We (kana)

We (hiragana: ゑ, katakana: ヱ) is an obsolete kana (Japanese phonetic character) that is pronounced [e] (same pronunciation as e (kana): え) in current-day Japanese. It is presumed that 'ゑ' represented [we] , while ゑ and え indicated different pronunciations until somewhere between the Kamakura and Taishō periods, when they both came to be pronounced as 'いぇ' [je] , later shifting to the modern 'え' [e]. The combination of ゑ or ヱ with dakuten (ゑ゙ ヹ) were introduced to represent [ve] in the 19th and 20th centuries. Along with the kana for wi ('ゐ' in hiragana, 'ヰ' in katakana), this kana was deemed obsolete in Japanese in 1946 and replaced with え and エ. It is now rare in everyday usage; in onomatopoeia or foreign words, the katakana form 'ウェ' (U-[small-e]) is used, as in "ウェスト" for "west". The kana still sees some modern-day usage as a stylistic variant of 'え/エ'. Ebisu is usually written as "えびす", but sometimes "ゑびす" like Kyoto Ebisu Shrine (京都ゑびす神社, Kyōto Webisu Jinja), and name of the beer Yebisu (ヱビス), which is actually pronounced "Ebisu". The Japanese title of the Rebuild of Evangelion series is Evangelion: New Theatrical Edition (ヱヴァンゲリヲン新劇場版, Evangerion Shin Gekijōban) which stylistically substitutes エ and オ with ヱ and ヲ. VTuber Sakamata Chloe (沙花叉クロヱ, Sakamata Kurowe) of Hololive Production uses ヱ (we) instead of the エ (e) standardly used for spelling the name Chloe (クロエ, Kuroe). Katakana ヱ is sometimes written with a dakuten, ヹ, to represent a /ve/ sound in foreign words; however, most commonly used Japanese IMEs lack a convenient way to write this, and the digraph ヴェ is far more common. The Meiji-era Classical Japanese version of the Bible renders Jehovah as ヱホバ (Yehoba), and ヱ (ye) is also used to transcribe any Hebrew name spelled with Je in...