Ha (kana)
Character of the Japanese writing system
Ha (hiragana: は, katakana: ハ) 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 "konnichi wa") and serve as the topic marker of the sentence. は originates from 波 and ハ from 八.
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). 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 (e.g. もののあはれ pronounced as mono no aware).
| Form | Rōmaji | Hiragana | Katakana |
|---|---|---|---|
| Normal h- (は行 ha-gyō) |
ha | は | ハ |
| haa hā |
はあ, はぁ はー |
ハア, ハァ ハー | |
| Addition dakuten b- (ば行 ba-gyō) |
ba | ば | バ |
| baa bā |
ばあ, ばぁ ばー |
バア, バァ バー | |
| Addition handakuten p- (ぱ行 pa-gyō) |
pa | ぱ | パ |
| paa pā |
ぱあ, ぱぁ ぱー |
パア, パァ パー |
01Stroke order
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 hiragana は is read as "wa" when it represents a particle.
02Other communicative representations
| Japanese radiotelephony alphabet | Wabun code |
| はがきのハ Hagaki no "Ha" |
▄▄▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ⓘ |
| 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 |
| Preview | は | ハ | ﾊ | ㇵ | ㋩ | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Unicode name | HIRAGANA LETTER HA | KATAKANA LETTER HA | HALFWIDTH KATAKANA LETTER HA | KATAKANA LETTER SMALL HA | CIRCLED KATAKANA HA | |||||
| Encodings | decimal | hex | dec | hex | dec | hex | dec | hex | dec | hex |
| Unicode | 12399 | U+306F | 12495 | U+30CF | 65418 | U+FF8A | 12789 | U+31F5 | 13033 | U+32E9 |
| 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 | 227 139 169 | E3 8B A9 |
| Numeric character reference | は | は | ハ | ハ | ﾊ | ﾊ | ㇵ | ㇵ | ㋩ | ㋩ |
| Shift JIS (plain) | 130 205 | 82 CD | 131 110 | 83 6E | 202 | CA | ||||
| Shift JIS-2004 | 130 205 | 82 CD | 131 110 | 83 6E | 202 | CA | 131 241 | 83 F1 | ||
| EUC-JP (plain) | 164 207 | A4 CF | 165 207 | A5 CF | 142 202 | 8E CA | ||||
| EUC-JIS-2004 | 164 207 | A4 CF | 165 207 | A5 CF | 142 202 | 8E CA | 166 243 | A6 F3 | ||
| GB 18030 | 164 207 | A4 CF | 165 207 | A5 CF | 132 49 153 56 | 84 31 99 38 | 129 57 188 57 | 81 39 BC 39 | ||
| EUC-KR / UHC | 170 207 | AA CF | 171 207 | AB CF | ||||||
| Big5 (non-ETEN kana) | 198 211 | C6 D3 | 199 103 | C7 67 | ||||||
| Big5 (ETEN / HKSCS) | 199 86 | C7 56 | 199 203 | C7 CB | ||||||
| Preview | ば | バ | ぱ | パ | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Unicode name | HIRAGANA LETTER BA | KATAKANA LETTER BA | HIRAGANA LETTER PA | KATAKANA LETTER PA | ||||
| Encodings | decimal | hex | dec | hex | dec | hex | dec | 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 |
| EUC-JP | 164 208 | A4 D0 | 165 208 | A5 D0 | 164 209 | A4 D1 | 165 209 | A5 D1 |
| GB 18030 | 164 208 | A4 D0 | 165 208 | A5 D0 | 164 209 | A4 D1 | 165 209 | A5 D1 |
| EUC-KR / UHC | 170 208 | AA D0 | 171 208 | AB D0 | 170 209 | AA D1 | 171 209 | AB D1 |
| Big5 (non-ETEN kana) | 198 212 | C6 D4 | 199 104 | C7 68 | 198 213 | C6 D5 | 199 105 | C7 69 |
| Big5 (ETEN / HKSCS) | 199 87 | C7 57 | 199 204 | C7 CC | 199 88 | C7 58 | 199 205 | C7 CD |
Sources and credits
This article is adapted from the Wikipedia article “Ha (kana)”, written by its contributors and licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Fathomly has changed the layout, removed citation markers, navigation and maintenance notices, and adjusted punctuation. This adapted version is shared under the same license. For references, see the original article.
Images, from Wikimedia Commons:
- Hiragana は stroke order animation.gif by Sirgazil, CC0
- Katakana ハ stroke order animation.gif by Sirgazil, CC0
- は-bw.png by drawn by D.328 13:01, 21 June 2006 (UTC), CC BY-SA 3.0
- ハ-bw.png by Made by me, M4RC0, using Photoshop. We are making this kind of picture following the protocol of the section : Bitmap Image (PNG), CC BY-SA 2.0
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