transliteration shi, si hiragana origin 之 | translit. with dakuten ji, zi katakana origin 之 | |
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spelling kana 新聞のシ
(Shinbun no "shi") | ||
し, in hiragana, or シ in katakana, is one of the Japanese kana, which each represent one mora. Both represent the phoneme /si/ although for phonological reasons, the actual pronunciation is [ɕi]. The shapes of these kana have origins in the character 之. The katakana form has become increasingly popular as an emoticon in the Western world due to its resemblance to a smiling face, thus this variant form ㋛ was created.
This character may be combined with a dakuten, forming じ in hiragana, ジ in katakana, and ji in Hepburn romanization; the pronunciation becomes /zi/ (phonetically [d͡ʑi] or [ʑi] in the middle of words).
The dakuten form of this character is used when transliterating "di" occasionally, as opposed to チ's dakuten form; for example, Aladdin is written as アラジン Arajin, and radio is written as ラジオ.
In the Ainu language, シ is used to represent the ʃi sound. It can also be written as a small ㇱ to represent a final s sound, pronounced ɕ.