Wu (kana)

Wu (hiragana: 𛄟, katakana: 𛄢) is a Japanese mora or a kana used to write it, though it has never been in standard use.

History
It is presumed that 𛄟 would have represented. Along with 𛀆 and 𛀁 (yi and ye respectively), the mora wu has no officially recognized kana, as these morae do not occur in native Japanese words; however, during the Meiji period, linguists almost unanimously agreed on the kana for yi, ye, and wu. 𛀆 and wu are thought to have never occurred as morae in Japanese, and 𛀁 was merged with え and エ.

Characters
In the Edo period and the Meiji period, some Japanese linguists tried to separate kana u and kana wu. The shapes of characters differed with each linguist. 𛄟 and 𛄢 were just two of many shapes.

They were phonetic symbols to fill in the blanks of the gojuon table. Japanese people didn't separate them in normal writing.


 * u
 * Traditional kana
 * う (Hiragana)
 * 𛀋 (Hentaigana of う. Hiragana.)
 * 𛀍 (Hentaigana of う. Hiragana.)
 * ウ (Katakana)
 * Constructed kana
 * Katakana U3.svg (A part of 傴. Katakana.)


 * wu
 * Traditional kana
 * う (Hiragana)
 * 𛀋 (Hentaigana of う. Hiragana.)
 * ウ (Katakana)
 * 𛄢 (An old variant form of ウ. Katakana.)
 * Constructed kana
 * う〻 (う with dots. Hiragana.)
 * 𛄟 (A cursive script style of 汙. Hiragana.)
 * 紆 kana.svg (A cursive script style of 紆. Hiragana.)
 * Hiragana Wu 3.png (A cursive script style of 迂. Hiragana,)
 * Hiragana Wu 4.png (A cursive script style of 卯. Hiragana.)
 * ウ〻 (ウ with dots. Katakana.)

These suggestions weren't accepted.

Unicode
This kana has been encoded into Unicode 14.0 since September 14, 2021 as HIRAGANA LETTER ARCHAIC WU (U+1B11F), and KATAKANA LETTER ARCHAIC WU (U+1B122).