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In Japanese writing, the kana 'え' (hiragana) and 'エ' (katakana) (romanised ''e'') occupy the fourth place, between う and お, in the modern Gojūon (五十音) system of collating kana. In the Iroha, they occupy the 34th, between こ and て. In the table at right (ordered by columns, from right to left), え lies in the first column (あ行, "column A") and the fourth row (え段, "row E").
Their pronunciation is normally transcribed ; more precisely, it is or .

Form	Rōmaji	Hiragana	Katakana
Normal ''a''/''i''/''u''/''e''/''o'' (あ行 ''a-gyō'')	''e''	え	エ
	''ei'' ''ee'' ''ē''	えい, えぃ ええ, えぇ えー	エイ, エィ エエ, エェ エー

Contents

Derivation

Variant forms

Transliteration

Strokes

Representations in other writing systems

Derivation

え and エ originate, via man'yōgana, from the kanji and , respectively.
The archaic kana ゑ (we), as well as many non-initial occurrences of the character へ (he), have entered the modern Japanese language as え. The directional particle へ is today pronounced "e", though not written as え. Compare this to は (ha) and を (wo), which are pronounced "wa" and "o" when used as grammatical particles.

Variant forms

Scaled-down versions of the kana (ぇ, ェ) are used to express morae foreign to the Japanese language, such as ヴェ (ve).

Transliteration

In the Hepburn, Kunrei-shiki and Nihon-shiki systems of romanization, both え and エ are transliterated as "'e'". In the Polivanov system of cyrillization, the kana are transliterated as "'э'".

Strokes

The hiragana え is made with two strokes:
#At the top, a short diagonal stroke proceeding downward and to the right.
#At the bottom, a stroke composed of a horizontal line, a diagonal proceeding downward and to the left, and a rightward stroke resembling a tilde (~).

The katakana エ is made with three strokes:
# At the top, a horizontal stroke from right to left.
# A downward vertical stroke starting in the center of the first stroke.
# At the bottom, a horizontal stroke parallel to the first stroke, and touching the second. This stroke is usually slightly longer than the first.

Representations in other writing systems

★ Braille:

★ :

●● ●－ －－

★ Phonetic alphabet: 「英語のエ」 ("''e'' as in ''eigo''")

★ Morse code: －・－－－