Hiragana Letter Mu

Hiragana Letter Mu at U+3080 writes the Japanese mora “mu,” a basic kana in the Hiragana block. It represents a consonant-vowel sound pronounced like “moo” but shorter, and it is the hiragana partner of katakana ム. In ordinary Japanese, it appears inside native words, grammatical forms, and words usually written in kana, such as むし for “insect,” むら for “village,” and よむ for “to read.” It is also used in children’s books, furigana pronunciation guides, dictionaries, and beginner materials where kanji readings are shown in hiragana. The character changes pronunciation when marked with the dakuten diacritic, forming ぶ, the mora “bu,” though that is a separate encoded hiragana character in normal text. Learners may also meet it in kana charts under the ma row, alongside ま, み, め, and も.