E (kana)
| e | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
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| transliteration | e | |||
| hiragana origin | ||||
| katakana origin | ||||
| spelling kana | 英語のエ (Eigo no "e") |
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In Japanese writing, the kana え (hiragana) and エ (katakana) (romanised e) occupy the fourth place, between う and お, in the modern Gojūon (五十音) system of collating kana. In the Iroha, they occupy the 34th, between こ and て. In the table at right (ordered by columns, from right to left), え lies in the first column (あ行, "column A") and the fourth row (え段, "row E"). Both represent [e].
え and エ originate, via man'yōgana, from the kanji and , 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.
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.
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