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In the Japanese language, the gojūon (五十音, Japanese pronunciation: [ɡo(d)ʑɯꜜːoɴ], lit. "fifty sounds") is a traditional system ordering kana characters by their component phonemes, roughly analogous to alphabetical order. The "fifty" (gojū) in its name refers to the
Nanori (Japanese: 名乗り, "to say or give one's own name") are the often non-standard kanji character readings (pronunciations) found almost exclusively in Japanese names. In the Japanese language, many Japanese names are constructed from common characters with standard pronunciations. However, names may also contain rare characters which ...
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]
Japanese names (日本人の氏名、日本人の姓名、日本人の名前, Nihonjin no shimei, Nihonjin no seimei, Nihonjin no namae) in modern times consist of a family name (surname) followed by a given name. Japanese names are usually written in kanji, where the pronunciation follows a special set of rules. Because parents when naming ...
ん is the only kana that does not end in a vowel sound (although in certain cases the vowel ending of kana, such as す, is unpronounced). The kana for mu , む/ム, was originally used for the n sound as well, while ん was originally a hentaigana used for both n and mu .
Officially, among Japanese names there are 291,129 different Japanese surnames (姓, sei), [1] as determined by their kanji, although many of these are pronounced and romanized similarly. Conversely, some surnames written the same in kanji may also be pronounced differently. [2]
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In earlier Japanese, digraphs could also be formed with w-kana. Although obsolete in modern Japanese, the digraphs くゎ (/kʷa/) and くゐ/くうぃ(/kʷi/), are preserved in certain Okinawan orthographies. In addition, the kana え can be used in Okinawan to form the digraph くぇ, which represents the /kʷe/ sound.