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The dakuten (Japanese: 濁点, Japanese pronunciation: [dakɯ̥teꜜɴ] or [dakɯ̥teɴ], lit. "voicing mark"), colloquially ten-ten (点々, "dots"), is a diacritic most often used in the Japanese kana syllabaries to indicate that the consonant of a mora should be pronounced voiced, for instance, on sounds that have undergone rendaku (sequential voicing).
The dakuten form of the shi character is sometimes used when transliterating "di", as opposed to チ's dakuten form; for example, Aladdin is written as アラジン Arajin, and radio is written as ラジオ. It is, however, more common to use ディ instead, such as ディオン to translate the name Dion.
The dakuten forms づ, ヅ, pronounced the same as the dakuten forms of the su kana in most dialects (see yotsugana), are uncommon. They are primarily used for indicating a voiced consonant in the middle of a compound word (see rendaku), and they can never begin a word.
The dakuten form of this character is used when transliterating "di" occasionally, as opposed to チ's dakuten form, or a de assigned to a small i; for example, Aladdin is written as アラジン Arajin, and radio is written as ラジオ. In the Ainu language, シ is used to represent the ʃi sound.
A dakuten may be added to this character; this changes it to げ in hiragana, ゲ in katakana, ge in Hepburn romanization and the pronunciation shifts to [ɡe] in initial positions and varying between [ŋe] and [ɣe] in the middle of words.
The dakuten's addition also changes the sound of the mora represented, to [ɡɯ] in initial positions and varying between [ŋɯ] and [ɣɯ] in the middle of words. A handakuten (゜) does not occur with ku in normal Japanese text, but it may be used by linguists to indicate a nasal pronunciation [ŋɯ] .
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translit. with dakuten: gi: translit. with handakuten (ngi) hiragana origin: 幾: katakana origin: 幾: Man'yōgana: 支 伎 岐 企 棄 寸 吉 杵 來 貴 紀 記 奇 寄 忌 幾 木 城: Voiced Man'yōgana: 伎 祇 芸 岐 儀 蟻 疑 宜 義 擬: spelling kana: 切手のキ (Kitte no "ki")