E (kana)

え and エ originate, via man'yōgana, from the kanji 衣 and 江, respectively.

The archaic kana ゑ (we), as well as many non-initial occurrences of the character へ (he), have entered the modern Japanese language as え. The directional particle へ is today pronounced "e", though not written as え. Compare this to は (ha) and を (wo), which are pronounced "wa" and "o" when used as grammatical particles.

For the kana romanized sometimes as "e", see we (kana).

Scaled-down versions of the kana (ぇ, ェ) are used to express morae foreign to the Japanese language, such as ヴェ (ve). In several Okinawan writing systems, a small ぇ is also combined with the kana く(ku) and ふ (fu or hu) to form the digraphs くぇ kwe and ふぇ hwe.

In the Hepburn, Kunrei-shiki and Nihon-shiki systems of romanization, both え and エ are transliterated as "e". In the Polivanov system of cyrillization, the kana are transliterated as "э".

 

The hiragana え is made with two strokes:

1. At the top, a short diagonal stroke proceeding downward and to the right.
2. At the bottom, a stroke composed of a horizontal line, a diagonal proceeding downward and to the left, and a rightward stroke resembling a tilde (~).

 

The katakana エ is made with three strokes:

1. At the top, a horizontal stroke from left to right.
2. A downward vertical stroke starting in the center of the first stroke.
3. At the bottom, a horizontal stroke parallel to the first stroke, and touching the second. This stroke is usually slightly longer than the first.

This is also the way to make the Latin letter "I" (although the correct upper case form does not look like the lower case Latin letter "l")

Japanese radiotelephony alphabet	Wabun code
英語のエ Eigo no "E"	▄▄▄ ▄ ▄▄▄ ▄▄▄ ▄▄▄

Japanese Navy Signal Flag	Japanese semaphore	Japanese manual syllabary (fingerspelling)	Braille dots-124 Japanese Braille

• Full Braille representation

え / エ in Japanese Braille
え / エ e	えい / エー ē/ei

• Computer encodings

• Archaic and Hentaigana