56677	D82C DD65
Numeric character reference	ゑ	ゑ	ヱ	ヱ	𛅑	𛅑	𛅥	𛅥
Shift JIS[2]	130 239	82 EF	131 145	83 91
EUC-JP[3]	164 241	A4 F1	165 241	A5 F1
GB 18030[4]	164 241	A4 F1	165 241	A5 F1			147 54 134 51	93 36 86 33
EUC-KR[5] / UHC[6]	170 241	AA F1	171 241	AB F1
Big5 (non-ETEN kana)[7]	198 245	C6 F5	199 171	C7 AB
Big5 (ETEN / HKSCS)[8]	199 120	C7 78	199 237	C7 ED

Character information

Preview	🋃		ヹ		㋽
Unicode name	HALFWIDTH KATAKANA LETTER WE		KATAKANA LETTER VE		CIRCLED KATAKANA WE
Encodings	decimal	hex	dec	hex	dec	hex
Unicode	127683	U+1F2C3	12537	U+30F9	13053	U+32FD
UTF-8	240 159 139 131	F0 9F 8B 83	227 131 185	E3 83 B9	227 139 189	E3 8B BD
UTF-16	55356 57027	D83C DEC3	12537	30F9	13053	32FD
Numeric character reference	🋃	🋃	ヹ	ヹ	㋽	㋽
Shift JIS (KanjiTalk 7)[9]			136 108	88 6C
Shift JIS (JIS X 0213)[10]			132 148	84 94
EUC-JP (JIS X 0213)[11]			167 244	A7 F4
GB 18030[4]	147 54 132 51	93 36 84 33	129 57 167 55	81 39 A7 37