Talk:Hiragana

Elements of the Japanese writing system

@EvergreenFir: added a gloss to "Latin script" as used in Japanese, saying it is called rōmaji. First, this is an article explaining the Japanese writing system in English, not a primer on Japanese language, so this sort of thing is not really part of the article. But if you look at ja:日本語 it refers to the Roman alphabet used in Japanese as ラテン文字（ローマ字） - making Ratenmoji the primary name. Of course it is true that if you look in a dictionary, ローマ字 is said to refer to the Roman/Latin alphabet, but in practice it almost always refers to romanised Japanese, or Hepburn in particular. (Expressions like ローマ字読み mean "read it like Hepburn"). Mostly, anything written in the Japanese language using Roman letters is just (mis)called 英語, whether it is "fish", "beziehungsweise", or "Cote d'Ivoire". If you try to argue with this, pointing out that although written in 英字 ("English letters", meaning Roman letters) it is not actually English (英語), if you use the word rōmaji you will only convince the other person that you have no idea what you are talking about, because they know that rōmaji means stuff like kore ha hon desu, or Saito or Saitou or Saitoh or Saitoo or whatever. Imaginatorium (talk) 06:26, 3 April 2021 (UTC)

You seem to contradict yourself. As this is not a Japanese primer, why should the Japanese term "Ratenmoji" be mentioned? And what does it matter what ローマ字 means in Japanese? The only term that should be used is the English-language word for Japanese written in Latin script, which (according to, for example, Webster's Third) happens to be "romaji". 2601:C6:4100:F980:CD93:B16:285F:4B15 (talk) 03:48, 3 August 2021 (UTC)

Just to point out the error in this claim. Webster may have an entry for romaji, meaning "romanised Japanese", but this is explaining to the reader the meaning of the word "romaji" when it occurs in English. The simple, straightforward way to say romanised Japanese in English is, wait for it: "Romanised Japanese". Imaginatorium (talk) 19:04, 29 March 2023 (UTC)

Transliteration of を

@Great Mercian: Please don't edit war (you have been warned multiple times for this on other pages).

The paragraph above the table says "The following table shows the complete hiragana together with the modified Hepburn romanization and IPA"

As I mentioned in the diff summary, the tables in the ANSI and ALA-LC standards are all based on the third version of Kenkyūsha’s Japanese-English dictionary, which introduced the modified Hepburn romanisation. They all transliterate を as "o" in their tables:

• ANSI: "o"
• ALA-LC, p. 33: "o; Always o regardless of usage"
• even the NHK.

You'll also notice that "o" is used in the table on the Hepburn romanization page as well (I know it's WP:UGC but still).

を is also transliterated as "o" in Kunrei-shiki (ISO 3602), を is only transliterated as "wo" in traditional Hepburn and Nippon-shiki that are old romanisations. In modern Japanese, を is rarely used outside of its status as a particle and the tables above reflect that.

Now a compromise would be to go back to how it was between 2006 and 2018 (before this edit) : "o/wo" and remove "modified" from "modified Hepburn". Thibaut (talk) 12:53, 16 April 2023 (UTC)

@Thibaut120094: I don't think you entirely understand what's in dispute here, it's the name of the kana, not how it's pronounced. you also seem to be ignoring the existence of お, which is also transliterated as 'o'. plus, the Katakana article, various images on these articles, the Unicode values for both glyphs and the article on the kana itself all refer to it as 'wo'. Why? To differentiate it from お and to keep it consistent across Wikipedia (which has always been a major problem). I don't know why you're trying to dispute this and as I have tried to explain to you twice, if both glyphs had the same name it would cause confusion. I don't see a reason to keep disputing this. Great Mercian (talk) 13:36, 16 April 2023 (UTC) Great Mercian (talk) 13:36, 16 April 2023 (UTC)

The images are based on traditional Hepburn.

