che_hyun
They were included on a character list I got, but I never actually learned them. What are they for, anyway?
The kana of :Wi, Wu, We, Yi, Ye,
and the hiragana Vu (ゔ ) are all obsolete characters.
They used to be used with the Japanese language, but eventually were no longer necessary.
They aren't really pronounced in speech, but sometimes people will romanise things in an old fashioned manner. ex; 'Kaworu' is the same thing as 'Kaoru', in pronunciation.
Vu is still an acceptable Katakana character, with the 'u' with ten-tens. However, the hiragana one is said to be obsolete, except when translation of older documents which may use it
And a really long time ago:
散歩しています≫散歩してゐます
'Sampo shiteimasu" used to be 'Sampo shitewimasu'
Iru was once 'wiru'
When written with hiragana
There wasn't really a difference in how you said it, so I guess it made sense to get rid of it.
I learned them, because I learned Japanese from my grandma who lived in Japan until after the war, so it makes my Japanese a little more archaic at times, as some words I use aren't generally used anymore either. The use of wi, wu, we, et al. were all used prior to the war, and after they were deemed obsolete, so in place, 'i, u, e' are used, because there wasn't a phonetic difference.
Ex: my grandma's name was "西枝" which is "Nishie" but she romanised it as "Nishiye" and also other Issei wrote as "Nisiye" both of which are equivelent.
Also- ha hi fu he ho at one time were used for wa, i, u, e, o in some cases.
Ie: Miyazawa Kenji's poem, "ame ni mo makezu" where there are parts that say "kohagaranaku temo ihi to ihi" (Kowagaranaku temo ii to ii)
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