HIRAGANA · MAIN KANA
n
ん · paired with ン
Sound and use
This is the moraic nasal. Its actual sound varies with the following consonant.
See ン, the katakana counterpart →
Kana represent sounds and spelling functions. They do not have lexical meanings of their own.
How the shape formed
The standard hiragana shape is conventionally traced to a cursive form of 无. Earlier manuscripts also used other shapes for the same sound.
History and change
Japanese writers used Chinese characters for their sounds. The source character 无 belonged to that wider practice; the kanji meaning was not inherited by ん.
Hiragana and katakana developed as Japanese syllabaries in the early Heian period (794–1185). This is the script-level period, not a first attested date for ん.
This is the moraic nasal. Its actual sound varies with the following consonant.
What is documented?
The sources above support the script’s broad period and the conventional parent-character account for ん. A first surviving appearance of this exact modern shape has not been established for this entry.
For a look at earlier hiragana variants, use the NINJAL hentaigana index ↗.