む U+3080,む HIRAGANA LETTER MU ←み [U+307F] Hiragana め → [U+3081]

Stroke order

Derived in theHeian period from writing theman'yōgana kanji武 in thecursivesōsho style.

• IPA^(key): [mɯ̟]

む• (mu) 

1. Thehiragana syllableむ(mu). Its equivalent inkatakana isム(mu). It is the thirty-third syllable in thegojūon order; its position isま行う段(ma-gyō u-dan,“rowma, sectionu”).

• (Hiragana)平仮名; あぁ,いぃ,うぅゔ,えぇ,おぉ,かゕが,きぎ,くぐ,けゖげ,こご,さざ,しじ,すず,せぜ,そぞ,ただ,ちぢ,つっづ,てで,とど,な,に,ぬ,ね,の,はばぱ,ひびぴ,ふぶぷ,へべぺ,ほぼぽ,ま,み,む,め,も,やゃ,𛀆,ゆゅ,𛀁,よょ,ら,り,る,れ,ろ,わゎ,ゐ,𛄟(𛄟),ゑ,を,ん,ー,ゝ,ゞ,ゟ

Onomatopoeia.

• (Tokyo)む[múꜜ] (Atamadaka – [1])^[1]
• IPA^(key): [mɯ̟]

む• (mu) 

1. Amumbling sound.

FromOld Japanese. First cited in theKojiki of 712.^[2]

The pronunciation shifted from/mu/ to just nasal/m/ and then to the generalized nasal/ɴ/ by the mid-Heian period (794–1185), leading some writers to useん(n) instead to write this suffix.^[2] The kanaん(n) itself evolved out of ahentaigana (alternative kana form) forむ(mu) based on the cursive for kanji无(mu). In Classical Japanese texts, the practice now is to pronounce finalむ(-mu) asん(-n) instead.

As a separate phonological shift,/mu/ retained the vowel but lost the consonant, becoming a nasalized/ũ/ and then plain/u/. This then often fused with the preceding vowel, ultimately leading to the development of the modern volitional / suppositional/oː/ ending in modern Japanese.^[2] Seeよう#Japanese:_suffix for more detail.

Variously described assuppositional ("seems like"),volitional ("Iwill"), orhortative ("let's). Ultimately, all of these senses arise from an apparent base meaning of "seem, appear, look like". May be cognate with目(me,“eye”),見る(miru,“to see; to look at”),びる(-biru,“to look like, to seem like, to behave like”).

む• (-mu) ^†yodan

1. (Classical Japanese, after mizenkei)used to form thesuppositional /volitional /hortative form of verbs, equivalent to modernう(-u > -ō) /よう(-yō); also used as a mildimperative
   • c. late9th–mid-10th century,Taketori Monogatari

     我(われ)こそ死(し)なめ。

     Ware koso shiname.

     Iwould rather die myself.

   • 1021,Murasaki Shikibu,The Tale of Genji 21

     鳴(な)り高(たか)し。鳴(な)り止(や)まむ。

     Nari takashi. Nari yamamu.

     You are too noisy. Be quiet

• Resemblingyodan conjugation, but defective.

• ん(-n)
• う(-u)
• よう(-yō)

Native Japanesekun’yomi pronunciation of various Chinese characters.

Middle Chinese-derivedon’yomi pronunciation of various Chinese characters.

(The following entries do not have a page created for them yet:矛,務,霧,牟,墓.)

• Character boxes with images
• Hiragana block
• Hiragana script characters
• Japanese terms with IPA pronunciation
• Japanese lemmas
• Japanese syllables
• Japanese hiragana
• Japanese terms with Atamadaka pitch accent (Tōkyō)
• Japanese terms with IPA pronunciation with pitch accent
• Japanese interjections
• Japanese terms inherited from Old Japanese
• Japanese terms derived from Old Japanese
• Japanese suffixes
• Classical Japanese
• Japanese terms with usage examples
• Japanese nouns
• Japanese prefixes
• Japanese affixes

• Japanese links with redundant wikilinks
• Japanese links with redundant alt parameters
• Japanese terms with IPA pronunciation missing pitch accent
• Japanese terms with redundant sortkeys
• Pages with entries
• Pages with 1 entry
• Japanese links with manual fragments
• Japanese redlinks/ja-see