Katakana Digraph Koto

A historical one-character spelling of the Japanese word for “thing.” ヿ compresses the kana コト into one sign. Depending on the sentence, the word can also mean “matter,” “fact,” or an event.

Read it as the word koto, not as a shortcut for every こと sequence. The ligature represents the word itself, not words such as ことわる (“to refuse”) or ことわざ (“proverb”).

Why does ヿ appear in old Japanese writing?

It saved space by compressing kana into one written unit. Katakana developed from abbreviated Chinese-character strokes that Buddhist scholars used by the early 9th century to mark Japanese readings beside Chinese texts. ヿ belongs to the historical practice of combining kana into one sign, called 合略仮名.

An 1873 government notice uses ヿ in a legal sentence. Government school rules standardized kana forms by 1900, and this compressed repertoire receded from ordinary instruction. Its shape follows a vertical arrangement of コ over ト, though the character also appears in horizontal layout.

How do I type ヿ?

If your Japanese input lacks it, enter Unicode 30FF in hex. In Word or Outlook on Windows, type 30FF and press Alt+X; on macOS, use Unicode Hex Input and hold Option while typing 30FF; on GNOME or GTK Linux, press Ctrl+Shift+U, type 30FF, then press Space or Enter.

A system character map is a fallback when hexadecimal entry is unavailable.