No (kana)

Hiragana	Katakana
Transliteration	No
Hiragana Man'yōgana:	乃
Katakana Man'yōgana	乃
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

の, in hiragana, or ノ in katakana, is one of the Japanese kana, each of which represents 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. Both represent [no].

Form	Rōmaji	Hiragana	Katakana
Normal n- (な行 na-gyō)	No	の	ノ
	Nō	のう, のぅ のお, のぉ のー, の～	ノウ, ノゥ ノオ, ノォ ノー, ノ～

Stroke order

To write の, begin slightly above the center, stroke downward diagonally, then upward, and then curve around as indicated by the arrows, or rotate a "9".

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

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

Main articles: Hiragana and 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 left, 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.

Usage

Usage of の in place of 的 (and 犬 in place of 狗) in Taipei.

Main articles: Japanese phonology and 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 "わたしのでんわ” watashi no denwa means "my telephone."

の has also proliferated on signs and labels in the Chinese-speaking world, especially in Taiwan because of its historical connections with Japan. (See Taiwan under Japanese rule.) 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 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".

External links

• Information on kana-no from Nuthatch Graphics