Talk:He (kana)

Difference in Hiragana/Katakana

The article says about へ and ヘ: "The two ways of writing this mora are almost identical." But they look EXACTLY the same in the font in which my computer shows this article, in the font used in other programs, in the font on my phone, in the "stroke order" animations, etc. Only the "stroke order" pictures differ slightly, because the Katakana version has a small extra bit on the left side. Is that supposed to always be there? If yes, why is it in none of the other places? Fabian42 (talk) 22:41, 5 June 2021 (UTC)

No, I'm not sure what you're seeing as a small bit on the left side, but there is no real standard visual difference between へ and ヘ. Honestly I think it's quite confusing that this article presents two effectively identical pictures side by side as if they are meaningfully different. The main case where these would look different would be if your font has a different cosmetic appearance for hiragana and katakana, e.g. if the katakana strokes were bolder or squared off in the chosen font as opposed to hiragana being thinner and with pointed ends, in a case like that you'd be able to see a difference. I've seen many older video games use the same tile graphic for both to save space. In most modern fonts there is a subtle difference in shape, generally to match aesthetically with other hiragana/katakana characters in the set, but it is not a meaningful one that is supposed to be resolved by anything other than context. I think I'll try to add a little bit of text to the article to help this confusion. - Rainwarrior (talk) 20:31, 12 June 2024 (UTC)