Ri (hiragana: , katakana: ) is one of the Japanese kana, each of which represent one mora. Both are written with two strokes and both represent the sound . Both originate from the character . The Ainu language uses a small katakana to represent a final r sound after an i sound ( ir). The combination of an R-column kana letter with handakuten - in hiragana, and in katakana was introduced to represent [li] in the early 20th century.
The hiragana character may also be written as a single stroke.