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Handakuten on ka, ki, ku, ke, ko (rendered as か゚, き゚, く゚, け゚, こ゚) represent the sound of ng in singing (), which is an allophone of /ɡ/ in many dialects of Japanese. They are not used in normal Japanese writing, but may be used by linguists and in dictionaries (or to represent characters in fiction who speak that way).
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 signs for ko, su, tu (tsu), ni, hu (fu), he, ru, re, ro imitate the shapes of the katakana for those syllables. The signs for no, ri, n trace the way those katakana are written, just as j and z do in ASL. The signs hi, mi, yo, mu, shi, ku, ti (chi) are slight modifications of the numerals 1 hito, 3 mi, 4 yo, 6 mu, 7 shichi, 9 ku, 1000 ti.
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.
Yōon and yōon-dakuten are also added to chi and shi to write ti, di and si, zi found in foreign borrowings; similarly gōyōon and gōyōon-dakuten are added to tsu to write tu, du. This differs from the system used in kana, where the base syllables are te and to respectively, and a subscript vowel i or u is added.
The Japanese radiotelephony alphabet (和文通話表, wabuntsūwahyō, literally "Japanese character telecommunication chart") is a radiotelephony spelling alphabet, similar in purpose to the NATO/ICAO radiotelephony alphabet, but designed to communicate the Japanese kana syllables rather than Latin letters.
In modern Japanese orthography, ぢ (di) is only used in compound words where rendaku causes ち (chi) to become voiced, as in はなぢ (鼻血 hanaji "nosebleed"), and where it immediately follows a ち, as in ちぢむ (縮む chijimu "shrink"). Its use in rendaku is retained in order to avoid confusion about the origin of the compound.
Both represent [ki] and are derived from a simplification of the 幾 kanji. The hiragana character き, like さ, is drawn with the lower line either connected or disconnected. A dakuten may be added to the character; this transforms it into ぎ in hiragana, ギ in katakana, and gi in Hepburn romanization.