Historical kana orthography

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The historicalkanaorthography ( 歴史的仮名遣い , rekishiteki kanazukai), or old orthography (旧仮名遣い, kyū kanazukai), refers to the kana orthography (正仮名遣い, sei kana-zukai ) in general use until orthographic reforms after World War II; the current orthography was adopted by Cabinet order in 1946. [1] By that point the historical orthography was no longer in accord with Japanese pronunciation. It differs from modern usage ( Gendai kana-zukai ) in the number of characters and the way those characters are used. There was considerable opposition to the official adoption of the current orthography, on the grounds that the historical orthography conveys meanings better, and some writers continued to use it for many years after.

Contents

The historical orthography is found in almost all Japanese dictionaries, such as Kōjien. In the current edition of the Kōjien, if the historical orthography is different from the modern spelling, the old spelling is printed in tiny katakana between the modern kana and kanji transcriptions of the word. Ellipses are used to save space when the historical and modern spellings are identical. Older editions of the Kōjien gave priority to the historical orthography.

The historical orthography should not be confused with hentaigana, alternate kana that were declared obsolete with the orthographic reforms of 1900.

General differences

This section uses Nihon-shiki romanization for づ, ず, ぢ, じ, ゐ, and ゑ.
A 1940 Japanese Empire propaganda slogan: paamanentohayamemaseu (Pamanento wa yamemasho, "Stop the permanent wave"), with yamemasho written as yamemaseu. Stop the Permanent wave.JPG
A 1940 Japanese Empire propaganda slogan: パアマネントハヤメマセウ (Pāmanento wa yamemashō, "Stop the permanent wave"), with yamemashō written as yamemaseu.

In historical kana usage:

Most of the historical kana usage has been found to accurately represent certain aspects of the way words sounded during the Heian period. As the spoken language has continued to develop, some orthography looks odd to the modern eye. As these peculiarities follow fairly regular patterns, they are not difficult to learn. However, some of the historical kana usages are etymologically mistakes. For example,

或いはaruiwa (or) might be found written incorrectly as 或ひは*aruhiwa or 或ゐは*aruwiwa
用ゐるmochiwiru (use) might be found written incorrectly as 用ひる*mochihiru
つくえtsukue (desk, table) might be found written incorrectly as: つくゑ*tsukuwe

Those familiar with Japanese writing may notice that most of the differences apply to words which are usually written in Kanji anyway, and so would require no changes to switch from one Kana system to another (unless furigana are employed). In particular, yōon sounds occur almost exclusively in the Chinese-derived readings that are usually only seen in Kanji compounds (although not entirely; 今日kyō "today," written けふkefu in the old system, is a native Japanese word), and therefore do not look any different (without furigana). The relative lack of difference in appearance in practice between the two systems was a major reason the spelling reform succeeded, and also why the three grammatical particles o, e, wa continue to be written as をwo, へhe, and はha instead of おo, えe, and わwa; many felt that changing these exceedingly common spellings would unnecessarily confuse readers. It is also for this reason that many character dictionaries continue to include the historical spellings, since they are relevant there.

Some forms of unusual kana usage are not, in fact, historical kana usage. For example, writing どじょう (泥鰌/鰌)dojō (loach, a sardine-like fish) in the form どぜうdozeu is not historical kana usage (which was どぢやうdodiyau), but a kind of slang writing originating in the Edo period.

Examples

Here are some representative examples showing the historical and modern spellings and the kanji representation.

Historical usageCurrent usage New Old TranslationMiddle Chinese
けふkefuきょうkyō今日today
かはkahaかわkawa川river
こゑkoweこえkoe声聲voice
みづmiduみずmizu水water
わうwauおうō王kinghjwang
てふtefuちょうchō蝶butterflydep
ゐるwiruいるiru居るthere is/are (animate)
あはれahareあわれaware哀れ sorrow; grief; pathos
かへるkaheruかえるkaeru帰る歸るto return home
くわしkuwashi (kwashi)かしkashi菓子sweets
とうきやうToukiyau (Toukyau)とうきょうTōkyō東京 Tokyo
せうseuしょうshō笑laughtersjewH

The table at the bottom gives a more complete list of the changes in spelling patterns.

Current usage

Historical kana usage can be used to look up words in larger dictionaries and dictionaries specializing in old vocabulary, which are in print in Japan. Because of the great discrepancy between the pronunciation and spelling and the widespread adoption of modern kana usage, historical kana usage is almost never seen, except in a few special cases. Companies, shrines and people occasionally use historical kana conventions such as ゑびす (Ebisu), notably in Yebisu beer, which is written ヱビスwebisu but pronounced ebisu. Also, some long-standing company names retain yōon in full-sized kana, like キヤノン (Canon) or stamp manufacturer シヤチハタ (Shachihata).

In addition, alternate kana letterforms, known as hentaigana (変体仮名), have nearly disappeared. A few uses remain, such as kisoba, often written using obsolete kana on the signs of soba shops.

The use of をwo, へhe, and はha instead of おo, えe, and わwa for the grammatical particles o, e, wa is a remnant of historical kana usage.

Table of differences

Pre-War sign for Gao Deng Xue Xiao Qian Kotogakkou-mae station in Toyama, spelled out as Kautoukakukaumahe. FG-Kotogakkou-mae Station 2.JPG
Pre-War sign for 高等学校前 Kōtōgakkou-mae station in Toyama, spelled out as Kautoukakukaumahe.

