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Modern kana usage (現代仮名遣い,gendai kanazukai) is the present officialkanazukai (system of spelling theJapanese syllabary). Also known asnew kana usage (新仮名遣い,shin kanazukai), it is derived fromhistorical usage.
As long ago as theMeiji Restoration, there had been dissatisfaction regarding the growing discrepancy betweenspelling andspeech. On November 16, 1946, soon afterWorld War II, the cabinet instituted the modern Japanese orthography as part of a general orthographic reform. The system was further amended in 1986.
There were no small kana in the pre-reform system; thus, for example,きよ would be ambiguous betweenkiyo andkyo whileかつた could be eitherkatsuta orkatta.
The pronunciation of medialh-row kana asw-row kana in the pre-reform system does not extend to compound words; thus,にほん was pronouncednihon, notnion (via **niwon). There are a small number of counterexamples; e.g.,あひる "duck", pronouncedahiru rather thanairu, orふぢはら, pronouncedFujiwara, despite being a compound of Fuji (wisteria) + hara (field). The h-row was historically pronounced asfa, fi, fu, fe, fo (and even further back,pa, pi, pu, pe, po). Japanesef (IPA:[ɸ]) is close to a voicelessw, and so was easily changed tow in the middle of a word; thew was then dropped except forわwa. This is also whyfu is used to this day and has not becomehu.
The vowel +(f)u changes do not apply between elements of compound words, for example, the nameてらうち wasTerauchi notTerōchi, as it isTera (temple) +uchi (inside, home). The-fu of the modern-u series of verbs (that is, those verbs using the actual kana う, such askau oromou) was not affected by the sound changes on the surface; however, some reports ofEdo era Japanese indicate that verbs liketamau andharau were pronounced astamō andharō instead. In contrast, the -ō indarō andikō is a product of the sound change from au to ō.
Furthermore, the topic particlewa(は), the direction particlee(へ) and the direct object particleo(を) were exempted from spelling reform. In contemporary Japanese, theを-character is used only for the particle. Some innovative writers before the official reform went so far as to write the topic particlewa asわ. For example, the educatorIshikawa Kuraji wrote his innovatively space-separated andsoftly hyphenated hiragana text withわ instead ofは andえ instead ofへ, although he still keptを.[1]
Here, for example,あ (a) includesall kana using the /a/ vowel, such asか (ka) orた (ta).
| archaic | modern |
|---|---|
| あ＋う (a +u) あ＋ふ (a +fu) | おう (ō) |
| い＋う (i +u) い＋ふ (i +fu) | ゆう (yū) |
| う＋ふ (u +fu) | うう (ū) |
| え＋う (e +u) え＋ふ (e +fu) | よう (yō) |
| お＋ふ (o +fu) | おう (ō) |
| お＋ほ (o +ho) お＋を (o +wo) | おお (ō) |
| く＋わ (ku +wa) | か (ka) Originallykwa |
| ぐ＋わ (gu +wa) | が (ga) Originallygwa |
| medial or finalは (ha) | わ (wa) |
| medial or finalひ (hi),へ (he),ほ (ho) | い (i),え (e),お (o) (viawi,we,wo, see below) |
| anyゐ (wi),ゑ (we),を (wo) | い (i),え (e),お (o) |
| ぢ (voicedchi),づ (voicedtsu) | じ (voicedshi),ず (voicedsu) – seeyotsugana |
Regardingじぢずづ – these fourmorae aredistinguished or merged to varying degrees in differentJapanese dialects, with some dialects (Tōhoku andOkinawan, for example) merging all four into one, while other dialects (Tosa andSatsugū, for example) distinguish among the four. Standard spelling reflects the pronunciation of standard Japanese, which merges these into two sounds.
つね に ひろく もちいる あとことば わ、
「が・の・に・を・と・え・で・より・から・まで・わ・も・さえ・でさえ・ばかり・しか・や・か・ば・て・ても・ながら」など で ある。