KATAKANA · COMBINATION KANA
va
ヴァ
Sound and use
Katakana commonly writes loanwords, names, onomatopoeia, species names and visual emphasis.
Kana represent sounds and spelling functions. They do not have lexical meanings of their own.
How the shape formed
This spelling combines ヴ + ァ; the second character is a small kana. It represents one contracted sound in modern spelling.
History and change
Japanese writers used Chinese characters for their sounds. The source character 宇 belonged to that wider practice; the kanji meaning was not inherited by ヴァ.
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 ヴァ.
Katakana commonly writes loanwords, names, onomatopoeia, species names and visual emphasis.
What is documented?
The sources above support the script’s broad period and the conventional parent-character account for ヴァ. 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 ↗.