ぬ

See also: め

ぬ U+306C, ぬ
HIRAGANA LETTER NU
← に
[U+306B] 		Hiragana ね →
[U+306D]

Japanese

Stroke order

Pronunciation

  • IPA(key): [nɯ̟ᵝ]

Etymology 1

Derived in the Heian period from writing the man'yōgana kanji 奴 in the cursive sōsho style.

Syllable

ぬ (romaji nu)

  1. The hiragana syllable ぬ (nu). Its equivalent in katakana is ヌ (nu). It is the twenty-third syllable in the gojūon order; its position is な行う段 (na-gyō u-dan, “row na, section u”).
See also

Etymology 2

From Old Japanese.[1][2][3]

Many monolingual Japanese dictionaries[1][2][3] derive this as a contraction of Old Japanese 往ぬ (inu, “to go away; to pass (such as time); to pass away, to die”); however, the meaning does not seem to make sense in the context of the verb ending -nu.

More recent work by Bjarke Frellesvig and others suggests that -nu may have originated from an ancient copular or stative verb.

Suffix

ぬ (rōmaji -nu)

  1. marks the end of action:
    1. (after the 未然形 (mizenkei, “incomplete form”) of a verb) the negative: indicates negation of the action, ending without starting or occurring -- not
      風 (かぜ)が立 (た)たぬ
      kaze ga tatanu
      the wind does not rise / does not pick up
    2. (after the 連用形 (ren'yōkei, “continuative or stem form”) of verb) the perfective: indicates completion of the action, ending after starting or occurring -- has done, has happened
      風 (かぜ)が立 (た)ちぬ
      kaze ga tachinu
      the wind has risen / has picked up

Usage notes

In Old Japanese and continuing in classical and later Japanese, the ending -nu and the ending -ta have both been used to mark the completion of an action, with two key differences:

  1. -ta was not used after the 未然形 (mizenkei, “incomplete form”) of a verb, and thus was not used in negation contexts
  2. -nu was used mainly for verbs that indicated intransitive, naturally occurring, or unintentional actions, while -ta was used mainly for verbs that indicated transitive or intentional actions.

In modern Japanese, -nu is rarely encountered, and it often imparts a formal or archaic sense.

Synonyms

(negative verb ending):

  • (very casual, also archaic, also dialectal) ん (n)
  • (casual) ない (nai)
  • (formal) ません (masen)
  • (written formal) ず (zu)
  • (Kansai) へん (hen)

(perfective verb ending):

  • (casual) た (ta)
  • (formal) ました (mashita)

References

  1. 1 2 1988, 国語大辞典（新装版） (Kokugo Dai Jiten, Revised Edition) (in Japanese), Tōkyō: Shogakukan
  2. 1 2 2006, 大辞林 (Daijirin), Third Edition (in Japanese), Tōkyō: Sanseidō, →ISBN
  3. 1 2 1995, 大辞泉 (Daijisen) (in Japanese), Tōkyō: Shogakukan, →ISBN

Okinawan

Etymology

Cognate with mainland Japanese の (no).

Particle

ぬ (romaji nu)

  1. possessive particle
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