Tsu (hiragana: ã¤, katakana: ãÂÂ) is one of the Japanese kana, each of which represents one mora. Both are phonemically , reflected in the Nihon-shiki and Kunrei-shiki Romanization tu, although for phonological reasons, the actual pronunciation is , reflected in the Hepburn romanization tsu.
The small kana ã£/ãÂÂ, known as sokuon, are identical but somewhat smaller. They are mainly used to indicate consonant gemination and commonly used at the end of lines of dialogue in fictional works as a symbol for a glottal stop.
The dakuten forms ãÂÂ¥, ã , usually pronounced the same as the dakuten forms of the su kana in most dialects (see yotsugana), are uncommon. They are primarily used for indicating a voiced consonant in the middle of a compound word (see rendaku), and they can never begin a word.
In the Ainu language, it can be written with a handakuten (which can be entered into a computer as either one character (ãÂÂãÂÂ) or two combined characters (ãÂÂãÂÂ) to represent the sound , which is interchangeable with the katakana ãÂÂãÂÂ.
The katakana form has become popular as an emoticon in the Western world due to its resemblance to a smiling face and as part of a "shrug" emoticon, known alternatively as Shruggie, rendered as: ï\_(ãÂÂ)_/ï .