Shi (kana)

shi
hiragana katakana
transliteration	shi, si
translit. with dakuten	ji, zi
hiragana origin	之
katakana origin	之
spelling kana	新聞のシ (Shinbun no "shi")

し, in hiragana, or シ in katakana, is one of the Japanese kana, which each represent one mora. Both represent the phoneme /si/ although for phonological reasons, the actual pronunciation is [ɕi]. The shapes of these kana have origins in the character 之. The katakana form has become increasingly popular as an emoticon in the Western world due to its resemblance to a smiling face, thus this variant form ㋛ was created.

This character may be combined with a dakuten, forming じ in hiragana, ジ in katakana, and ji in Hepburn romanization; the pronunciation becomes /zi/ (phonetically [d͡ʑi] or [ʑi] in the middle of words).

The dakuten form of this character is used when transliterating "di" occasionally, as opposed to チ's dakuten form; for example, Aladdin is written as アラジン Arajin, and radio is written as ラジオ.

In the Ainu language, シ is used to represent the ʃi sound. It can also be written as a small ㇱ to represent a final s sound, pronounced ɕ.

Stroke order

Stroke order in writing し

Stroke order in writing シ

Stroke order in writing Hiragana し

Stroke order in writing Katakana シ

Other representations

• Computer encodings

• Braille

し / シ in Japanese Braille				Sh/J + Yōon braille
し / シ shi	じ / ジ ji	しい / シー shī	じい / ジー jī	しゃ / シャ sha	じゃ / ジャ ja	しゃあ / シャー shā	じゃあ / ジャー jā
Sh/J + Yōon braille
しゅ / シュ shu	じゅ / ジュ ju	しゅう / シュー shū	じゅう / ジュー jū	しょ / ショ sho	じょ / ジョ jo	しょう / ショー shō	じょう / ジョー jō

• Japanese semaphore

Look up し, じ, シ, or ジ in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.