Ha (kana)


は, in hiragana or ハ in katakana, is one of the Japanese kana, each of which represent one mora. Both represent. They are also used as a grammatical particle and serve as the topic marker of the sentence. は originates from 波 and ハ from 八.
In the Sakhalin dialect of the Ainu language, the katakana ハ can be written as small ㇵ to represent a final h sound after an a sound. This, along with other extended katakana, was developed by Japanese linguists to represent sounds in Ainu not present in standard Japanese katakana. When used as a particle, は is pronounced as わ . は is also pronounced as わ in some words.
FormRōmajiHiraganaKatakana
Normal h-
haはハ
Normal h-
haa
hā, hah		はあ, はぁ
はー		ハア, ハァ
ハー
Addition dakuten b-
baばバ
Addition dakuten b-
baa
bā, bah		ばあ, ばぁ
ばー		バア, バァ
バー
Addition handakuten p-
paぱパ
Addition handakuten p-
paa
pā, pah		ぱあ, ぱぁ
ぱー		パア, パァ
パー

Stroke order

The Hiragana は is made with three strokes:
  1. A vertical line on the left side with a small curve.
  2. A horizontal stroke near the center.
  3. A vertical stroke on the right at the center of the second stroke followed by a loop near the end.
The Katakana ハ is made with two strokes:
  1. A straight stroke from the top pointing towards the bottom left.
  2. Another straight stroke going the opposite way, i.e. from the top to the bottom right
The kana は is read as "wa" when it represents a particle.

Other communicative representations