Missing Katakana?

[Max Maxter]

Doesn't Katakana also have ヴ (vu), ヱ(we), ヰ(wi)? I stumbled across these characters in the new Japanese Learning Suite posted not too long ago, and I've since found them in a few other Japanese contexts. How come they're not included in the Katakana lessons here? (Come to think of it, I also found a few ゑ and ゐ, Hiragana counterparts to ヱ and ヰ, respectively.)

[chikara]

have a read of the Katakana page at guidetojapanese.org.

ヰ and ヱ are obsolete and no longer used.

ヴ is a more modern addition and is used to make "v" sounds.

[Max Maxter]

Never mind. These charcters seem to be gradually falling out of common use. Perhaps not enough people use them to warrant their inclusion. Still, I think they ought to be mentioned somewhere, even if just in some small corner of the Katakana page, just in case of that rare occurrence where a reader happens to come across one.

[Max Maxter]

chikara wrote:
ヰ and ヱ are obsolete and no longer used.

ヴ is a more modern addition and is used to make "v" sounds.

Yeah, I kind of found that out independently. Thanks for the pointer, though!

[Ren]

I've came across them both before. Thanks for helping me clear things up.

[AJBryant]

ヰ and ヱ are obsolete and no longer used.

Except everyone in Japan knows them, and you DO (from time to time) see them on shop signs and so on. And, especially, as a historian I deal with texts written with 'em all the time.


Tony

[Sumi]

I've heard of them, but I didn't think that everyone in Japan knew them.

[AJBryant]

Anyone who's been through high-school, at any rate.


Tony

[richvh]

I imagine it's like the long S that used to be used in 18th century script. Just about everyone is aware of it because they've seen pictures of preserved documents where it was used (such as the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution in the US.) It's not like the thorn, a letter that missed the cut when printing started and most people don't know about (but whose memories is preserved in signs like Ye Olde Tavern; it represented the TH sound, and resembled a Y)