Wi (kana)

Wi (hiragana: ゐ, katakana: ヰ) is an obsolete kana (Japanese phonetic character) that is normally pronounced [i] (the same as the kana for i) in current-day Japanese. It is presumed that 'ゐ' represented [wi] , and that 'ゐ' and 'い' represented distinct pronunciations before merging to [i] sometime between the Kamakura and Taishō periods. The combination of a W-column kana letter with dakuten to create ゐ゙ and ヸ in hiragana and katakana was introduced to represent [vi] in the 19th century and 20th century. Along with the kana for we ('ゑ' in hiragana, 'ヱ' in katakana), this kana was deemed obsolete in Japanese with the orthographic reforms of 1946, to be replaced by 'い/イ' in all contexts. It is now rare in everyday usage; in onomatopoeia and foreign words, the katakana form 'ウィ' (U-[small-i]) is used for the mora /wi/. However, the kana still sees some modern-day usage as a stylistic variant of 'い/イ'. The spelling of whisky is usually uisukii ("ウイスキー"), but is sometimes written ("ウヰスキー") stylistically with a ヰ for i, such as Nikka Whisky (ニッカウヰスキー, nikka uisukī). The name of the comedy duo Yoiko (よゐこ) is written with a ゐ for the i, and the first opening theme to the Future Diary anime series is titled "空想メソロギヰ" (Kūsō Mesorogī) using a ヰ for i. Two characters in the video game series Touhou Project have "ゐ" in their names: Tewi Inaba (因幡 てゐ; pronounced Inaba Tei) and Tenshi Hinanawi (比那名居 天子; pronounced Hinanai Tenshi). The katakana ヰ is sometimes written with a dakuten, 'ヸ', to represent a /vi/ sound in foreign words; however, most IMEs lack a convenient way to do this. It is far more common for /vi/ to be represented by the digraph ヴィ. Hiragana 'ゐ' is still used in one of the Okinawan orthographies, New...