No (kana)

no
hiragana katakana
transliteration	no
hiragana origin	乃
katakana origin	乃
Man'yōgana	努 怒 野 乃 能 笑 荷
spelling kana	野原のノ (Nohara no no)
unicode	U+306E, U+30CE
braille
Note: These Man'yōgana originally represented morae with one of two different vowel sounds, which merged in later pronunciation

の, in hiragana, and ノ, in katakana, are Japanese kana, both representing one mora. In the gojūon system of ordering of Japanese morae, it occupies the 25th position, between ね (ne) and は (ha). It occupies the 26th position in the iroha ordering. Both represent the sound [no]. The katakana form is written similar to the Kangxi radical 丿, radical 4.

To write の, begin slightly above the center, stroke downward diagonally, then round upward and continue curve around, leaving a small gap at the bottom. To write ノ, simply do a swooping curve from top-right to bottom left.

Japanese radiotelephony alphabet	Wabun code
野原のノ Nohara no "No"	▄ ▄ ▄▄▄ ▄▄▄ ⓘ

Japanese Navy Signal Flag	Japanese semaphore	Japanese manual syllabary (fingerspelling)	Braille dots-234 Japanese Braille

• Full Braille representation

の / ノ in Japanese Braille
の / ノ no	のう / ノー nō/nou	Other kana based on Braille の
		にょ / ニョ nyo	にょう / ニョー nyō/nyou

• Computer encodings

The leftmost, predominantly vertical segment of the man'yōgana was used to create the katakana ノ.

When the kanji 乃 is written in the highly cursive, flowing grass script style, it begins to resemble the hiragana の.

Hentaigana and gyaru-moji variant kana forms of no can also be found.

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. 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".^[8] In Hong Kong, the Companies Registry has extended official recognition to this practice, and permits の to be used in Chinese names of registered businesses; it is thus the only non-Chinese symbol to be granted this treatment (aside from punctuation marks with no pronunciation value).^[9]

Look up の or ノ in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

• Information on kana-no from Nuthatch Graphics