E (kana)

e
hiragana katakana
transliteration	e
hiragana origin	衣
katakana origin	江
spelling kana	英語のエ (Eigo no "e")

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].

Form	Rōmaji	Hiragana	Katakana
Normal a/i/u/e/o (あ行 a-gyō)	e	え	エ
	ei ee ē	えい, えぃ ええ, えぇ えー	エイ, エィ エエ, エェ エー

Derivation

え and エ originate, via man'yōgana, from the kanji 衣 and 江, 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.

Variant forms

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.

Transliteration

In the Hepburn, Kunrei-shiki and Nihon-shiki systems of romanization, both え and エ are transliterated as "e". In the Polivanov system of cyrillization, the kana are transliterated as "э".

Stroke order

Stroke order in writing え

Stroke order in writing エ

The hiragana え is made with two strokes:

1. At the top, a short diagonal stroke proceeding downward and to the right.
2. At the bottom, a stroke composed of a horizontal line, a diagonal proceeding downward and to the left, and a rightward stroke resembling a tilde (~).

The katakana エ is made with three strokes:

1. At the top, a horizontal stroke from left to right.
2. A downward vertical stroke starting in the center of the first stroke.
3. At the bottom, a horizontal stroke parallel to the first stroke, and touching the second. This stroke is usually slightly longer than the first.

This is also the way to make the English letter "I" (although the correct upper case form does not look like the lower case English letter "l")

Other communicative representations

• Computer encodings

Character	え		エ		ｴ
Unicode name	HIRAGANA LETTER E		KATAKANA LETTER E		HALFWIDTH KATAKANA LETTER E
Encodings	decimal	hex	decimal	hex	decimal	hex
Unicode	12360	U+3048	12456	U+30A8	65396	U+FF74
UTF-8	227 129 136	E3 81 88	227 130 168	E3 82 A8	239 189 180	EF BD B4
Numeric character reference	え	え	エ	エ	ｴ	ｴ
Shift JIS	130 166	82 A6	131 71	83 47	180	B4

Character	ぇ		ェ		ｪ
Unicode name	HIRAGANA LETTER SMALL E		KATAKANA LETTER SMALL E		HALFWIDTH KATAKANA LETTER SMALL E
Encodings	decimal	hex	decimal	hex	decimal	hex
Unicode	12359	U+3047	12455	U+30A7	65386	U+FF6A
UTF-8	227 129 135	E3 81 87	227 130 167	E3 82 A7	239 189 170	EF BD AA
Numeric character reference	ぇ	ぇ	ェ	ェ	ｪ	ｪ
Shift JIS	130 165	82 A5	131 70	83 46	170	AA

• Archaic and Hentaigana

Character	𛀀		𛀁
Unicode name	KATAKANA LETTER ARCHAIC E		HIRAGANA LETTER ARCHAIC YE
Encodings	decimal	hex	decimal	hex
Unicode	110592	U+1B000	110593	U+1B001
UTF-8	240 155 128 128	F0 9B 80 80	240 155 128 129	F0 9B 80 81
UTF-16	55340 56320	D82C DC00	55340 56321	D82C DC01
Numeric character reference	𛀀	𛀀	𛀁	𛀁

• Braille

え / エ in Japanese Braille
え / エ e	えい / エー ē/ei

• Japanese semaphore

• Phonetic alphabet: 「英語のエ」 ("e as in eigo")
• Morse code: －・－－－