Shi (kana)
| shi | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
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| transliteration | shi, si | |||
| translit. with dakuten | ji, zi | |||
| hiragana origin | ||||
| katakana origin | ||||
| spelling kana | 新聞のシ (Shinbun no "shi") |
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し, in hiragana, or シ in katakana, is one of the Japanese kana, which each represent one mora. Both represent the phoneme /si/ although for phonological reasons, the actual pronunciation is [ɕi]. The shapes of these kana have origins in the character 之. The katakana form has become increasingly popular as an emoticon in the Western world due to its resemblance to a smiling face, thus this variant form ㋛ was created.
This character may be combined with a dakuten, forming じ in hiragana, ジ in katakana, and ji in Hepburn romanization; the pronunciation becomes /zi/ (phonetically [d͡ʑi] or [ʑi] in the middle of words).
The dakuten form of this character is used when transliterating "di" occasionally, as opposed to チ's dakuten form; for example, Aladdin is written as アラジン Arajin, and radio is written as ラジオ.
In the Ainu language, シ is used to represent the ʃi sound. It can also be written as a small ㇱ to represent a final s sound, pronounced ɕ.
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