Ya (kana)

ya
hiragana katakana
transliteration	ya
hiragana origin	也
katakana origin	也

や, in hiragana, or ヤ in katakana, is one of the Japanese kana, each of which represents one mora. Hiragana is written in three strokes, while the katakana is written in two. Both represent [ja]. Their shapes have origins in the character 也.

When small and preceded by an -i kana, this kana represents not a separate sound but a modification of that of another (see yōon).

や can be used by itself as a grammatical particle to connect words in a nonexhaustive list (see Japanese particles#ya).

Form	Rōmaji	Hiragana	Katakana
Normal y- (や行 ya-gyō)	ya	や	ヤ
	yaa yā, yah	やあ, やぁ やー	ヤア, ヤァ ヤー

Stroke order

Stroke order in writing や

Stroke order in writing ヤ

Stroke order in writing や

Stroke order in writing ヤ

Other representations

• Computer encodings

Character	や		ヤ		ﾔ
Unicode name	HIRAGANA LETTER YA		KATAKANA LETTER YA		HALFWIDTH KATAKANA LETTER YA
Encodings	decimal	hex	decimal	hex	decimal	hex
Unicode	12420	U+3084	12516	U+30E4	65428	U+FF94
UTF-8	227 130 132	E3 82 84	227 131 164	E3 83 A4	239 190 148	EF BE 94
Numeric character reference	や	や	ヤ	ヤ	ﾔ	ﾔ
Shift JIS	130 226	82 E2	131 132	83 84	212	D4

Character	ゃ		ャ		ｬ
Unicode name	HIRAGANA LETTER SMALL YA		KATAKANA LETTER SMALL YA		HALFWIDTH KATAKANA LETTER SMALL YA
Encodings	decimal	hex	decimal	hex	decimal	hex
Unicode	12419	U+3083	12515	U+30E3	65388	U+FF6C
UTF-8	227 130 131	E3 82 83	227 131 163	E3 83 A3	239 189 172	EF BD AC
Numeric character reference	ゃ	ゃ	ャ	ャ	ｬ	ｬ
Shift JIS	130 225	82 E1	131 131	83 83	172	AC

• Braille

や / ヤ in Japanese Braille
や / ヤ ya	やあ / ヤー yā

• Japanese semaphore