The phonetics of Japanese language : with reference to Japanese script

The Japanese Language

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The Japanese language has only five vowels. Each vowel is transliterated to each of the five vowel letters of the Roman alphabet.

In Japanese written in Roman alphabet, The letter "a" always represents a sound not unlike the American "a" in "father". The closest English sound is the British "u" in "cup", I think. The letter "e" always represents a sound quite like the "e" in "pet". The letter "i" almost always represents a sound quite like the American "ee" in "feet", not "i" in "fit".

I said "almost". There is one minor exception, which will be explained later. The letter "o" always represents a sound quite like the initial portion of the American "o" in "so". In English, the vowel of "so" is transient: While you pronounce it, your jaw, lips, and tongue move. That means this vowel is a "slide" from one type of vowel toward another. The Japanese "o" corresponds to the initial position of the American "o" in "so".

Roots of Japanese language

The letter "u" in Japanese almost always represents a sound not unlike the "oo" in "fool", not "u" in "full". Again there's one minor exception. The most important thing to note is that each letter almost always represents one single vowel sound. There's one minor exception for "i" and another for "u". In English, the "i" in "sit" and the "i" in "site" represent quite different vowels.

This type of wild variation never occurs in Japanese. This rule is the simplest but by far the most important. Of course, even in Japanese, important syllables are pronounced more strongly and they can be slightly longer than the unimportant ones. But, the distinction between stressed and unstressed syllables is much smaller than in English. So much so, it's better to think of Japanese syllables having equal lengths and strengths. You can learn subtle variations after you become proficient in Japanese. A precise definition of a "syllable" will be given shortly. For the moment, let's pretend that we already know what a syllable is in Japanese.

An effective method of practicing this rule is to clap your hands while you pronounce Japanese words. For example, say "yokozuna" a sumo champion. This word consists of four syllables: yo-ko-zu-na. So, clap your hands four times: clap-clap-clap-clap, keeping the same interval between the claps. Do it again and say yo-ko-zu-na at the same time so that each clap coincides with one syllable. Also, try to say all the syllables evenly with equal strength. A diphthong is a slide from one vowel to another as in the English word "rain".

This [ei] is considered a single vowel, a slide from an e-vowel to an i-vowel.

Therefore "rain" has only one syllable although it has two vowel letters. The Japanese language doesn't have any diphthongs. Two consecutive vowel letters simply indicate two separate vowels and hence two separate syllables.

For example, the word "Inoue" a common family name is pronounced as four syllables: i-no-u-e, with four hand claps: clap-clap-clap-clap See rule 1. Consequently, long sequences of vowels aren't uncommon in Japanese words, such as "Aioi" a-i-o-i, a placename and "aoi ie" a-o-i-i-e, a blue house. By the way, the astute reader yes, that's you may ask this question: How can you tell that "Inoue" should be divided as i-no-u-e?

Why not in-o-u-e? A good question. That's the theme of the next three sections. An open syllable is one which ends with a vowel. A syllable ending with a consonant is, that's right, a closed syllable. For example, "get", "an", "cast", and "sports" are closed, and "sky", "knee", "we", and "a" are open. The Japanese language has only open syllables, with two exceptions, which will be explained in the next two sections.

Since all syllables are open, you can unambiguously divide Japanese words written in Roman alphabet into syllables in many cases. For example, "yokozuna" should be yo-ko-zu-na; other divisions would contain one or more closed syllables: yok-o-zu-na, yo-koz-un-a, etc. One of the two exceptions to the preceding rule is the N-syllable.

In Japanese, the sound of "n" in certain circumstances forms a syllable by itself. For example, "kanji" a Chinese character has three syllables: ka-N-ji. As in this example, I'll indicate this syllable with a capital "N" in what follows.

General considerations

The word "kanji" is unambiguously divided into syllables because of rule 3 "kan" cannot be a single syllable because it is closed. On the other hand, there are words which cannot be uniquely divided into syllables from their Roman transliterations alone. For example, "Inoue" could be i-N-o-u-e instead of i-no-u-e.

This is one of the shortcomings of Roman transliteration. If the word is written in the Japanese characters, there is no such ambiguity.

The Japanese Language

There are two schemes to avoid this ambiguity. One is to use an apostrophe as in "Shin'ichi" a common given name , which is unambiguously divided into syllables as shi-N-i-chi: the apostrophe is there to prevent the division shi-ni-chi. The other scheme is to use a hyphen: "Shin-ichi". Unfortunately, these conventions aren't always followed.

So that you need to be aware that a spelling like "kanan" can be ka-N-an-N or ka-na-N. The fact is that both are possible. An important question is, what N-sound should we use? I'll answer this question in an appendix. For the moment, let's use the English n-sound. The other exception to rule 3 is the syllables consisting of double consonants. What's a double consonant?

Japanese is a Highly Situational Language

Unlike most western languages, Japanese has an extensive grammatical system to express politeness and formality. Since most relationships are not equal in Japanese society, one person typically has a higher position. This position is determined by a variety of factors including job, age, experience, or even psychological state. The person in the lower position is expected to use a polite form of speech, whereas the other might use a more plain form.

Strangers will also speak to each other politely. Japanese children rarely use polite speech until their teens, at which point they are expected to begin speaking in a more adult manner. The origin of Japanese is in considerable dispute amongst linguists. Evidence has been offered for a number of sources: Ural-Altaic, Polynesian, and Chinese amonge others.

Of these, Japanese is most widely believed to be connected to the Ural-Altaic family, which includes Turkish, Mongolian, Manchu, and Korean within its domain. Korean is most frequently compared to Japanese, as both languages share significant key features such as general structure, vowel harmony, lack of conjunctions, and the extensive use of honorific speech, in which the social rank of the listener heavily affects the dialogue.

However, pronunciation of Japanese is significantly different from Korean, and the languages are mutually unintelligible. Full disclosure: This post contains affiliate links. She's a passionate language learner, beauty guru, and avid Star Wars fan. There was an error submitting your subscription. Please try again.

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