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Modern Kana Usage
is the present official ''kanazukai'' (system of spelling the kana, Japanese syllabary). Also known as , it is derived from historical kana usage, historical usage. History As long ago as the Meiji Restoration, there had been dissatisfaction regarding the growing discrepancy between Written language, spelling and Spoken language, speech. On November 16, 1946, soon after World War II, the cabinet instituted the modern Japanese orthography as part of a general orthographic reform. The system was further amended in 1986. General differences There were no small kana in the pre-reform system; thus, for example, would be ambiguous between ''kiyo'' and ''kyo'' while could be either ''katsuta'' or ''katta''. The pronunciation of medial ''h''-row kana as ''w''-row kana in the pre-reform system does not extend to compound words; thus, was pronounced ''nihon'', not ''nion'' (via **''niwon''). There are a small number of counterexamples; e.g., "duck", pronounced ''ahiru'' rather than ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kanazukai
are the orthographic rules for spelling Japanese in kana. All phonographic systems (of which kana is an example) attempt to account accurately the pronunciation in their spellings. However, pronunciation and accents change over time and phonemic distinctions are often lost. Various systems of ''kanazukai'' were introduced to deal with the disparity between the written and spoken versions of Japanese. Historical systems The former mainstream kana usage, or the '' Kyū-Kanazukai'' (, ‘old kana usage’), is based on classical texts, especially ''man'yōgana''. Created by Keichū in the early Edo period, it is also known as the ''Keichū Kanazukai''. It was the mainstream ''kanazukai'' until the '' Gendai Kanazukai'' was introduced in 1946. There were other minor systems throughout history that are now defunct: * '' Jōdai Tokushu Kanazukai'' (): a modified ''Man'yōgana'' where /e, je/ are distinct. * ''Teika Kanazukai'' (): created by Fujiwara no Teika, it distinguishes b ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Yotsugana
are a set of four specific kana, じ, ぢ, ず, づ (in the Nihon-shiki romanization system: ''zi'', ''di'', ''zu'', ''du''), used in the Japanese writing system. They historically represented four distinct voiced morae (syllables) in the Japanese language. However, most dialects, such as Standard Japanese-speakers, have undergone mergers and now pronounce two sounds. Modern sound usage in various dialects Most of the far northern dialects ( Tōhoku dialects and Hokkaidō) and far southern dialects (notably Okinawan Japanese) and the Ryukyuan languages (the other Japonic languages) have also mostly merged the four sounds to one sound. However, a few dialects, mainly around Shikoku and Kyushu is the third-largest island of Japan's Japanese archipelago, four main islands and the most southerly of the four largest islands (i.e. excluding Okinawa Island, Okinawa and the other Ryukyu Islands, Ryukyu (''Nansei'') Ryukyu Islands, Islands ... in the southwest, still dis ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kana
are syllabary, syllabaries used to write Japanese phonology, Japanese phonological units, Mora (linguistics), morae. In current usage, ''kana'' most commonly refers to ''hiragana'' and ''katakana''. It can also refer to their ancestor , which were Kanji, Chinese characters used phonetically to transcribe Japanese language, Japanese (e.g. ''man'yōgana''); and ''hentaigana'', which are historical variants of the now-standard hiragana. Katakana, with a few additions, are also used to write Ainu language, Ainu. A Okinawan scripts, number of systems exist to write the Ryūkyūan languages, in particular Okinawan language, Okinawan, in hiragana. Taiwanese kana were used in Taiwanese Hokkien as ruby text for Chinese characters in Taiwan when it was Taiwan under Japanese rule, under Japanese rule. Each syllabogram, kana character corresponds to one phoneme or syllable, unlike kanji, which generally each logogram, corresponds to a morpheme. Apart from the five vowels, it is always ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1946 Establishments In Japan
