Taiwanese kana

A dictionary with Taiwanese kana

Taiwanese kana (タイヲァヌギイカアビェン) is a katakana-based writing system once used to write Holo Taiwanese, when Taiwan was ruled by Japan. It functioned as a phonetic guide to hanzi, much like furigana in Japanese or Zhuyin fuhao in Chinese. There were similar systems for other languages in Taiwan as well, including Hakka and Formosan languages.

The system was imposed by Japan at the time, and used in a few dictionaries, as well as textbooks. The Japanese-Taiwanese Dictionary (日臺大辭典), published in 1931–32, is an example. It uses various signs and diacritics to denote sounds that do not exist in Japanese. The system is chiefly based on the Amoy (Xiamen) dialect of Min Nan.

Through the system, the Office of the Governor-General of Taiwan aimed to help Taiwanese people learn the Japanese language, as well as help Japanese people learn the Taiwanese language. Linguistically speaking, however, the syllabary system was cumbersome for a language that has phonology far more complicated than Japanese. After Japanese administration ended, the system soon became obsolete. Now, only a few scholars, such as those who would study the aforementioned dictionary, learn Taiwanese kana.

Currently, Mojikyo is the only piece of software/encoding that fully supports the system. Unicode lacks small katakana wo and tone signs; although it also lacks precomposed overlined and underdotted kana^{[citation needed]}, combining character sequences containing the combining overline and combining dot below are sufficient for representing overlined and underdotted kana.

The system has undergone some modification over time. This article is mainly about the last edition, used from roughly 1931.

Basic rules

Mapped sounds are mostly similar to katakana in Japanese, with the kana ヤ, ユ, ヨ, ワ, ヰ, and ヱ not used. Each syllable are written with 2 or 3 kana (with a few exceptions). Notable differences include:

Vowels

• There are six vowels in Taiwanese: ア [a], イ [i], ウ [u], エ [e], オ [ɔ], ヲ [ə]. Note that the pronunciations of オ and ヲ are different from Japanese.
• Vowel ヲ is pronounced [u] in the diphthong ヲア [ua] and ヲエ [ue], also their extensions such as ヲァイ [uai], ヲァッ [uat̚]. In some dialect ヲ may be pronounced [o] or [ɤ].
• In the syllables with single vowel, the kana for the vowel is repeated, like the long vowels in Japanese. For example, カア [ka], キイ [ki], オオ [ɔ], ヲヲ [ə].
• The small kana ァ, ィ, ゥ, ェ, ォ, ヲ are defined as short vowels. They are used to present the second vowel in the middle of a syllable, or a glottal stop in the end. For example, キァウ [kiau], キェク for [kiek̚], キァゥ [kiauʔ].
• There are two optional vowel kana for Choâⁿ-chiu (Quanzhou) dialect. ウ [ɨ] and オ [ə]. For example, クウ [kɨ], コオ [kə], クゥヌ [kɨn].

Consonants

• フ is pronounced [hu], not [ɸu] as in Japanese.
• There are five overlined kana to deal with [t] and [ts]/[tɕ]. サ [tsa], チ [ti], ツ [tu], セ [tse], ソ [tsə] or [tso].

	Taiwanese Kana						Modern Japanese Kana
	a	i	u	e	ɔ/ə		a	i	u	e	o
t	タ	チ	ツ	テ	ト		タ	ティ	トゥ	テ	ト
ts/tɕ	サ	チ	ツ	セ	ソ		ツァ	チ	ツ	ツェ	ツォ

• Aspirated consonants of [pʰ], [tʰ], [kʰ], [tsʰ]/[tɕʰ] are presented as adding an underdot to the kana. For example, ク̣ for [kʰu].
• Final nasal consonants are written as ム [m], ヌ [n], ン [ŋ]. Note that ム, ヌ pronounce [mu], [nu] when they are placed in the initial. For example, カヌ [kan], ヌヌ for [nun].
• Syllabic consonant [ŋ̍] is spelt (u+)ン, for example クン [kŋ̍]. Note that [ŋ̍] without a preceding vowel is written as a single ン, not ウン or ンン.
• Syllabic consonant [m̩] is spelt (u+)ム, for example フム [hm̩]. Note that [m̩] without a preceding vowel is written as a single ム, not ウム or ムム.
• Initial [ŋ] is spelt as [ɡ] with a nasal tone sign. For example, ガア [ɡa˥˩], ガア [ŋa˥˩].
• Final plosives (which have no audible release) are プ [p̚], ッ [t̚], ク [k̚], similar to the kana used in Ainu.
• Final glottal stops [ʔ] are presented by the short-vowel small kana (ァ, ィ, ゥ, ェ, ォ, ヲ) in the end. For example, カァ [kaʔ], カゥ [kauʔ].

Tone signs

There are different tone signs for normal vowels and nasal vowels.

Tone Number	1	2(6)	3	4	5	7	8
Pitch	˦˦	˥˩	˧˩	˧	˨˦	˧˧	˥
Normal vowels	None
Nasal vowels
POJ	a	á	à	ah	â	ā	a̍h

• When a text is written vertically, those signs are written on the right side of letters. Taiwanese kana is only attested in vertical orientation, so it is unknown where the signs would be placed if it were written horizontally.
• Initial consonants [m], [n], [ŋ] are always written with nasal vowel tone signs, where [b], [l], [ɡ] are always with normal vowels. Note that [ŋ] and [ɡ] share the same initial kana.

Taiwanese Kana Chart

Rhyme Chart

Syllable Chart

1. Tone signs are always needed for a syllable.
2. [ɡ] always takes normal vowel tone signs, [m], [n], [ŋ] always takes nasal vowel tone signs.
3. Some spellings are not clear. 仔(á) was sometimes written as ア rather than アア. 的(ê) was sometimes written as エ rather than エエ.
4. [ɔ] is spelt with オ, such as オオ, ポオ, イオ, ピオ, and so on.

Example

Audio File:	Sound file (help·info)
Taiwanese kana:	シェヌ シイ コン、ハク シェン チァム チァム チ̣ア。
IPA:	[ ɕɪɛn˧ ɕĩ˥ kɔŋ˥˩ hak̚˧ ɕiəŋ˥ tɪam˧ tɪam˧ tʰĩã˥ ]
Pe̍h-ōe-jī:	Sian-siⁿ kóng, ha̍k-seng tiām-tiām thiaⁿ.
Tâi-lô:	Sian-sinn kóng, ha̍k-sing tiām-tiām thiann.
Traditional Chinese:	先生講、學生恬恬聽。
Translation:	A teacher is speaking. Students are quietly listening.

External links

• National Taichung Library (Chinese (Taiwan)) (English), including the scan of The Taiwanese-Japanese Dictionary. bookid=bjn00172v02
• 台灣總督府ê日本國民讀本 (Japanese textbook by the Governor-General of Taiwan) (Min-nan)
• 《訂正臺灣十五音字母詳解》 音系研究 (Phonetic study on The revised guide of 15 Taiwanese letters) PDF (1.36 MB) (Chinese (Taiwan))