Historical kana usage
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Historical kana usage (歴史的仮名遣 rekishiteki kanazukai?) refers to an older system of spelling Japanese in kana (the Japanese syllabary) that does not accord with modern Japanese pronunciation, in contrast to gendai kanazukai (現代仮名遣?), modern kana usage, which represents the modern pronunciation.
It differs from modern usage in the number of characters and the way those characters are used. Historical kana spellings were widely used until after World War II. The modern system was adopted by Cabinet order in 1946.
The historical kana for words can be found in most Japanese dictionaries such as Kōjien. In the current edition of Kōjien, if the kana usage is different, it is printed in tiny katakana between the kana and kanji forms of the word. Previous editions of the dictionary gave priority to the historical kana usage.
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[edit] General differences
- This section uses Nihon-shiki romanization for clarification.
In historical kana usage:
- Two kana are used that are obsolete today: ゐ/ヰ wi and ゑ/ヱ we. These are pronounced as i and e. Words that formerly contained those characters are now written using い i and え e respectively.
- Outside of its use as a particle, the を wo kana is used to represent the o sound.
- Yōon sounds, such as しょう shō or きょう kyō, are not written with a small ょ, but a full sized one.
- The series of kana ha hi hu he ho are used to represent the sounds wa, i, u, e, o, respectively.
- Precedence is given to grammar over pronunciation. For example, the verb warau "to laugh", is written わらふ warahu, and in accordance with Japanese grammar rules, waraou, the volitional form of warau, is written わらはう warahau.
- The kana づ du and ぢ di, which are mostly only used in rendaku in modern kana usage, are more common. Modern kana usage replaces them with the identically pronounced ず zu and じ ji in most cases. For example ajisai, "hydrangea", is written あぢさゐ adisawi.
Most of the historical kana usage has been found to accurately represent the way words sounded during the Heian era. As the spoken language has continued to develop, some orthography looks odd to the modern eye. As these peculiarities follow fairly regular patterns, they are not difficult to learn. However, some of the historical kana usages are simply mistakes. For example,
- 或いは / 或ひは / 或ゐは aruiwa (or) should be 或いは,
- 用ゐる / 用ひる mochiiru (use) should be 用ゐる, and
- つくえ / つくゑ tsukue (desk, table) should be つくえ, according to the old pronunciations.
Some forms of unusual kana usage are not, in fact, historical kana usage. For example, writing どじょう dojō (loach, a sardine-like fish) in the form どぜう dozeu is not historical kana usage, but a kind of slang writing originating in the Edo period.
[edit] Examples
Here are some representative examples showing the historical and modern spellings and the kanji representation.
| historical usage | romaji | current usage | romaji (kanji) | Translation |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| けふ | kefu | きょう | kyō (今日) | today |
| てふ | tefu | ちょう | chō (蝶) | butterfly |
| ゐる | wiru | いる | iru (居る) | to be, exist |
| あはれ | ahare | あわれ | aware (哀れ) | to be helpless, sad |
| かへる | kaheru | かえる | kaeru (帰る) | to return home |
| ゑびす | webisu | えびす | ebisu (夷) | barbarian, savage |
| くわし | kuwashi | かし | kashi (菓子) | sweets |
| とうきやう | toukyau | とうきょう | Tokyo (東京) | Tokyo, the city of |
The table at the bottom gives a more complete list of the changes in spelling patterns.
Historical kana usage can be used to look up words in larger dictionaries and dictionaries specializing in old vocabulary, which are in print in Japan. Because of the great discrepancy between the pronunciation and spelling and the widespread adoption of modern kana usage, historical kana usage is almost never seen, except in a few special cases. For example, the old kana usage is seen in the word うゐすきい uwisukii ("whiskey", in hiragana). Companies, shrines and people occasionally use historical kana conventions such as ゑびす (Ebisu).
In addition, alternate kana letterforms, known as hentaigana (変体仮名), have nearly disappeared. A few uses remain, such as kisoba, often written using obsolete kana on the signs of soba shops.
The use of を (historically pronounced /wo/), へ, and は for sentence particles instead of お, え, and わ is a remnant of historical kana usage.
[edit] Romanization of historical kana
Readers of English occasionally encounter words romanized according to historical kana usage, although we is typically rendered ye. Here are some examples, with modern romanizations in parentheses:
- Inouye (Inoue): a Japanese family name
- Tokugawa Iyeyasu (Ieyasu)
- Uyeno (Ueno): a place name
- Yedo (Edo): a former name of Tokyo
- Kwannon (Kannon): A Bodhisattva
- Kwaidan (Kaidan), meaning ghost story, the title of a collection of Japanese ghost stories compiled by Lafcadio Hearn
- Kwansei Gakuin University (Kansei): A university in Kobe and Nishinomiya
- Iwo Jima (Iō-jima): An island known as the site of a battle during World War II
[edit] Spelling reform
As long ago as the Meiji Restoration, there had been dissatisfaction regarding the discrepancy between spelling and speech. It was in 1946 immediately following World War II that modern kana usage was instituted as part of a general orthographic reform. Here, for example, あ (a) includes all kana using the /a/ vowel, such as か (ka) or た (ta).
| archaic | modern |
|---|---|
| あ＋う (a + u) あ＋ふ (a + fu) |
おう (ō) |
| い＋う (i + u) い＋ふ (i + fu) |
ゆう (yū) |
| う＋ふ (u + fu) | うう (ū) |
| え＋う (e + u) え＋ふ (e + fu) |
よう (yō) |
| お＋ふ (o + fu) | おう (ō) |
| お＋ほ (o + ho) お＋を (o + wo) |
おお (ō) |
| く＋わ (ku + wa) | か (ka) Originally kwa |
| ぐ＋わ (gu + wa) | が (ga) Originally gwa |
| medial or final は (ha) | わ (wa) |
| medial or final ひ (hi), へ (he), ほ (ho) | い (i), え (e), お (o) (via wi, we, wo, see below) |
| any ゐ (wi), ゑ (we), を (wo) | い (i), え (e), お (o) |
| ぢ (voiced chi), づ (voiced tsu) | じ (voiced shi), ず (voiced su) |
In addition, there were no small kana, thus, for example, きよ would be ambiguous between kiyo and kyo while かつた could be either katsuta or katta.
The pronunciations of medial h-row kana does not extend to compound words, thus, にほん was pronounced nihon, not nion. Note that there are a small number of counterexamples, e.g., あひる "duck", pronounced ahiru rather than airu, or ふぢはら, pronounced Fujiwara, despite being a compound of Fuji (wisteria) + hara (field). The h-row was historically pronounced as fa, fi, fu, fe, fo (and even further back, pa, pi, pu, pe, po). Japanese f is close to a voiceless w, and so was easily changed to w in the middle of a word. This is also why even today fu is used rather than hu.
The vowel + (f)u compounds do not apply in compound words, for example, the name てらうち was Terauchi not Terouchi, as it is Tera (temple) + uchi (inside, home). The -fu of the modern -u series of verbs (that is, those verbs using the actual kana う such as kau or omou) were not affected by the sound changes on the surface, however, some reports of Edo era Japanese indicate that verbs like tamau and harau were pronounced as tamō and harō instead. In contrast, the -ō in darō and ikō is a product of the sound change from au to ō.