1946 ( MCMXLVI) was a common year starting on Tuesday of the Gregorian calendar, the 1946th year of the Common Era (CE) and ''Anno Domini'' (AD) designations, the 946th year of the 2nd millennium, the 46th year of the 20th century, and the 7th year of the 1940s decade. Events January * January 6 – The first general election ever in Vietnam is held. * January 7 – The Allies of World War II recognize the Austrian republic with its 1937 borders, and divide the country into four occupation zones. * January 10 ** The first meeting of the United Nations is held, at Methodist Central Hall Westminster in London. ** ''Project Diana'' bounces radar waves off the Moon, measuring the exact distance between the Earth and the Moon, and proves that communication is possible between Earth and outer space, effectively opening the Space Age. * January 11 – Enver Hoxha declares the People's Republic of Albania, with himself as prime minister. * January 16 – Charles de Gaulle resig ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kagoshima Dialect
The , often referred to as the , is a group of dialects or dialect continuum of the Japanese language spoken mainly within the area of the former Ōsumi and Satsuma provinces now incorporated into the southwestern prefecture of Kagoshima. It may also be collectively referred to as the Satsuma dialect ( or ), owing to both the prominence of the Satsuma Province and the region of the Satsuma Domain which spanned the former Japanese provinces of Satsuma, Ōsumi and the southwestern part of Hyūga. The Satsugū dialect is commonly cited for its mutual unintelligibility to even its neighboring Kyūshū variants, prompting the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology to classify it as a distinct language in the Japanesic branch in its Glottolog database. It shares over three-quarters of the Standard Japanese vocabulary corpus and some areal features of Kyūshū. Distribution and subdialects The boundaries of the Satsugū dialect are traditionally defined as t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tosa Dialect
The Tosa dialect (Japanese: 土佐弁 ''tosa-ben'') is a Japanese Shikoku dialect spoken in central and eastern Kochi Prefecture (former Tosa Province), including Kochi City. The dialect of the Western region of Kochi Prefecture is called the Hata dialect (Japanese: 幡多弁 ''hata-ben'') and is drastically different from the Central and Eastern dialect. Classification Shikoku dialects are divided into Western (Tokushima, Kagawa and Ehime), Southern (Kochi), and also occasionally Southwest (western Kochi and southern Ehime). The Tosa dialect exists in a somewhat unique position due to being historically isolated from other prefectures because of the Shikoku Mountains. Kochi Prefecture dialects are broadly divided into Western and Eastern-Central. * Western dialect - Shimanto (city), Tosashimizu, Sukumo, Otsuki, Mihara, Kuroshio (excluding the former town of Saga), Shimanto (town) (excluding the former town of Kubokawa), Yusuhara. Possesses a Tokyo standard pitch ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Okinawan Japanese
is the Japanese language as spoken by the people of Okinawa Islands. The name ''Uchinaa'' ''Yamatu-guchi'' is composed of ''Uchinaa'' meaning "Okinawa", ''Yamatu'' referring to mainland Japan, and the suffix -''guchi'' approximately meaning "language". Okinawan Japanese's pronunciation and words are influenced by the Northern Ryukyuan languages, Northern Ryukyuan Okinawan language, Okinawan and Kunigami language, Kunigami languages spoken on the islands. However, the amount of influence Ryukyuan languages, Ryukyuan has on the Japanese spoken by Okinawans varies by family and age, as well as by region. Because of the many US military bases found in Okinawa, Okinawan Japanese has incorporated some English loanwords. Okinawan Japanese is a Japanese dialects, Japanese dialect (), unlike the Okinawan and Kunigami languages. Standard Japanese is used in formal settings while Ryukyuan languages and Okinawan Japanese are used in informal settings. History In the Okinawa Islands, ma ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tōhoku Dialect
The , commonly called 東北弁 ''Tōhoku-ben'', is a group of the Japanese dialects spoken in the Tōhoku region, the northeastern region of Honshū. Toward the northern part of Honshū, the Tōhoku dialect can differ so dramatically from standard Japanese that it is sometimes rendered with subtitles in the nationwide media and it has been treated as the typical rural accent in Japanese popular culture. Phonetics A notable linguistic feature of the Tōhoku dialect is its neutralization of the high vowels "i" and "u" (Standard and ) after coronal obstruents, so that the words ''sushi'', ''susu'' ('soot'), and ''shishi'' ('lion') are rendered homophonous, where they would have been distinct in other dialects. In light of this, Tōhoku dialect is sometimes referred to as ''Zūzū-ben''. The vowels tend to be neutralized to in Northern Tōhoku dialect and in Southern Tōhoku dialect. In addition, all unvoiced stops become voiced intervocalically, rendering the pronunciation of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Japanese Dialects
