Talk:Hiragana

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It would be nice to have some approximate years when Hiragana was invented, when it was used in novels, when it came to be used for okurigana, etc.

It would also be nice to show a sample of how words today written in hiragana used to be written in kanji. — Hippietrail 09:21, 10 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Someone should move the portion from the kana article which mentions the time hiragana was invented. From what I understand hiragana was originally developed for okurigana and kanji replacement, while katakana was originally developed for rubi (aka furigana). Also I found the following sentence in the hiragana article to have a severely high "duh" factor: The presence of hiragana among Chinese characters is usually sufficient to identify a text as Japanese. Why even mention it?
--69.212.98.38 09:40, 5 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Your understanding is incorrect. Hiragana was not developed for okurigana, and in fact, was not used primarily for that purpose until the postwar era when a lot of orthographic reforms were introduced (reduced kanji set, formalization of katakana/hiragana roles, rationalized kana spellings): look at some pre-war printed matter and you'll see that most okurigana was in katakana. Hiragana was simply a natural evolution from manyogana, which was developed for writing Japanese poetry. adamrice 14:59, 5 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Yes, now that I think of it, I might have made a mistake - I couldn't remember whether katakana was originally used for okurigana or furigana purposes, but it was definately one of the two, and I think okurigana would make more sense since it is more of a necessity. Hiragana was originally used to replace kanji for sure. By the way, Adamrice, you introduced the sentence "A small tsu っ indicates a glottal stop." but I believe this is either a misunderstanding of what a glottal stop is or what a small tsu is. With the exception of usage in modern literature such as manga which takes some liberties, the small tsu causes a gemination with the consonant that immediately follows it. --69.212.98.38 19:32, 5 Aug 2004 (UTC)
I am not a linguist, so I cannot comment with authority on this stuff, but I must say that the article on gemination is very unsatisfying because it is explaining the vocal process in terms of the orthography, which is bass-ackwards. The article on glottal stops suggests to me that glottal stops really are what is happening in Japanese. If the "uh-oh" has a glottal stop, so does あった. I'll allow as how the location of the stop may move around in the mouth depending on the following sound, but that's some kind of stop, going by the definition given here in wikipedia. adamrice 19:49, 5 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Hmm, there seems to be quite a lot of debate about this topic over at Talk:Japanese language. After googling, I also found other sites that say the small tsu is a glottal stop, however I have here a linguistics book 日本語音声学 (Nihongo Onseigaku) by 天沼 寧 (AMANUMA Yasushi), et al. published by くろしお出版 (Kuroshio shuppan). Of the three authors, one works for the Japanese minstry of education, while the other two are foreign language professors. According to this book, the small tsu is never a glottal stop, and it is not even a stop/plosive when followed by /s/ or /S/ (e.g. isshō, assari) and as a native speaker I agree with the book. The small tsu is always supposed to precede a consonant, although nowadays some manga artists, for example, take artistic license to bend this rule. --69.212.98.38 23:48, 5 Aug 2004 (UTC)
I'd say this confusion is based on how close the concepts of gemination and glottal stop are in some languages. I think the Danish "stod" (spelling?) is an example. I bet there is also a relationship in sound change as a language proceeds through history. — Hippietrail 00:40, 6 Aug 2004 (UTC)

This confusion over っ seems to be over the difference between phonemic and phonetic levels of description. At the phonemic level Japanese doesn't distinguish between the glottal stop and a geminate consonant. So /ippŋ/ and /iʔpoŋ/ are both understood as 一本. So if we are describing Japanese phonemically we shouldn't make this distinction. (Just as a phonemic description of English shouldn't make the distinction between aspirated and unaspirated stops.) Only a phonetic description needs to make the distinction. Japanese language#Phonology says "/ʔ/ assimilates to the following consonant, resulting in a geminate (double) consonant. It is thus normally realized as something other than a glottal stop." Gdr 23:29, 2004 Aug 28 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] How about a shortcut link to the table?

When I'm browsing the Web, I sometimes need to pull up a quick kana chart. I want to use this page, but since the chart is so far down on it, it's a bit inconvenient. So I wonder if it's possible to have one of those "#" links that scrolls directly to the appropriate section -- in this case, to the hiragana chart. Just an idea. -- Jaxxim 20:29, Nov 14, 2004 (UTC)

Headers have them automatically. Type the article name, then the "#" symbol, then the header. For example, Hiragana#Hiragana in Unicode. Hope this is what you wanted. Fg2 20:58, Nov 14, 2004 (UTC)
Thanks for the info. Actually, I was hoping for a link to the table entitled "Hepburn Romanization of Hiragana," which has hiragana with their romaji equivalents. But I guess I can keep using the other site I've been using. Thanks. -- Jaxxim 02:08, Nov 29, 2004 (UTC)
Always wondered why the heburn table didn't have its own header, so gave it one. Heading name might want altering though. If no one objects loudly I'll do the same to Katakana later. -- Martin 13:20, 6 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Seems like a fine idea to me. Go for it! 頑張って！ — Gwalla | Talk 01:44, 7 Jan 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Possible external link?

Hi. I have a site with a Flash hiragana writing tutor:

http://www.japanese-name-translation.com/site/hiragana_symbols.html#05

Would this be a useful external link for this page? (I am new to editing Wikipedia, so I thought I should run it by you guys and see what you thought.) If you think it is good, would someone add it?

Link added 18 Jan 2005

[edit] Unsatisfactory oversimplification

From the article: Each hiragana represents one syllable (technically, one mora), and is either a vowel on its own (such as a あ), a consonant followed by a vowel (such as ka か), or ん, which sounds like the English "m" or "n".

