What is the Japanese Homophonic Group? > Equivalent question: What Japanese letters won't equal 1? From: the homophonic group: a mathematical diversion → This is an exercise from Michael Artin's _Algebra_ on, well, abstract algebra. In this exercise for the English language, words are equal if they are homophones, kind of like a formalisation of the joke that sin(x)/n=6. So in English: * bee=be → This implies e=1 by cancellation of b and e. * buy=by → This implies u=1 by cancellation of b and y. * rase=raze → This implies s=z by cancellation of r, a and e. canvass=canvas → This implies s=1 by cancellation of c,a,n,v,a and s. By canvass=canvas and rase=raze, we have s=z=1. Eventually, all 26 English letters will equal 1. Apparently, this was done for French and Czech.

Hiragana is a phonogram, meaning each letter has a distinct sound. There are a few notable exceptions like pronounced as in certain contexts, but mostly I expect the size of homophonic groups to be quite large. If you include , this gets even larger, though there are plenty of kanjis that share the same pronunciation.

The only hiragana that I can think of that changes pronunciation is ~= and =