Halfwidth Katakana Letter N

ﾝ is the halfwidth Japanese n, the same katakana syllabic nasal as ン. Its sound and role stay the same; the character form changes.

Its history follows Japanese text encoding. JIS C 6220-1969, later renamed JIS X 0201, standardized a one-byte katakana set for the limited character space of early terminals, printers, and data links. JIS C 6226-1978 added a broader two-byte repertoire. Shift_JIS and Unicode retained both forms for compatibility.

Use the narrow form when a system or style calls for it

Use ﾝ when a form or existing text requires halfwidth kana. An older encoding may reject or misread it, so check the receiving field when compatibility matters.

“Halfwidth” describes a legacy character cell, not a promise that every font will draw it at exactly half the pixels. NFKC compatibility normalization can fold it into fullwidth ン.

As of 2026, Japanese references describe halfwidth kana in ASCII art, kaomoji, and retro-computing styles. There, the narrow shape is a visual cue.

In a message, it remains the Japanese kana

Read ﾝ as the Japanese syllabic nasal unless the surrounding text gives it a stylistic role. The halfwidth shape alone does not add a separate message meaning.