I (kana)

Hiragana	Katakana
Transliteration:	i
Man'yōgana:	以,伊
Unicode:	U+3044, U+30A4
kana - gojūon n wa ra ya ma ha na ta sa ka a tsu wi ri mi hi ni chi shi ki i ゛ ru yu mu fu nu tsu su ku u ー we re me he ne te se ke e wo ro yo mo ho no to so ko o

い in hiragana or イ in katakana (romanised i) is one of the Japanese kana each of which represents one mora. い is based on the sōsho style of the kanji character 以, and イ is from the radical (left part) of the kanji character 伊. In the modern Japanese system of alphabetical order, it occupies the second position of the alphabet, between あ and う. Additionally, it is the first letter in Iroha, before ろ. In order to write the hiragana い, draw a curve, not entirely unlike a parenthesis, downward stroke with a hook, and then draw a smaller, floating curve to the right side. Both represent (IPA) /i/.

Variant forms

Scaled-down versions of the kana (ぃ, ィ) are used to express sounds foreign to the Japanese language, such as フィ (fi).

Strokes

The Hiragana い is made in two strokes:

1. At the top left, a curved vertical stroke, ending with a hook at the bottom.
2. At the top right, a shorter stroke, slightly curving in the opposite direction.

The Katakana イ is made in two strokes:

1. At the top, a curved diagonal line going from right to left.
2. In the center of the last stroke, a vertical line going down.

Representations in other writing systems

In Japanese Braille, い or イ is represented as:

The Morse code for い or イ, is ・－. In Japanese phonetic alphabet, one would say "いろはのイ" (Iroha no I.)