N (kana)

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, in hiragana or in katakana, is one of the Japanese kana, which each represent one mora. ん is the only kana that does not end in a vowel sound (although in certain cases the vowel ending of kana, such as , is unpronounced). The kana for mu, む/ム, was originally used for the n sound as well, while ん was originally a hentaigana used for both n and mu. In the 1900 Japanese script reforms, hentaigana were officially declared obsolete and ん was officially declared a kana to represent the n sound.

n
hiragana
japanese hiragana n
katakana
japanese katakana n
transliterationn, (m),(ng)
hiragana origin
katakana origin
spelling kanaおしまいのン Oshimai no "n"
unicodeU+3093, U+30F3
braille⠴

In addition to being the only kana not ending with a vowel sound, it is also the only kana that does not begin any words in standard Japanese (other than foreign loan words such as "Ngorongoro", which is transcribed as ンゴロンゴロ) (see Shiritori). Some regional dialects of Japanese feature words beginning with ん, as do the Ryukyuan languages (which are usually written in the Japanese writing system), in which words starting with ン are common, such as the Okinawan word for miso, nnsu (transcribed as ンース). In the Ainu language, ン is interchangeable with the small katakana ㇴ as a final n.

The kana is followed by an apostrophe in some systems of transliteration whenever it precedes a vowel or a y- kana, so as to prevent confusion with other kana. However, like every other kana besides yōon, it represents an entire mora, so its pronunciation is, in practice, as close to "nn" as "n". The pronunciation can also change depending on what sounds surround it. These are a few of the ways it can change:

  • [n] (before n, t, d, r, ts, and z)
  • [m] (before m, p and b)
  • [ŋ] (before k and g)
  • [ɲ] (before ni, ch and j)
  • [ɴ] (at the end of utterances)
  • [ɯ͍̃] (before vowels, palatal approximants (y), consonants h, f, s, sh and w)
  • [ĩ] (after the vowel i if another vowel, palatal approximant or consonant f, s, sh, h or w follows.)
Form Rōmaji Hiragana Katakana
Normal n (ん) n
nn
[citation needed]
んん
んー
ンン
ンー
Other additional forms
Form (nw-)
Rōmaji Hiragana Katakana
nwa んわ ンワ Nwankwo Kanu (ンワンクウォ・カヌ Nwankuwo Kanu)
nwi んうぃ ンウィ Nwisd (ンウィスド Nwisudo)
nwu んうぅ ンウゥ
nwe んうぇ ンウェ Nwenaing (ンウェナイング Nwenaingu)
nwo んうぉ ンウォ Nwoya District (ンウォヤ・ディストリクト Nwoya Disutorikuto)

Stroke order edit

 
Stroke order in writing ん
 
Stroke order in writing ン
 
Stroke order in writing ん
 
Stroke order in writing ン

Other communicative representations edit

  • Full Braille representation
ん / ン in Japanese Braille:
 
Character information
Preview 𛅧
Unicode name HIRAGANA LETTER N KATAKANA LETTER N HALFWIDTH KATAKANA LETTER N KATAKANA LETTER SMALL N
Encodings decimal hex dec hex dec hex dec hex
Unicode 12435 U+3093 12531 U+30F3 65437 U+FF9D 110951 U+1B167
UTF-8 227 130 147 E3 82 93 227 131 179 E3 83 B3 239 190 157 EF BE 9D 240 155 133 167 F0 9B 85 A7
UTF-16 12435 3093 12531 30F3 65437 FF9D 55340 56679 D82C DD67
Numeric character reference ん ん ン ン ン ン 𛅧 𛅧
Shift JIS[1] 130 241 82 F1 131 147 83 93 221 DD
EUC-JP[2] 164 243 A4 F3 165 243 A5 F3 142 221 8E DD
GB 18030[3] 164 243 A4 F3 165 243 A5 F3 132 49 155 55 84 31 9B 37 147 54 134 53 93 36 86 35
EUC-KR[4] / UHC[5] 170 243 AA F3 171 243 AB F3
Big5 (non-ETEN kana)[6] 198 247 C6 F7 199 173 C7 AD
Big5 (ETEN / HKSCS)[7] 199 122 C7 7A 199 239 C7 EF

N is the only Katakana without a circled form in Unicode.

References edit

  • Oguri, Saori; László, Tony (2005). Darling no atamannaka. Tokyo: Media Factory. ISBN 4-8401-1226-6.