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Kana ligature

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

In the Japanese writing system, kana ligatures (Japanese: 合略仮名, Hepburn: gōryaku-gana) are ligatures in the kana writing system, both hiragana and katakana. Kana such as koto (; from 事) and shite (𬼀; from 為) are not kana ligatures, but polysyllabic kana. Most of such ligatures and polysyllabic kanas became obsolete.

Hardly any kana ligatures or polysyllabic kanas are represented in standard character encodings.

History

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Nobori banners in sumo, using the yori ligature ゟ

These characters were widely used until a spelling reform decreed that each sound (mora) would be represented by one (kana) character. In January 1900, the Kana Investigation Committee (仮名調査委員) passed a resolution to "limit the number of homophone kana characters to one each" and aimed to abolish hentaigana, iteration marks, long-vowel marks, jionkanazukai [ja], the characters /ヰ (wi) and /ヱ (we), as well as the ligatures and the polysyllabic kanas.[1]

Kana ligatures such as 代替文=トキ (toki), 代替文=こと (koto), etc., were actively used in Japan during the Edo and Meiji periods. These ligatures were sometimes placed together along with the hiragana and katakana syllabaries in Japanese school textbooks.[2] Nowadays, these ligatures are obsolete and are not taught at schools anymore.[3]

Encoding standards

[edit]
讀方入門 (yomikata nyūmon), a school textbook in which 代替文=こと (koto) and 代替文=トキ (toki) can be seen listed among the other kanas[4]

These ligatures were not represented in computer character encodings until JIS X 0213:2000 (JIS2000) added ゟ (yori) and ヿ (koto). In 2002, ヿ and ゟ were added to Unicode 3.2. In October 2009, 𪜈 (tomo) was added to Unicode 5.2 in the CJK Unified Ideographs Extension C block. In June 2017, 𬼀 (shite), 𬼂 (nari), and 𬻿 (nari) were added to Unicode 10.0 in the CJK Unified Ideographs Extension F block.[5]

List

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Hiragana ligature

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Historical/HepburnImage Character UnicodeOrigin
かしこ/kashiko N/a N/a𛀚しこ
こと/koto N/a N/aこと[6][7]
ごと/goto N/a N/aごと[6][7]
さま/sama N/a N/a さ𛃅[8][9]
N/a N/a
まゐらせさうらふ/mairasesōrō N/a N/a参らせ候ふ[10][11]
N/a N/a
より/yori U+309Fより[8][9][7]

Polysyllabic hiragana

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Historical/HepburnImage Character UnicodeOrigin
なり/nari 𬼂 U+2CF02[8][7][12][13]

Katakana ligature

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Historical/HepburnImage Character UnicodeOrigin
トイフ/toyū N/a N/aト云[8][14][15][16]
トキ/toki N/a N/aトキ[8][14][15][6][7][16]
トテ/tote N/a N/aトテ[8]
トモ/tomo 𪜈 U+2A708トモ[8][14][15][6][7]
ドモ/domo 𪜈゙ ドモ
ヨリ/yori N/a N/aヨリ[14][15][16]

Polysyllabic katakana

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Historical/HepburnImage Character UnicodeOrigin
イフ/yū N/a N/a
コト/koto U+30FF[8][14][13][15]
シテ/shite 𬼀 U+2CF00 [14][15]
トキ/toki N/a N/a[14][15][16]
ナリ/nari 𬻿 U+2CEFF [14][15][16]

In Unicode

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Character information
Preview
Unicode name HIRAGANA DIGRAPH YORI KATAKANA DIGRAPH KOTO CJK UNIFIED IDEOGRAPH-2A708 CJK UNIFIED IDEOGRAPH-2CEFF CJK UNIFIED IDEOGRAPH-2CF00 CJK UNIFIED IDEOGRAPH-2CF02
Encodingsdecimalhexdechexdechexdechexdechexdechex
Unicode12447U+309F12543U+30FF173832U+2A708184063U+2CEFF184064U+2CF00184066U+2CF02
UTF-8227 130 159E3 82 9F227 131 191E3 83 BF240 170 156 136F0 AA 9C 88240 172 187 191F0 AC BB BF240 172 188 128F0 AC BC 80240 172 188 130F0 AC BC 82
UTF-1612447309F1254330FF55401 57096D869 DF0855411 57087D873 DEFF55411 57088D873 DF0055411 57090D873 DF02
Numeric character referenceゟゟヿヿ𪜈𪜈𬻿𬻿𬼀𬼀𬼂𬼂

See also

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References

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  1. "国立国会図書館デジタルコレクション". dl.ndl.go.jp. Retrieved 2 November 2025.
  2. Sharko, Anna (2014). "Ligature as a common pattern of written character creation in Japan and Europe" (PDF). The Journal of Chinese Characters. 11: 151–166.
  3. "小学校令施行規則 - Wikisource". ja.wikisource.org (in Japanese). 第十六条 (Article 16). Retrieved 2 November 2025.
  4. "読方入門 (Editing Bureau of the Ministry of Education)" (PDF). 1884. pp. 5, 7. Retrieved 2 November 2025.
  5. Unicode database. (Newly assigned in Unicode 5.2.0 [October, 2009] and in Unicode 10.0.0 [June, 2017])
  6. 1 2 3 4 普通日本文典 Ochiai Naobumi et al., 1893
  7. 1 2 3 4 5 6 和漢の文典 : 雅俗対照
  8. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 日本大文典. 第1編 p. 42–45 Ochiai Naobumi, 1894
  9. 1 2 ことばの泉 : 日本大辞典 (21版) p. 3 Ochiai Naobumi, 1904
  10. "「参らせ候ふ」の意味や使い方 わかりやすく解説" [The meaning and usage of "参らせ候ふ" explained in simple terms]. www.weblio.jp. Retrieved 2 November 2025.
  11. "まいらせ候". 漢字字躰帳 (in Japanese). 13 July 2025. Retrieved 2 November 2025.
  12. Kōta Kodama's 『くずし字解読辞典〔普及版〕』 Tokyo-dō Publishing, among others, 1993
  13. 1 2 Ikudō Tajima's 「法華経為字和訓考—資料編(三)—」 Research Journal of the Faculty of Letters, Nagoya University, 1990
  14. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 國語學大系 第七巻 文字(一) p. 302–303 Kyūzō Fukui, 1939
  15. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 仮字本末 Nobutomo Ban, 1850
  16. 1 2 3 4 5 操觚便覧 Fujī Otome, 1899