Re (kana)

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re
hiragana katakana
transliteration	re
hiragana origin	礼
katakana origin	礼
Man'yōgana	礼 列 例 烈 連
spelling kana	れんげのレ Renge no "re"
unicode	U+308C, U+30EC
braille

れ, in hiragana, or レ in katakana, is one of the Japanese kana, each of which represents one mora. The hiragana is written in two strokes, while katakana in one. Both represent the sound [ɾe] ^ⓘ. The shapes of these kana have origins in the character 礼. The Ainu language uses a small katakana ㇾ to represent a final r sound after an e sound (エㇾ er). The combination of an R-column kana letter with handakuten ゜- れ゚ in hiragana, and レ゚ in katakana was introduced to represent [le] in the early 20th century.^{[according to whom?]}