Why is "Wikipedia" written as ウィキペディア instead of ワィキペディア?


The free online dictionary Wikipedia is called ウィキペディア in kana.

Why is it not called ワィキペディア? Which string of kana provides a pronunciation
closer to the English word?




ウィ is the standard way of transcribing [wi] or [wɪ]. Similarly ウェ is used for
[wɛ] (for example _website_ → ウェブサイト) and ウォ for [wɒ] or [wɔ] (for example
_wombat_ → ウォンバット or _walkman_ ウォークマン).

Here ウ is used to emulate the [w] sound and ィ is a small _kana_ , indicating
the vowel. The small ィ also makes ウィ into a digraph (same length as single
full-sized _kana_ ).

This is similar to ファ フィ フェ フォ which are used to transcribe/transliterate
words containing F, where フ is used to emulate the [f] sound (which actually
becomes [ɸ]) and the small _kana_ ァィェォ indicates the vowel, giving for example
ファ [ɸa].

It doesn't make sense to use ワ here and it's actually not clear how ワィ should
be pronounced (small _kana_ aren't used with full-sized _kana_ from the ア row,
カサタナハマヤラワ).

See for example the _Extended katakana_ section in
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transcription_into_Japanese>.

* * *

A closer transcription of the English //ˌwɪkɪˈpiːdɪə// would be ウィキ **ピー**
ディア, but transcription into Japanese is often a compromise between spelling
and pronunciation.

