I ( in hiragana or in katakana) is one of the Japanese kana each of which represents one mora. い is based on the sōsho style of the kanji character 以, and イ is from the radical (left part) of the kanji character 伊. In the modern Japanese system of sound order, it occupies the second position of the mora chart, between and . Additionally, it is the first letter in Iroha, before ろ. Both represent the sound [i]. In the Ainu language, katakana イ is written as y in their Latin-based mora chart, and a small ィ after another katakana represents a diphthong.

i
hiragana
japanese hiragana i
katakana
japanese katakana i
transliterationi
hiragana origin
katakana origin
Man'yōgana伊 怡 以 異 已 移 射 五
spelling kanaいろはのイ
(Iroha no "i")
Form Rōmaji Hiragana Katakana
Normal a/i/u/e/o
(あ行 a-gyō)
i
ii, yi
ī
いい, いぃ
いー
イイ, イィ
イー
Other additional forms
Form (y-)
Rōmaji Hiragana Katakana
yi いぃ イィ
ye いぇ イェ

Variant forms

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Like other vowels, scaled-down versions of the kana (ぃ, ィ) are used to express sounds foreign to the Japanese language, such as フィ (fi). In some Okinawan writing systems, a small ぃ is also combined with the kana く (ku) and ふ to form the digraphs くぃ kwi and ふぃ hwi respectively, although the Ryukyu University system uses the kana ゐ/ヰ instead.

Origin

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い comes from the left part of the Kanji 以, while イ originates from the left part of the Kanji 伊.[1] An alternate form - 𛀆, based on the full cursive form of 以 is one of the most common hentaigana, as it merged with い late in the development of modern Japanese writing.

Stroke order

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Stroke order in writing い
 
Stroke order in writing イ
 
Stroke order in writing い

The Hiragana い is made in two strokes:

  1. At the top left, a curved vertical stroke, ending with a hook at the bottom.
  2. At the top right, a shorter stroke, slightly curving in the opposite direction.
 
Stroke order in writing イ

The Katakana イ is made in two strokes:

  1. At the top, a curved diagonal line going from right to left.
  2. In the center of the last stroke, a vertical line going down.

Other communicative representations

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  • Full Braille representation
い / イ in Japanese Braille
い / イ
i
いい / イー
ī
+い / +ー
chōon*
      

* When lengthening "-i" or "-e" morae in Japanese braille, a chōon is always used, as is standard in katakana orthography, instead of adding the い / イ kana.

Character information
Preview
Unicode name HIRAGANA LETTER I KATAKANA LETTER I HALFWIDTH KATAKANA LETTER I CIRCLED KATAKANA I
Encodings decimal hex dec hex dec hex dec hex
Unicode 12356 U+3044 12452 U+30A4 65394 U+FF72 13009 U+32D1
UTF-8 227 129 132 E3 81 84 227 130 164 E3 82 A4 239 189 178 EF BD B2 227 139 145 E3 8B 91
Numeric character reference い い イ イ イ イ ㋑ ㋑
Shift JIS[2] 130 162 82 A2 131 67 83 43 178 B2
EUC-JP[3] 164 164 A4 A4 165 164 A5 A4 142 178 8E B2
GB 18030[4] 164 164 A4 A4 165 164 A5 A4 132 49 151 52 84 31 97 34 129 57 209 55 81 39 D1 37
EUC-KR[5] / UHC[6] 170 164 AA A4 171 164 AB A4
Big5 (non-ETEN kana)[7] 198 168 C6 A8 198 251 C6 FB
Big5 (ETEN / HKSCS)[8] 198 234 C6 EA 199 126 C7 7E
Character information
Preview
Unicode name HIRAGANA LETTER SMALL I KATAKANA LETTER SMALL I HALFWIDTH KATAKANA LETTER SMALL I
Encodings decimal hex dec hex dec hex
Unicode 12355 U+3043 12451 U+30A3 65384 U+FF68
UTF-8 227 129 131 E3 81 83 227 130 163 E3 82 A3 239 189 168 EF BD A8
Numeric character reference ぃ ぃ ィ ィ ィ ィ
Shift JIS[2] 130 161 82 A1 131 66 83 42 168 A8
EUC-JP[3] 164 163 A4 A3 165 163 A5 A3 142 168 8E A8
GB 18030[4] 164 163 A4 A3 165 163 A5 A3 132 49 150 52 84 31 96 34
EUC-KR[5] / UHC[6] 170 163 AA A3 171 163 AB A3
Big5 (non-ETEN kana)[7] 198 167 C6 A7 198 250 C6 FA
Big5 (ETEN / HKSCS)[8] 198 233 C6 E9 199 125 C7 7D

Footnotes

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  1. ^ Where do the kana come from
  2. ^ a b Unicode Consortium (2015-12-02) [1994-03-08]. "Shift-JIS to Unicode".
  3. ^ a b Unicode Consortium; IBM. "EUC-JP-2007". International Components for Unicode.
  4. ^ a b Standardization Administration of China (SAC) (2005-11-18). GB 18030-2005: Information Technology—Chinese coded character set.
  5. ^ a b Unicode Consortium; IBM. "IBM-970". International Components for Unicode.
  6. ^ a b Steele, Shawn (2000). "cp949 to Unicode table". Microsoft / Unicode Consortium.
  7. ^ a b Unicode Consortium (2015-12-02) [1994-02-11]. "BIG5 to Unicode table (complete)".
  8. ^ a b van Kesteren, Anne. "big5". Encoding Standard. WHATWG.