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'の', in hiragana, or 'ノ' in katakana, is one of the Japanese kana, which each represent one mora. In the ''gojūon'' system of ordering of Japanese syllables, it occupies the 25th position, between ね (ne) and は (ha). It occupies the 26th position in the iroha ordering. The hiragana resembles the number 6 on its side, while its katakana looks like a curved slash. It is pronounced (IPA) and its romanization is 'no'.

Form	Rōmaji	Hiragana	Katakana
Normal ''n-'' (な行 ''na-gyō'')	''no''	の	ノ
	''nou'' ''noo'' ''nō'', ''noh''	のう, のぅ のお, のぉ のー	ノウ, ノゥ ノオ, ノォ ノー

Contents

Strokes

Character

Alternative forms

History

Usage

Strokes

In order to write の, begin slightly above the center, stroke downward diagonally, then upward, and then curve around as indicated by the arrows.
In order to write ノ, simply do a swooping curve from top-right to bottom left.

Character

Character form	Unicode	EUC-JP	Shift_JIS	GB 2312	HKSCS
の	U+306E	A4CE	82CC	A4CE	C755
ノ	U+30CE	A5CE	836D	A5CE	C7CA
Halfwidth katakana ﾉ	U+FF89	/	C9	/	/

Alternative forms

In Japanese Braille, の, or ノ, or is represented as
:

－● ●－ ●－

The Morse code for の, or ノ, is ・・－－.


See also hentaigana and gyaru-moji for other variant kana forms of ''no''.

History

Main articles: Hiragana, Katakana


Like every other hiragana, the hiragana の developed from man'yōgana, kanji used for phonetic purposes, written in the highly cursive, flowing ''grass script'' style. In the picture on the right, the top shows the kanji 乃 written in the kaisho style, and the centre image is the same kanji written in the sōsho style. The bottom part is the kana for "no", a further abbreviation.

The highlighted segment of the man'yōgana in the picture on the right is the segment that was used to create the katakana ノ.

Usage

Main articles: Japanese phonology, Japanese grammar

の is a dental nasal consonant, articulated on the upper teeth, combined with a close-mid back rounded vowel to form one mora.
In the Japanese language, as well as forming words, の may be a particle showing possession. For example, the phrase ''watashi 'no' denwa'' means "my telephone."
の has also proliferated on signs and labels in the Chinese-speaking world, where it is used in place of the Modern Chinese possessive marker 的 ''de'' or Classical Chinese possessive marker 之 ''zhī'', and の is pronounced in the same way as the Chinese character it replaces. This is usually done in order to "stand out" or to give an "exotic / Japanese feel", e.g. in commercial brand names, such as the fruit juice brand 鲜の每日C, where the の can be read as both 之 ''zhī'', the possessive marker, and as 汁 ''zhī'', meaning "juice". pictures