I (kana)

Hiragana	Katakana
Transliteration	i
Hiragana Man'yōgana:	以
Katakana Man'yōgana	伊
Spelling kana	いろはのイ (Iroha no "i")
Morse code	･－
Braille
Unicode	U+3044, U+30A4
kana gojūon n wa ra ya ma ha na ta sa ka a sokuon wi ri mi hi ni chi shi ki i dakuten ru yu mu fu nu tsu su ku u chōonpu 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 as 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 the sound [i]. In the Ainu language, katakana イ is written as y in their Latin-based alphabet, and a small ィ after another katakana represents a diphthong.

Form	Rōmaji	Hiragana	Katakana
Normal a/i/u/e/o (あ行 a-gyō)	i	い	イ
	ii ī	いい, いぃ いー	イイ, イィ イー

Other additional forms
Form (y-) Rōmaji Hiragana Katakana (ya) (や) (ヤ) (yi) (い) (イ) (yu) (ゆ) (ユ) ye いぇ イェ (yo) (よ) (ヨ)

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). In some Okinawan writing systems, a small ぃ is also combined with the kana く (ku) and ふ　 to form the digraphs くぃ kwi and ふぃ hwi respectively, although the Ryukyu University system uses the kana ゐ/ヰ instead.

Origin

The い comes from the left part of the Kanji 以, while the イ origins from the right part of it.

Stroke order

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.

Other communicative representations

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.)