The following tables summarize every possible historical spelling for the syllables which were spelled differently under the historical system. When more than one historical spelling is given for a particular modern spelling, the various historical spellings were etymologically (and at one point phonetically) distinct and occurred in different words (i.e. in most cases, they are not merely different ways to spell the same word). The tables are sorted using the gojūon ordering system.

Note that the dakuten (voicing mark) was frequently omitted as well, as in the station sign at right.

Table references

[2] [3]

Notes

Romanization

Readers of English occasionally encounter words romanized according to historical kana usage. Here are some examples, with modern romanizations in parentheses:

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Nihon-shiki is a romanization system for transliterating the Japanese language into the Latin alphabet. Among the major romanization systems for Japanese, it is the most regular one and has an almost one-to-one relation to the kana writing system.

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Japanese pitch accent is a feature of the Japanese language that distinguishes words by accenting particular morae in most Japanese dialects. The nature and location of the accent for a given word may vary between dialects. For instance, the word for "river" is in the Tokyo dialect, with the accent on the second mora, but in the Kansai dialect it is. A final or is often devoiced to or after a downstep and an unvoiced consonant.

The classical Japanese language, also called "old writing" and sometimes simply called "Medieval Japanese", is the literary form of the Japanese language that was the standard until the early Shōwa period (1926–1989). It is based on Early Middle Japanese, the language as spoken during the Heian period (794–1185), but exhibits some later influences. Its use started to decline during the late Meiji period (1868–1912) when novelists started writing their works in the spoken form. Eventually, the spoken style came into widespread use, including in major newspapers, but many official documents were still written in the old style. After the end of World War II, most documents switched to the spoken style, although the classical style continues to be used in traditional genres, such as haiku and waka. Old laws are also left in the classical style unless fully revised.

Modern kana usage is the present official kanazukai. Also known as new kana usage, it is derived from historical usage.

The Braille pattern dots-1 is a 6-dot or 8-dot braille cell with the top left dot raised. It is represented by the Unicode code point U+2801, and in Braille ASCII with "A".

The Braille pattern dots-12 is a 6-dot or 8-dot braille cell with the top two left dots raised. It is represented by the Unicode code point U+2803, and in Braille ASCII with "B".

The Braille pattern dots-4 is a 6-dot or 8-dot braille cell with the top right dot raised. It is represented by the Unicode code point U+2808, and in Braille ASCII with the "at" sign: @.

The Braille pattern dots-124 is a 6-dot braille cell with the two top dots and middle left dot raised, or an 8-dot braille cell with both top dots and the upper-middle left dot raised. It is represented by the Unicode code point U+280b, and in Braille ASCII with F.

The Braille pattern dots-25 is a 6-dot braille cell with both middle dots raised, or an 8-dot braille cell with both upper-middle dots raised. It is represented by the Unicode code point U+2812, and in Braille ASCII with the number 3.

The Braille pattern dots-135 is a 6-dot braille cell with the top and bottom left, and middle right dots raised, or an 8-dot braille cell with the top and lower-middle left, and upper-middle right dots raised. It is represented by the Unicode code point U+2815, and in Braille ASCII with the letter "O".

The Braille pattern dots-26 is a 6-dot braille cell with the middle left and bottom right dots raised, or an 8-dot braille cell with the upper-middle left and lower-middle right dots raised. It is represented by the Unicode code point U+2822, and in Braille ASCII with the number 5.

The Braille pattern dots-36 is a 6-dot braille cell with both bottom dots raised, or an 8-dot braille cell with both lower-middle dots raised. It is represented by the Unicode code point U+2824, and in Braille ASCII with the hyphen: -.

The Braille pattern dots-136 is a 6-dot braille cell with the top left and both bottom dots raised, or an 8-dot braille cell with the top left and both lower-middle dots raised. It is represented by the Unicode code point U+2825, and in Braille ASCII with U.

The Braille pattern dots-236 is a 6-dot braille cell with the middle left and both bottom dots raised, or an 8-dot braille cell with the upper-middle left and both lower-middle dots raised. It is represented by the Unicode code point U+2826, and in Braille ASCII with the number 8.

The Braille pattern dots-12346 is a 6-dot braille cell with both top, both bottom, and the middle left dots raised, or an 8-dot braille cell with both top, both lower-middle, and the upper-middle left dots raised. It is represented by the Unicode code point U+282f, and in Braille ASCII with the ampersand: &.

The Braille pattern dots-256 is a 6-dot braille cell with both middle, and the bottom right dots raised, or an 8-dot braille cell with both upper-middle, and the lower-middle right dots raised. It is represented by the Unicode code point U+2832, and in Braille ASCII with the number 4.

The Braille pattern dots-2456 is a 6-dot braille cell with the top right, both middle, and bottom right dots raised, or an 8-dot braille cell with the top right, both upper-middle, and lower-middle right dots raised. It is represented by the Unicode code point U+283a, and in Braille ASCII with W.

References

  1. ↑ Seeley, Christopher (2000). A History of Writing in Japan. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press. ISBN   9780824822170.
  2. 1 2 Yaniv, Boaz (June 8, 2011). "How did "little tsu" become a lengthener?". StackExchange. Stack Exchange, Inc. Retrieved May 12, 2016.
  3. ↑ "Historical kana usage:How to read". BIGLOBE. Biglobe, Inc. 2016. Retrieved May 12, 2016.
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