を

Japanese

Character	を
Unicode name	HIRAGANA LETTER WO
Codepoint	U+3092

Stroke order

Etymology 1

Derived in the Heian period from writing the man'yōgana kanji 遠 in the cursive sōsho style.

Pronunciation

• IPA: [o̞]
• (obsolete, careful speech) IPA: [ɰᵝo̞]
• Homophone: お

Syllable

を (Hepburn romanizations wo, o)

1. (obsolete) The hiragana syllable を (wo), whose equivalent in katakana is ヲ (wo). It is the forty-seventh syllable of the gojūon order, and its position in gojūon tables is わ行お段 (WA-gyō, O-dan; “row WA, section O”).
2. (used as a particle) The hiragana syllable を (o), whose equivalent in katakana is ヲ (o). It is the forty-seventh syllable of the gojūon order, and its position in gojūon tables is わ行お段 (WA-gyō, O-dan; “row WA, section O”).

Related terms

• For a list of words starting with を (wo) see: Special:Allpages/を

See also

• (Hiragana) 平仮名; あぁ, いぃ, うぅゔ, えぇ, おぉ, かゕが, きぎ, くぐ, けゖげ, こご, さざ, しじ, すず, せぜ, そぞ, ただ, ちぢ, つっづ, てで, とど, な, に, ぬ, ね, の, はばぱ, ひびぴ, ふぶぷ, へべぺ, ほぼぽ, ま, み, む, め, も, やゃ, ゆゅ, よょ, ら, り, る, れ, ろ, わゎ, ゐ, ゑ, を, ん, ー, ゝ, ゞ, ゟ

Etymology 2

wo > o

Pronunciation

• IPA: [o̞]

The historical spelling is retained despite the modern pronunciation.

Particle

を (romaji o)

1. An accusative case particle: a grammatical marker following the direct object.
   • 794: Shin'yaku Kegonkyō Ongi Shiki (page 85)

     渉險 上往也下左何之伎乎

   私がリンゴを食べる

   わたしがリンゴをたべる
   watashi ga ringo o taberu

   I eat an apple

   私をリンゴが食べる

   わたしをリンゴがたべる
   watashi o ringo ga taberu

   an apple eats me

   As shown in the above two usage examples, Japanese sentences use particles to indicate subject and object, instead of using word order as in English.

References

• Yoshinori Kobayashi, Kojisho Ongi Shūsei 1: Shin'yaku Kegonkyō Ongi Shiki (in Japanese), Kyūko Shoin (published 1978; original text from 794), ISBN 4-7629-3088-1.