Ha (kana)

Ha (hiragana: , katakana: ) is one of the Japanese kana, each of which represent one mora. Both represent . They are also used as a grammatical particle (in such cases, they denote , including in the greeting "") and serve as the topic marker of the sentence. originates from 波 and from 八.

In the Sakhalin dialect of the Ainu language, the katakana can be written as small to represent a final h sound after an a sound (アㇵ ah). 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, is pronounced as [wa]. is also pronounced as in some words (e.g. pronounced as mono no aware).

Stroke order

The Hiragana は is made with three strokes:

1. A vertical line on the left side with a small curve.
2. A horizontal stroke near the center.
3. 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:

1. A straight stroke from the top pointing towards the bottom left.
2. Another straight stroke going the opposite way, i.e. from the top to the bottom right

The hiragana は is read as "wa" when it represents a particle.

Other communicative representations

• Full Braille representation

• Computer encodings

See also

• Japanese grammar

References