Ha (kana)
は, in hiragana or ハ in katakana, is one of the Japanese kana, each of which represent one mora. Both represent [ha]. They are also used as a grammatical particle (in such cases, they denote [wa], including in the greeting "kon'nichiwa") and serve as the topic marker of the sentence. は originates from 波 and ハ from 八.
| ha | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
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| transliteration | ha | |||
| hiragana origin | 波 | |||
| katakana origin | 八 | |||
| spelling kana | はがきのハ Hagaki no "ha" | |||
| kana gojūon | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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In the Sakhalin dialect of the Ainu language, the katakana ハ can be written as small ㇵ to represent a final h sound after an a sound (アㇵ ah).[1] This, along with other extended katakana, was developed by Japanese linguists to represent sounds in Ainu not present in standard Japanese katakana. When used as a particle, は is pronounced as わ [wa]. は is also pronounced as わ in some words.
| Form | Rōmaji | Hiragana | Katakana |
|---|---|---|---|
| Normal h- (は行 ha-gyō) |
ha | は | ハ |
| haa hā, hah |
はあ, はぁ はー |
ハア, ハァ ハー | |
| Addition dakuten b- (ば行 ba-gyō) |
ba | ば | バ |
| baa bā, bah |
ばあ, ばぁ ばー |
バア, バァ バー | |
| Addition handakuten p- (ぱ行 pa-gyō) |
pa | ぱ | パ |
| paa pā, pah |
ぱあ, ぱぁ ぱー |
パア, パァ パー |
Stroke order
 Stroke order in writing は |
 Stroke order in writing ハ |
The Hiragana は is made with three strokes:
- A vertical line on the left side with a small curve.
- A horizontal stroke near the center.
- A vertical stroke on the right at the center of the second stroke followed by a loop near the end.
The Katakana ハ is made with two strokes:
- A straight stroke from the top pointing towards the bottom left.
- Another straight stroke going the opposite way, i.e. from the top to the bottom right
The kana は is read as "wa" when it represents a particle.
Other communicative representations
| Japanese radiotelephony alphabet | Wabun Code |
| はがきのハ Hagaki no "Ha" |
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| Japanese Navy Signal Flag | Japanese semaphore | Japanese manual syllabary (fingerspelling) | Braille dots-136 Japanese Braille |
- Full Braille representation
| は / ハ in Japanese Braille | |||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| は / ハ ha | ば / バ ba | ぱ / パ pa | はあ / ハー hā | ばあ / バー bā | ぱあ / パー pā | Other kana based on Braille は | |||||
| ひゃ / ヒャ hya | びゃ / ビャ bya | ぴゃ / ピャ pya | ひゃあ / ヒャー hyā | びゃあ / ビャー byā | ぴゃあ / ピャー pyā | ||||||
|  |  |  | | |  |  |  | | | |
| Character | は | ハ | ﾊ | ㇵ | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Unicode name | HIRAGANA LETTER HA | KATAKANA LETTER HA | HALFWIDTH KATAKANA LETTER HA | KATAKANA LETTER SMALL HA | ||||
| Encodings | decimal | hex | decimal | hex | decimal | hex | decimal | hex |
| Unicode | 12399 | U+306F | 12495 | U+30CF | 65418 | U+FF8A | 12789 | U+31F5 |
| UTF-8 | 227 129 175 | E3 81 AF | 227 131 143 | E3 83 8F | 239 190 138 | EF BE 8A | 227 135 181 | E3 87 B5 |
| Numeric character reference | は | は | ハ | ハ | ﾊ | ﾊ | ㇵ | ㇵ |
| Shift JIS | 130 205 | 82 CD | 131 110 | 83 6E | 202 | CA | ||
| Character | ば | バ | ぱ | パ | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Unicode name | HIRAGANA LETTER BA | KATAKANA LETTER BA | HIRAGANA LETTER PA | KATAKANA LETTER PA | ||||
| Encodings | decimal | hex | decimal | hex | decimal | hex | decimal | hex |
| Unicode | 12400 | U+3070 | 12496 | U+30D0 | 12401 | U+3071 | 12497 | U+30D1 |
| UTF-8 | 227 129 176 | E3 81 B0 | 227 131 144 | E3 83 90 | 227 129 177 | E3 81 B1 | 227 131 145 | E3 83 91 |
| Numeric character reference | ば | ば | バ | バ | ぱ | ぱ | パ | パ |
| Shift JIS | 130 206 | 82 CE | 131 111 | 83 6F | 130 207 | 82 CF | 131 112 | 83 70 |
See also
References
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Look up は, ば, or ぱ in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. |
- Soergel, Nicolas (3 October 2011). "Particle は (wa)". Nihongo Ichiban.