わ行

Japanese

Kanji in this term
行
ぎょう Grade: 2
goon

Alternative spellings
ワ行 和行

Etymology

わ (wa) +‎ 行 (“row”)

Pronunciation

• (Tokyo) わぎょー [wáꜜgyòò] (Atamadaka – [1])
• IPA^(key): [β̞a̠ɡʲo̞ː]

Noun

わ行(ぎょう) • (wagyō) ^{←わぎゃう (wagyau)?}

1. (phonology, orthography, grammar) the tenth and last row of the 五十音図 (literally “table of the fifty sounds”), consisting of the five kana わ/ワ (wa), ゐ/ヰ (wi), う/ウ (u) (alternatively, 𛄟 (𛄟)/𛄢 (wu)), ゑ/ヱ (we) and を/ヲ (wo), one of which is taken from the あ行 (“a-row”) to represent classical grammatical inflection in modern text

   Coordinate terms: あ行, か行, さ行, た行, な行, は行, ま行, や行, ら行

   ワ行(ぎょう)上(かみ)一(いち)段(だん) / 下(しも)二(に)段(だん) / 五(ご)段(だん)活(かつ)用(よう)

   wagyō kamīchidan / shimonidan / godan katsuyō

   wa-row upper-bigrade / lower-bigrade / quintigrade inflection

Usage notes

• Quintigrade verbs, such as 笑う (warau, “to laugh”) and 問う (tou, “to ask”), only use わ/ワ (wa) in the ワ行 (“wa-row”), for only one of their inflectional forms (the rest take kana from the ア行 (“a-row”)), but they are still labeled with ワ(行) in dictionaries and grammar guides.