The historical kana orthography (歴史的仮名遣 rekishiteki kanazukai ), or old orthography (旧仮名遣 kyūkanazukai ), refers to the kana orthography (正仮名遣 seikanazukai ) in general use until orthographic reforms after World War II; the current orthography was adopted by Cabinet order in 1946. By that point the historical orthography was no longer in accord with Japanese pronunciation. It differs from modern usage (Gendai Kanazukai) in the number of characters and the way those characters are used.
The historical orthography is found in most Japanese dictionaries, such as Kōjien. In the current edition of the Kōjien, if the historical orthography is different from the modern spelling, the old spelling is printed in tiny katakana between the modern kana and kanji transcriptions of the word. Ellipses are used to save space when the historical and modern spellings are identical. Older editions of the Kōjien gave priority to the historical orthography.
The historical orthography should not be confused with hentaigana, alternate kana that were declared obsolete with the orthographic reforms of 1900.
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In historical kana usage:
Most of the historical kana usage has been found to accurately represent certain aspects of the way words sounded during the Heian period. 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,
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 (which was どぢやう dodiyau), but a kind of slang writing originating in the Edo period.
Here are some representative examples showing the historical and modern spellings and the kanji representation.
Historical usage | Current usage | Kanji | Translation | ||
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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 | there is/are (humans/animals) |
あはれ | ahare | あわれ | aware | 哀れ | sorrow; grief; pathos |
かへる | kaheru | かえる | kaeru | 帰る | to return home |
くわし | kuwashi (kwashi) | かし | kashi | 菓子 | sweets |
とうきやう | Toukiyau | とうきょう | Tōkyō | 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. Companies, shrines and people occasionally use historical kana conventions such as ゑびす (Ebisu), notably in Yebisu beer, which is written ヱビス webisu but pronounced 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.
Readers of English occasionally encounter words romanized according to historical kana usage, in which e was typically rendered ye, in accordance with the pronunciation of the 16th through 19th centuries. Here are some examples, with modern romanizations in parentheses:
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