O (kana)

Hiragana	Katakana
Transliteration:	o
Man'yōgana:	於,於
Unicode:
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

In Japanese writing, the kana お (hiragana) and オ (katakana) occupy the fifth place, between え and か, in the modern Gojūon (五十音) system of collating kana. In the Iroha, they occupy the 27th, between の and く. In the table at right (ordered by columns, from right to left), お lies in the first column (あ行, "column A") and the fifth row (お段, "row O"). Both represent IPA) /o/ (help·info)

Derivation

お and オ originate, via man'yōgana, from the kanji 於.

Variant forms

Scaled-down versions of the kana (ぉ, ォ) are used to express morae foreign to the Japanese language, such as フォ (fo).

Strokes

The hiragana お is made with three strokes:

1. A horizontal line from right to left.
2. A stroke consisting of a vertical line, a small diagonal line going upwards and to the left, and an open curve heading right and downwards.
3. A small curved stroke on the right.

The katakana オ is made with three strokes:

1. At the top, a horizontal stroke from right to left.
2. A downward vertical stroke cutting through the first stroke, with a small hook at the end facing left.
3. At the intersection of the first two strokes, a diagonal line going downwards and to the left.

Representations in other writing systems

• Braille:

• Phonetic alphabet: 「大阪のオ」 ("o as in Osaka")
• Morse code: ・－・・・