The of the Japanese language fall into two primary clades, Eastern (including modern capital Tokyo) and Western (including old capital Kyoto), with the dialects of Kyushu and Hachijō Island often distinguished as additional branches, the latter perhaps the most divergent of all. The Ryukyuan languages of Okinawa Prefecture and the southern islands of Kagoshima Prefecture form a separate branch of the Japonic family, and are not Japanese dialects, although they are sometimes referred to as such. The setting of Japan with its numerous islands and mountains has the ideal setting for developing many dialects. History Regional variants of Japanese have been confirmed since the Old Japanese era. The '' Man'yōshū'', the oldest existing collection of Japanese poetry, includes poems written in dialects of the capital (Nara) and eastern Japan, but other dialects were not recorded. The compiler included ''azuma uta'' ("eastern songs") that show that eastern dialect traits were dis ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Yotsugana
are a set of four specific kana, じ, ぢ, ず, づ (in the Nihon-shiki romanization system: ''zi'', ''di'', ''zu'', ''du''), used in the Japanese writing system. They historically represented four distinct voiced morae (syllables) in the Japanese language. However, most dialects, such as Standard Japanese-speakers, have undergone mergers and now pronounce two sounds. Modern sound usage in various dialects Most of the far northern dialects ( Tōhoku dialects and Hokkaidō) and far southern dialects (notably Okinawan Japanese) and the Ryukyuan languages (the other Japonic languages) have also mostly merged the four sounds to one sound. However, a few dialects, mainly around Shikoku and Kyushu is the third-largest island of Japan's Japanese archipelago, four main islands and the most southerly of the four largest islands (i.e. excluding Okinawa Island, Okinawa and the other Ryukyu Islands, Ryukyu (''Nansei'') Ryukyu Islands, Islands ... in the southwest, still dis ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mora (linguistics)
A mora (plural ''morae'' or ''moras''; often symbolized μ) is a smallest unit of timing, equal to or shorter than a syllable, that theoretically or perceptually exists in some spoken languages in which phonetic length (such as vowel length) matters significantly. For example, in the Japanese language, the name of the city '' Ōsaka'' () consists of three syllables (''O-sa-ka'') but four morae (), since the first syllable, ''Ō'', is pronounced with a long vowel (the others being short). Thus, a short vowel contains one mora and is called ''monomoraic'', while a long vowel contains two and is called ''bimoraic''. Extra-long syllables with three morae (''trimoraic'') are relatively rare. Such metrics based on syllables are also referred to as syllable weight. In Japanese, certain consonants also stand on their own as individual morae and thus are monomoraic. The term comes from the Latin word for 'linger, delay', which was also used to translate the Greek word : ('time') in it ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Soft Hyphen
In computing and typesetting, a soft hyphen (Unicode ) or syllable hyphen, is a code point reserved in some coded character sets for the purpose of breaking words across lines by inserting visible hyphens if they fall on the line end but remain invisible within the line. Two alternative ways of using the soft hyphen character for this purpose have emerged, depending on whether the encoded text will be broken into lines by its recipient, or has already been preformatted by its originator. Text to be formatted by the recipient The use of SHY characters in text that will be broken into lines by the recipient is the application context considered by the post-1999 HTML and Unicode specifications, as well as some word-processing file formats. In this context, the soft hyphen may also be called a discretionary hyphen or optional hyphen. It serves as an invisible marker used to specify a place in text where a hyphenated break is allowed without forcing a line break in an inconvenient ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
