I (kana)
| i | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
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| transliteration | i | |||
| hiragana origin | ||||
| katakana origin | ||||
| spelling kana | いろはのイ (Iroha no "i") |
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い in hiragana or イ in katakana (romanised as i) 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 alphabetical order, it occupies the second position of the alphabet, between あ and う. 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 alphabet, and a small ィ after another katakana represents a diphthong.
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.
い comes from the left part of the Kanji 以, while イ originates from the left part of the Kanji 伊.
The Hiragana い is made in two strokes:
The Katakana イ is made in two strokes:
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Wikipedia