Wo (kana)

In the 1946 orthographic reforms, を was largely replaced by お. In Japanese, this kana is used almost exclusively for a particle for both forms; therefore, the katakana form (ヲ) is rare in everyday language, mostly seen in all-katakana text. A "wo" sound is usually represented as うぉ or ウォ instead.

Despite originally representing [wo], the mora is pronounced [o] by almost all modern speakers. Singers may pronounce it with the [w], as a stylistic effect. Apart from some literate speakers who have revived [wo] as a spelling pronunciation^{[citation needed]}, though, this [w] sound is extinct in the modern spoken language. Some non-standard dialectal Japanese still pronounce it [wo], notably dialects in the Ehime Prefecture.^{[citation needed]}

In Romaji, the kana is transliterated variably as ⟨o⟩ or ⟨wo⟩, with the former being faithful to standard pronunciation, but the latter avoiding confusion with お and オ, and being in line with the structure of the gojūon. を is transliterated as o in Modified Hepburn and Kunrei and as wo in Traditional Hepburn and Nippon-shiki.

Katakana ヲ can sometimes be combined with a dakuten, ヺ, to represent a /vo/ sound in foreign words; however, most IMEs lack a convenient way to do this as this usage has largely fallen into disuse. The digraph ヴォ is used far more frequently to represent the /vo/ sound.

Hiragana を is still used in several Okinawan orthographies for the mora /o~wo/; in the Ryukyu University system, it is /o/, whereas お is /ʔo/. Katakana ヲ is used in Ainu for /wo/.

Japanese radiotelephony alphabet	Wabun code
尾張のヲ Wowari no "Wo"	▄ ▄▄▄ ▄▄▄ ▄▄▄ ⓘ

Japanese Navy Signal Flag	Japanese semaphore	Japanese manual syllabary (fingerspelling)	Braille dots-35 Japanese Braille

• Full Braille representation

More information を / ヲ in Japanese Braille ...

を / ヲ in Japanese Braille
を / ヲ wo	をう / ヲー wō	ヺ vo	ヺー vō

Close

• Computer encodings

Look up を or ヲ in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.