So I've always been wondering - what's up with this character (the katakana for を)? Is it actually used for anything these days? I've never seen it in books, subtitles, or articles (well, I've seen the "wo" sound but it's always been transcribed as ウォ). Did it used to be used in the past (kinda like the deleted syllables ヰ and ヱ)? Wikipedia is pretty sketchy on the subject so I was wondering if anyone here knew more.

On that note, does を itself have any other uses than a direct object marking particle?

を's use was relegated to particles usage with writing reforms in the meiji/post-ww2 period. Many words that are now written with お used to be written with を, such as 男（をとこ） and 女(をんな). Hiragana and katakana used to be completely interchangeable (usage depended on the type of document) so you would also see ヲトコ etc.

I believe the Japanese constitution is largely written in katakana and is one of the few places you can see ヲ (as a particle) in a modern text.

I have been wondering this also

It's sometimes used to write ヲタク

If I'm not mistaken, I have been told that hiragana was once generally only written by women. Katakana being more sever looking was manly. I am not entirely certain of the circumstances regarding this, as I have heard from friends and teachers that I asked and did not do the research. This, from what I am told, explains why some place names use katakana instead of hiragana eg. 四ツ谷, 丸ノ内, etc...

Anyone know more or want to correct me?

Well I know to some certainty that women did not write in Kanji, not because they didn't know it but because of the strong patriarchal society back then forbade them to use Kanji ( same story in China//Korea??)

I'm sure jarv would know the answer to this anyway

Both men and women used hiragana to write fiction, poetry, love letters, etc. Katakana was used almost exclusively by men though, since it was a clerical script and thus used for court documents and the like (as a shorthand instead of the normal classical Chinese).

ナヲ　From　マキシマム　ザ　ホルモン

I just saw it today in the katakana title for the Evangelion movie I probably wouldn't have remembered how to read it if not for this thread, haha.

captal Wrote:I just saw it today in the katakana title for the Evangelion movie I probably wouldn't have remembered how to read it if not for this thread, haha.

It's also used in Kaworu's name... Which movie?

I've guess ヱヴァンゲリヲン新劇場版: 破 which came out a couple of weeks ago (there's also the ヱ in the title, on the subject of uncommonly used katakana).

Machine_Gun_Cat Wrote:ナヲ　From　マキシマム　ザ　ホルモン

Yeah, thats the only place off the top of my head i can think of seeing it also.

Cool, thanks for the interesting replies guys. I hadn't noticed ヱ being used ever either. I guess these days the rare katakana syllables are mostly used for style effect of some sort. So when words like 男 were written as をとこ back in the day, was を still pronounced as お as it is now? Anyone know how long ago the "w" in "wo" was dropped?

Jaunty Wrote:I hadn't noticed ヱ being used ever either.

Clearly you haven't had enough ヱビス　ビール Unless of course you are underage, in which case, it's illegal and you should abide by the law.

*edit
I should point out that it was at least my understanding that the w is simply a convention placed on the characters for romaji sake. I am uncertain if the characters ever were pronounced with a w sound. The reason, that I have been told, why they removed the characters was that it was silly having two characters with the same sound (eg. ヱ vs エ).

dat5h Wrote:I should point out that it was at least my understanding that the w is simply a convention placed on the characters for romaji sake. I am uncertain if the characters ever were pronounced with a w sound.

I believe, since ヲ, ヱ, and ヰ appear in the "w" line of the Gojuuon chart (which predates romaji by a looooong time), that the sound changed - they were once pronounced with a "w" sound but ceased to be long before the spelling reforms and were removed from standard usage. Linguists generally think that the historical kana usage reflected actual differences in pronunciation at the time, which gradually faded - why else would different kana have developed?

I frequently hear the w in wo pronounced in japanese music, and occasionally in other contexts. I think the the japanese w is not as strongly pronounced as the english w though.

I'm not sure what the most popular pronunciation is among Japanese teachers, but some native speakers pronounce お and を the same way, and some differentiate the two. It's regional and also personal. News anchors are supposed to speak "proper" Japanese, and some anchors pronounce the two sounds in a different way than other anchors.