How to write a single Hiragana character in latex

Question

I've run out of letters and I would like to use the Hiragana ''ro'' in a latex document. How can I produce it in the simplest way?

Answer 1

I'm not sure people reading your document will understand the symbol or know how to pronounce it. However, here's a way without loading the whole CJKutf8

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}
\usepackage{amsmath}
\usepackage{newunicodechar}

\newunicodechar{ろ}{\text{\usefont{U}{min}{m}{n}\symbol{'215}}}

\DeclareFontFamily{U}{min}{}
\DeclareFontShape{U}{min}{m}{n}{<-> udmj30}{}

\begin{document}
$a+ろ=c$
\end{document}

If you have problems in typing the character directly, just define a command for it:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}
\usepackage{amsmath}

\newcommand{\hiraro}{\text{\usefont{U}{min}{m}{n}\symbol{'215}}}

\DeclareFontFamily{U}{min}{}
\DeclareFontShape{U}{min}{m}{n}{<-> udmj30}{}

\begin{document}
$a+\hiraro=c$
\end{document}

Here's the complete table of the udmj30 font, if you want to extend the usage to other Hiragana:

In case you don't have udmj30 (probably due to an incomplete TeX distribution), you can try dmjhira:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}
\usepackage{amsmath}

\newcommand{\hiraro}{\text{\usefont{U}{min}{m}{n}\symbol{'115}}}

\DeclareFontFamily{U}{min}{}
\DeclareFontShape{U}{min}{m}{n}{<-> dmjhira}{}

\begin{document}
$a+\hiraro=c$
\end{document}

Here's the table of the font:

The syntax is \symbol{'<octal number>} or \symbol{"<hexadecimal number>} or also \symbol{<decimal number>}. Just look up the table for the correct number.

Answer 2

This example works with lua-, xe-, pdf- and with plain latex (followed by dvips and ps2pdf conversion).

% run: *latex mal-japanese.tex
% or 
% latex mal-japanese.tex
% dvips mal-japanese.dvi
% ps2pdf mal-japanese.ps
\documentclass{article}
\pagestyle{empty}
\begin{document}
% pdftex testfont
% --> dmjhira
% --> \table\bye
\font\maljapanese=dmjhira at 2ex % This is a matter of taste.
Some text {\maljapanese\char"4D} before $a+\textrm{\maljapanese\char"4D}=c$ some text {\maljapanese\char"4D} after.
\end{document}

Answer 3

% arara: lualatex

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{luatexja-fontspec}
\setmainjfont{MS Mincho}    
\newcommand{\HiraganaRo}{ろ}

\begin{document}
\[\HiraganaRo = 42\]
In the formula I use the symbol \HiraganaRo{} which is taken from the Japanese Hiragana alphabet.
\end{document}

Answer 4

This code uses the ろ symbol from your TrueType or OpenType font of choice. I chose Harano Aji Mincho, which comes libre with TeX Live, or here.

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{amsmath}
\usepackage{fontspec}
\usepackage{newunicodechar}
\newfontfamily\japanesefont{HaranoAjiMincho}[
  Scale=MatchUppercase,
  % Set other features, such as ligatures and forms, here.
  Script=Kana,
  Language=Japanese]
\newcommand\jpRo{\textup{\japanesefont ろ}}
\newunicodechar{ろ}{\jpRo}
\begin{document}
% You probably want to change your section title format to
% something like \large\bfseries\boldmath, not insert
% \boldmath commands.
\section*{\boldmath The Symbol (ろ = 42)}
This paper uses the symbol (ろ = 42).
\end{document}

The above definition will, as you see, appear bold like the surrounding text and math when you use \boldmath\bfseries, but will stay upright even when the surrounding text is italicized, such as in a theorem statement. If you are not using \boldmath and you want all math symbols to appear in normal weight in the header, as in AMS style, change the definition of \jpRo to

\newcommand\jpRo{\textnormal{\japanesefont ろ}}

In hindsight, if you ever need ロ in the future, it would have been better to call this something like \hiriganaRo or \jpHgRo. Either way, it’s an ASCII macro you can use.