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This is the pronunciation key for IPA transcriptions of Japanese on Wikipedia. It provides a set of symbols to represent the pronunciation of Japanese in Wikipedia articles, and example words that illustrate the sounds that correspond to them.
Yotsugana (四つ仮名, literally "four kana") 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 ...
Many generalizations about Japanese pronunciation have exceptions if recent loanwords are taken into account. For example, the consonant [p] generally does not occur at the start of native (Yamato) or Chinese-derived (Sino-Japanese) words, but it occurs freely in this position in mimetic and foreign words. [2]
However, unlike kanji, kana have no meaning, and are used only to represent sounds. Hiragana are generally used to write some Japanese words and given names and grammatical aspects of Japanese. For example, the Japanese word for "to do" (する suru) is written with two hiragana: す (su) + る (ru).
Rendaku (連濁, Japanese pronunciation:, lit. ' sequential voicing ') is a phenomenon affecting the pronunciation of compound words in Japanese.When rendaku occurs, a voiceless consonant (such as /t k s h/) is replaced with a voiced consonant (such as /d ɡ z b/) at the start of the second (or later) part of the compound.
The modern Japanese writing system uses a combination of logographic kanji, which are adopted Chinese characters, and syllabic kana.Kana itself consists of a pair of syllabaries: hiragana, used primarily for native or naturalized Japanese words and grammatical elements; and katakana, used primarily for foreign words and names, loanwords, onomatopoeia, scientific names, and sometimes for emphasis.
Kanji (漢字, pronounced ⓘ) are logographic Chinese characters, adapted from Chinese script, used in the writing of Japanese. [1] They were made a major part of the Japanese writing system during the time of Old Japanese and are still used, along with the subsequently-derived syllabic scripts of hiragana and katakana.
The pronunciation of medial h-row kana as w-row kana in the pre-reform system does not extend to compound words; thus, にほん was pronounced nihon, not nion (via **niwon). 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 ...