This doesn't account for pairs like きゃ, where the second character is hiragana that represents neither a syllable nor a mora. Unless we're defining the pair as "one hiragana", which strikes me as a rather idiosyncratic usage. Given that the claim the quoted sentence is trying to make can be boiled down to "hiragana represent Japanese sounds", I'm not sure the sentence is particularly necessary at all. I don't have any constructive suggestions, though, so I'll leave it to whoever's maintaining this article to decide whether to change anything.

We all maintain this article--that's how wikipedia works. You (whoever you are--you can sign your posts by adding four tildes at the end, or clicking the next-to-last button in the icon bar above the editing field) make a reasonable point--the digraphs aren't a perfect fit. If you think of a better way to put it, by all means, put it in. adamrice 19:02, 8 Feb 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Individual articles for hiragana

I noticed that the Spanish, Catalan, Chinese, and Japanese versions all have separate articles for the hiragana. Each article includes origin, strokes, comparisons with other characters, transcription, and representation in Braille, Morse code, etc. Unless anyone objects, I'm going to start equivalent articles for the English version. Bhumiya 20:38, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

I don't object, but some articles existed, and were nominated for deletion, e.g. No (kana). It's still there, and some others too. My guess is that if you start with small stubs they will be nominated for deletion, so starting with at least a couple of substantive paragraphs might save you a lot of work. You may want to read Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Kana alphabet articles to see which articles exist etc. Fg2 00:48, 16 December 2005 (UTC)
I created U (kana) as a test balloon, and filled it with all the information I could dig up. I'd say every kana is substantial enough to warrant an article. After all, every Latin character has an article, as does every Cyrillic and Greek character. This, along with the fact that corresponding articles exist in other languages, makes deletion a remote possibility. When I originally created the article, I labeled it [[う]]. User:Toothpaste moved it to its current name, and also added a handy little table. I'll follow her naming convention from here on out. Bhumiya 08:40, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

I'll have to say I must agree. There is a lot of information you can put on those pages, especially to clear up some people's (including myself) confusion over where 'wi' and 'we' sprung up from. Germs 14:46, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Sumomo

Can someone help with the hiragana at Sumomo? It would be great to have your expertise. Thanks! Badagnani 06:09, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

I could help you.Englishfun

[edit] Conversion to Romaji

I have written a Javascript program that converts Hiragana to Romaji. I'm currently testing it at User:Ed Poor/monobook.js and your comments are welcome. --Uncle Ed 17:56, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] No Kanji for -san suffix?

What about U+69d8? --KazKylheku 05:00, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

That's often used for -sama; I've never seen it used for -san, even in kanji-heavy texts. — Haeleth Talk 10:18, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] R/L and Character detail

I think it might be helpful to include an explanation of the R(L) phenomenon in the Japanese language. One of the common misconceptions is that Japanese lacks any distinguishable L sound, but this has more to do with the pronunciation of the RA,RI,RU,RE,RO line than anything else. The tongue is in a slightly different place in general when speaking, making the L sound somewhat like R. This convention was originaly a mistake when translating the language into a roman writing system and has since been adopted as official by the Japanese government. This is a problem because it leads the reader to believe that "dare", for instance is pronounced "da-ray" instead of "da-lay" (the correct pronunciation). I want your opinions on this before I ammend the article.
You're right that the sound transcribed by R is one that always confuses learners of the language, and it would definitely be worth having a note in the article explaining that it is not the same sound as an English R.
However, it's not an L sound either. It's clearer when written in IPA: the way I pronounce them, "da-ray" is [dæɹeɪ] and "da-lay" is [dæleɪ], but the Japanese だれ is [daɺ̠e].
There's an explanation in the article Japanese phonology, so perhaps the best thing is to add a note explaining that it's not an English R, along with a link to that article? — Haeleth Talk 22:38, 24 September 2006 (UTC)
That's a good point. Shame on me for oversimplifying. :) That's probably the best course of action. --Wolfrider 14:59, 25 September 2006 (UTC)
Also, the hiragana characters are much too small and subtle differences are hard to see. For instance the difference between the B/P lines (the ten-ten versus the maru) is almost invisible. Should we enlarge the font or, even better in my opinion, include an actual hiragana table as an image? --Wolfrider 22:41, 23 September 2006 (UTC)
An image would be a very good idea, especially as not all users will have Japanese fonts on their computers. There may be one somewhere on Wikipedia already. (There's Image:Nihongo_ichiran_01.png, which contains both hiragana and katakana -- but it doesn't have G, B, P, etc. at all, so it would hardly solve the problem!) — Haeleth Talk 22:38, 24 September 2006 (UTC)
I think I can get a hold of one from my Japanese language professor, although it would be quite large (a full page before scanning). I'll track it down and post it, see what you guys think. --Wolfrider 14:59, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Adding Furigana.jp to external links

There are a number of sites out there that do conversions of one kind or another, but none of them are that useful for practical, daily use. This tool can be used as a learning tool, but is targeted more toward people that use Japanese everyday as part of work or whatever. The default mode for both the web browsing and text conversion is "kana" which converts all kanji from the source text into hiragana... Please consider adding it to External links --ezln23 18:06, 02 February 2007 (JST)
  • Furigana.jp, Converts Japanese web pages or text into one of three formats for easier reading: furigana, kana or romaji

[edit] P+ sounds

These are shown as B sounds; the quotation marks are used instead of the degrees symbol. Any suggestions ? Oharrez 14:43, 3 February 2007 (UTC)Oharrez

[edit] Hiragana/katakana

From the article: "In modern times, the usage of hiragana has become mixed with katakana writing, hiragana is now relegated to special uses such as recently borrowed words (i.e., since the 19th century), names in transliteration, the names of animals, in telegrams, and for emphasis." I'm not completely sure, but shouldn't that read "…katakana is now relegated…"? -Shai-kun 21:54, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

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