O (kana)

o
hiragana katakana
transliteration	o
hiragana origin	於
katakana origin	於
Man'yōgana	意 憶 於 應
spelling kana	大阪のオ (Ōsaka no "o")

In Japanese writing, the kana お (hiragana) and オ (katakana) occupy the fifth place, between え and か, in the modern Gojūon (五十音) system of collating kana. In the Iroha, they occupy the 27th, between の and く. In the table at right (ordered by columns, from right to left), お lies in the first column (あ行, "column A") and the fifth row (お段, "row O"). Both represent [o].

Derivation

お and オ originate, via man'yōgana, from the kanji 於.

Variant forms

Scaled-down versions of the kana (ぉ, ォ) are used to express morae foreign to the Japanese language, such as フォ (fo).

Stroke order

The hiragana お is made with three strokes:

1. A horizontal line from left to right.
2. A stroke consisting of a vertical line, a small diagonal line going upwards and to the left, and an open curve heading right and downwards.
3. A small curved stroke on the right.

The katakana オ is made with three strokes:

1. At the top, a horizontal stroke from left to right.
2. A downward vertical stroke cutting through the first stroke, with a small hook at the end facing left.
3. At the intersection of the first two strokes, a diagonal line going downwards and to the left.

Other communicative representations

Japanese radiotelephony alphabet	Wabun code
大阪のオ Oosaka no "O"

Japanese Navy Signal Flag	Japanese semaphore	Japanese manual syllabary (fingerspelling)	Braille dots-24 Japanese Braille

• Full Braille representation

お / オ in Japanese Braille
お / オ o	おう / オー ō/ou	+う / +ー chōon*

* When lengthening "-o" syllables in Japanese braille, a chōon is always used, as in standard katakana usage instead of adding an お / オ.

• Computer encodings