N

Hiragana	Katakana
Transliteration:	n
Hiragana Man'yōgana:	无
Katakana Man'yōgana:	尓
Unicode:
kana - gojūon n wa ra ya ma ha na ta sa ka a tsu wi ri mi hi ni chi shi ki i ゛ ru yu mu fu nu tsu su ku u ー we re me he ne te se ke e wo ro yo mo ho no to so ko o

ん, in hiragana, or ン in katakana, is one of the Japanese kana, which each represent one mora. ん is the only kana that does not end in a vowel sound (although in certain cases the vowel ending of kana, such as す, are unpronounced).

It is also the only kana that does not begin any words in standard Japanese (other than foreign loan words such as "Ngorongoro", which is transcribed as ンゴロンゴロ). (see Shiritori) Some regional dialects of Japanese feature words beginning with ん, as do the Ryukyuan languages (which are usually written in the Japanese writing system), in which words starting with ン are common, such as the Okinawan word for miso, nnsu (transcribed as ンース).

The kana is followed by an apostrophe in some systems of transliteration whenever it precedes a vowel or a y- kana, so as to prevent confusion with other kana. But, like every other kana, it represents an entire mora, so its pronunciation is, in practice, as close to "nn" as "n". The pronunciation can also change depending on what sounds surround it. These are a few of the ways it can change:

• [n] (before t, ch, ts, n, r, z, j and d)
• [m] (before m, b and p)
• [ŋ] (before k and g)
• [ɴ] (at the end of utterances)
• [ũ͍] (before vowels, palatal approximants (y), consonants s, sh, h, f and w)
• [ĩ] (after the vowel i if another vowel, palatal approximant or consonant s, sh, h, f or w follows.)

Stroke order

Stroke order in writing ん

Stroke order in writing ン

References

• Oguri, Saori; László, Tony (2005). Darling no atamannaka. Japan: Media Factory. ISBN 4-8401-1226-6. 

Look up ん or ン in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

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