N (kana)

n
hiragana katakana
transliteration	n, (m)
hiragana origin	无
katakana origin	尓

ん, in hiragana, or ン in katakana, is one of the Japanese kana, which each represent one mora. ん is the only kana that does not end in a vowel sound (although in certain cases the vowel ending of kana, such as す, is unpronounced). The kana for mu, む/ム, was originally used for the n sound as well, while ん was originally a hentaigana used for both n and mu. In the 1900 Japanese script reforms, hentaigana were officially declared obsolete, and ん was officially declared a kana to represent the n sound.

In addition to being the only kana not ending with a vowel sound, it is also the only kana that does not begin any words in standard Japanese (other than foreign loan words such as "Ngorongoro", which is transcribed as ンゴロンゴロ) (see Shiritori). Some regional dialects of Japanese feature words beginning with ん, as do the Ryukyuan languages (which are usually written in the Japanese writing system), in which words starting with ン are common, such as the Okinawan word for miso, nnsu (transcribed as ンース). In the Ainu language, ン is interchangeable with the small katakana ㇴ as a final n.

The kana is followed by an apostrophe in some systems of transliteration whenever it precedes a vowel or a y- kana, so as to prevent confusion with other kana. But, like every other kana, it represents an entire mora, so its pronunciation is, in practice, as close to "nn" as "n". The pronunciation can also change depending on what sounds surround it. These are a few of the ways it can change:

• [n] (before n, t, d, r, ts, z, ch and j )
• [m] (before m, p and b )
• [ŋ] (before k and g)
• [ɴ] (at the end of utterances)
• [ũ͍] (before vowels, palatal approximants (y), consonants h, f, s, sh and w)
• [ĩ] (after the vowel i if another vowel, palatal approximant or consonant f, s, sh, h or w follows.)

Form	Rōmaji	Hiragana	Katakana
Normal n (ん)	n	ん	ン
	nn nh	んん んー	ンン ンー

Other additional forms
Form (Nw-) Rōmaji Hiragana Katakana Nwa んわ ンワ Nwankwo Kano (ンワンクウォ・カヌ Nwankuwo Kanu) Nwi んうぃ/んゐ ンウィ/ンヰ Nwisd (ンウィスド Nwisudo) Nwe んうぇ/んゑ ンウェ/ンヱ Nwenaing (ンウェナイング Nwenaingu) Nwo んうぉ/んを ンウォ/ンヲ Nwoya District (ンウォヤ・ディストリクト Nwoya Disutorikuto)

Stroke order

Stroke order in writing ん

Stroke order in writing ン

Stroke order in writing ん

Stroke order in writing ン

Other representations

• Computer encodings

Character	ん		ン		ﾝ
Unicode name	HIRAGANA LETTER N		KATAKANA LETTER N		HALFWIDTH KATAKANA LETTER N
Encodings	decimal	hex	decimal	hex	decimal	hex
Unicode	12435	U+3093	12531	U+30F3	65437	U+FF9D
UTF-8	227 130 147	E3 82 93	227 131 179	E3 83 B3	239 190 157	EF BE 9D
Numeric character reference	ん	ん	ン	ン	ﾝ	ﾝ
Shift JIS	130 241	82 F1	131 147	83 93	221	DD

• Braille

ん / ン in Japanese Braille:

• Japanese semaphore

References

• Oguri, Saori; László, Tony (2005). Darling no atamannaka. Tokyo: Media Factory. ISBN 4-8401-1226-6.