Wi (kana)
| wi | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
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| transliteration | i, wi | |||
| hiragana origin | ||||
| katakana origin | ||||
ゐ, in hiragana, or ヰ in katakana, is a nearly obsolete Japanese kana, each of which represent one mora. It is presumed that ゐ represented [wi] and that ゐ and い indicated different pronunciations until somewhere between the Kamakura period and the Taishō period when they both came to be pronounced [i]. Along with the kana for we, (ゑ in hiragana, ヱ in katakana), this kana was deemed obsolete in Japanese in 1946, and replaced with い and イ. It is now rare in everyday usage; in onomatopoeia and foreign words, the katakana form ウィ (U-[small-i]) is preferred.
The kana still sees some modern-day usage. The spelling of whisky is usually "ウイスキー" (uisukī), but sometimes written "ウヰスキー" (uwisukī) stylistically, such as Nikka Whisky (ニッカウヰスキー nikka uwisukī?).The name of the comedy duo Yoiko is written "よゐこ" (yowiko), and a character in the video game series Touhou Project has the name "てゐ" (Tewi). Katakana ヰ is sometimes written with a dakuten, ヸ, to represent a /vi/ sound in foreign words; however, most IMEs lack a convenient way to do this. It is far more common for /vi/ to be represented by the combination ヴィ.
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