This articleneeds additional citations forverification. Please helpimprove this article byadding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "Historical kana orthography" – news ·newspapers ·books ·scholar ·JSTOR(February 2023) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

Japanese writing
Components
Kanji Stroke order Radicals Jōyō kanji list Kyōiku kanji Tōyō kanji Jinmeiyō kanji Hyōgai kanji
Kana Hiragana Hentaigana Katakana Man'yōgana Sōgana Gojūon
Typographic symbols Japanese punctuation Iteration mark
Uses
Syllabograms Furigana Okurigana Braille
Transliteration
Rōmaji Hepburn Kunrei-shiki / ISO 3602 Nihon-shiki JSL Wāpuro (keyboard input)
Cyrillization Polivanov system
v t e

Thehistoricalkanaorthography (歴史的仮名遣い,rekishiteki kanazukai), orold orthography (旧仮名遣い,kyū kanazukai), refers to thekanaorthography (正仮名遣い,sei kana-zukai) in general use untilorthographic reforms afterWorld War II; the current orthography was adopted by Cabinet order in 1946.^[1] By that point the historical orthography was no longer in accord withJapanese 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.

The historical orthography is found in almost allJapanese dictionaries, such asKōjien. In the current edition of theKōjien, if the historical orthography is different from the modern spelling, the old spelling is printed in tinykatakana between the modernkana andkanji transcriptions of the word.Ellipses are used to save space when the historical and modern spellings are identical. Older editions of theKōjien gave priority to the historical orthography.

The historical orthography should not be confused withhentaigana, alternatekana that were declared obsolete with the orthographic reforms of 1900.

In historical kana usage:

• Two kana are used that are obsolete today:ゐ/ヰwi andゑ/ヱwe. These are today read asi ande. Words that formerly contained those characters are now written usingい/イi andえ/エe respectively.
• Outside of its use as aparticle, theをwo kana is used to represent theo sound in some, but not all, words.
• Yōon sounds, such asしょうshō orきょうkyō, are not written with a small kana(ゃ, ゅ, ょ); depending on the word, they are written with either two or three full-sized kana. If written with two kana and the last one isやya,ゆyu, orよyo, then it represents a short syllable of onemora, such asきよkyo. If written with two or three kana and the last one isうu orふfu, then it represents a long syllable of two morae. The first kana is not always the same as one used in the modern spelling, as in今日kyō "today", writtenけふkefu. If written with three kana, the middle one will always beやya,ゆyu, orよyo, and the last kana will always beうu orふfu, as in丁chō, the counter for tools, guns, etc., writtenちやうchiyau.
• The series of kanahahifuheho are used to represent, in some words, the soundswa,i,u,e,o, respectively.
• Precedence is given to grammar over pronunciation. For example, the verbwarau (to laugh) is writtenわらふwarafu, and in accordance with Japanese grammar rules,waraō, thevolitional form ofwarau, is writtenわらはうwarahau.
• The kanaづdu andぢdi, which are mostly only used inrendaku in modern kana usage, are more common. Modern kana usage replaces them with the identically pronouncedずzu andじji in most cases. For example,ajisai (hortensia) is writtenあぢさゐadisawi.

Most of the historical kana usage has been found to accurately represent certain aspects of the way words sounded during theHeian 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 (unlessfurigana are employed). In particular, yōon sounds occur almost exclusively in theChinese-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 particleso,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 theEdo period.

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

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

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 inYebisu 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) orstamp manufacturerシヤチハタ (Shachihata).

TheJinja Shinpō uses historical kana orthography in the name of protecting tradition, the only newspaper in Japan to do so according to the publisher.^[2]

In addition, alternate kana letterforms, known ashentaigana(変体仮名), have nearly disappeared. A few uses remain, such askisoba, often written using obsolete kana on the signs ofsoba shops.

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

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 thegojūon ordering system.

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

^[3][4]

• The spellings in the first table only apply to word-medial kana: word-initial occurrences ofわ,い,う,え, andお were never written asは,ひ,ふ,へ, orほ, respectively.
• In modern Japanese orthography,ぢ (di) is only used in compound words whererendaku 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. The usage ofづ (du) in modern orthography is the same, used in rendaku and after aつ (tsu). In historical kana, however,ぢ andづ were sometimes used whereじ andず are used in modern kana. This originally represented a different phoneme (and still does in some dialects), but no longer does in Standard Japanese. The historical-kana-only spellings usingぢ andづ are listed under modern spellings starting withじ andず respectively.
• The different spellings for the sokuon depend on what mora (if any) was elided into the following consonant to form the geminate consonant. For example,学期 (gakki "semester") is spelledがくき (gakuki) in historical kana because the on'yomi of 学 used in this compound isがく (gaku). Geminate consonants in native Japanese words were formed either by the elision of a long vowel, as in真赤な (makka-na "bright red"; onceまあかな,maaka-na), or by some random process, as in屹度 (kitto "surely"; onceきと,kito); such words are written with the full-sizeつ (tu) in historical kana.^[3] In general, a Japanese on'yomi can end in either a vowel,ん,ち,つ,き, orく, (ち andつ corresponding to Middle Chinese final-t, andき andく corresponding to Middle Chinese final-k), so these are the only four kana (ち,つ,き,く) which can replace the sokuon in historical kana. Historically, on'yomi could also end withpu (for the Middle Chinese final-p), which was written asふ (pu, laterfu) but eventually came to be pronouncedu (as part of a diphthong).
• The last table in the first row applies only to the terminal (終止形shūshikei) and attributive (連体形rentaikei) forms of theclassical auxiliary verb ～む (-mu), which are pronouncedん (n). While many other native Japanese words (for example,汝nanji archaic word for "you") withん were once pronounced and/or written withむ (mu), proper historical kana only usesむ forん in the case of the auxiliary verb, which is only used in classical Japanese, and has morphed into the volitional～う (-u) form in modern Japanese.
• The historical spellings in the second row of tables represent every theoretical representation of their modern counterpart. It is possible, however, that some may not have occurred, or that they were so rare that they applied to only one or two words. It is also possible that some spellings listed in the modern spellings column may not occur in any Japanese word, but they are theoretically possible and may occur in onomatopoeia or in katakana transcriptions of foreign languages.

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

• Kwannon (Kannon): ABodhisattva
• Kwaidan (Kaidan), meaningghost story, the title of a collection of Japanese ghost stories compiled byLafcadio Hearn
• Kwansei Gakuin University (Kansai): Auniversity inKobe andNishinomiya
• Iwo Jima (Iō-jima; now officially Iō-tō): An island known as the site of a battle during World War II

• Old Japanese Kana Usage
• Historical kana usage: How to read
• Imabi Lesson 378: Historicalkana OrthographyArchived January 20, 2022, at theWayback Machine
• (in Japanese)goo Jisho Online Japanese Kanji, compound, and phrase dictionary that gives historical kana spellings alongside modern spellings (although is only searchable by modern spellings)

• Kana
• Archaic Japanese language
• Japanese orthography
• Empire of Japan

• CS1 Japanese-language sources (ja)
• Articles needing additional references from February 2023
• All articles needing additional references
• Use American English from February 2019
• All Wikipedia articles written in American English
• Articles with short description
• Short description is different from Wikidata
• Use mdy dates from February 2019
• Articles containing Japanese-language text
• Webarchive template wayback links
• Articles with Japanese-language sources (ja)