In modified Hepburn and Kunrei, the katakana character ヲ is still "wo". As for Unicode, it's probably based on Nihon-shiki, since し is transliterated as "si", つ as "tu", etc. Thibaut (talk) 13:49, 16 April 2023 (UTC)

Once again, you are ignoring お. how are we supposed to differentiate between お and を? And I mean by kana names, not transliteration. Great Mercian (talk) 14:33, 16 April 2023 (UTC)

Don’t invent anything. を, ゐ, and ゑ must be romanized as o, i, and e as far as we use Hepburn. When Japanese people distinguish を from お, they say わ行の「を」, くっつきの「を」, etc. There’s no difference in pronunciation. — TAKASUGI Shinji (talk) 14:38, 16 April 2023 (UTC)

How can I be inventing anything? Great Mercian (talk) 17:25, 16 April 2023 (UTC)

@Thibaut120094: I've been thinking this over, and I think the compromise you proposed will probably be best, I think we should also have an efn explaining the separate names, we should also apply this to the Katakana article. I'm sorry for any perceived rage and edit warring with you. Great Mercian (talk) 20:29, 16 April 2023 (UTC)

If modified Hepburn means the 3rd and 4th editions of Kenkyūsha’s Japanese-English dictionary (I do believe this is the most accepted definition of modified Hepburn). I have the 4th edition at home, it uses 'o', not 'wo'. The 3rd edition as well, as I could check online with my National Diet Library account. For example, the work やむを得ない is transcribed yamuoenai (I omit the hyphens). In the same way, 私は is transcribed watashi wa; in other words, the modified Hepburn standard prefers the pronunciation over the kana spelling. One can note that カルシウム is rended by karushūmu is the dictionary. Maidodo (talk) 00:52, 17 April 2023 (UTC)

Wouldn't it be カルシュム? Great Mercian (talk) 01:11, 17 April 2023 (UTC)

No Calcium is カルシウム in Japanese but this is pronounced /カルシューム/ that is why, the Kenkyūsha’s Japanese-English dictionary (Revised Hepburn) uses karushūmu as a romanization. This is an another example, in addition to the particle を of the phonology being prioritized versus the kana spelling. Maidodo (talk) 02:01, 18 April 2023 (UTC)

Oh, I wasn't entirely sure what you were saying. Great Mercian (talk) 10:00, 18 April 2023 (UTC)

@Maidodo: That's interesting!

@Great Mercian: No worries, water under the bridge.

Do you have any suggestions for the efn note? I suggest: "を is transliterated [or romanized] as o in Modified Hepburn and Kunrei and as wo in Traditional Hepburn and Nippon-shiki." (feel free to improve the wording). Thibaut (talk) 17:11, 18 April 2023 (UTC)

@Thibaut120094: no, should be alright. Great Mercian (talk) 02:38, 20 April 2023 (UTC)

@Thibaut120094: have the edits discussed above been completed? Great Mercian (talk) 17:56, 4 May 2023 (UTC)

Looks like it, I added the note. Thibaut (talk) 22:47, 4 May 2023 (UTC)

That's great. Great Mercian (talk) 12:10, 5 May 2023 (UTC)

References

The article image makes no sense

Why is the main image for the article on Hiragana and Katakana the flag of Israel? Ferriematthew (talk) 13:45, 15 September 2023 (UTC)

A module was vandalised and has been reverted since.

The content of the articles may take some time to be updated, see WP:PURGE. Thibaut (talk) 16:28, 15 September 2023 (UTC)

Hiragana - The Women’s Language

When I first learned Japanese in the 1990’s, my Japanese For Professionals sensei (University of Washington) made sure we understood the history of each kana. It is no mistake that the first novel in the World written by Purple, a woman at court, is in hiragana. Or a millennium later, Banana Yoshimoto wrote her name in hiragana - starting s subtle yet vibrant movement. It is the language created and taken up by women of the imperial court in 700-1000 CE during the Heian Era. Buddhist monks from China who had come to teach esoteric worship in Kyoto and Nara, including to Quan Yin, the Buddha White Tara, thought it was near-criminal that women were not educated to read or write in Japan. They taught their short-hand, katakana to a few imperial ladies, who improvised and made the writing flow, thus hiragana. It did not stay for long at court, but spread where ever there was a feminine voice and hand. For hundreds of years. We should talk about this history in Wikipedia. References here: (1) A Guide to Reading The Tale of Genji © 2013 Bryan W. Van Norden (2) “Journal of Asian Architecture and Building Engineering, 2023, Vol. 22, No. 6, 3155-3159https://doi.org/10.1080/13467581.2023.2182634”

DrBeck007 (talk) 01:21, 14 January 2024 (UTC)

Roman representation of kana

This article is a total mess, but the canonical way to represent a kana character is with the Hepburn romanisation. Currently we have the following:

• 5 singular vowels: あ /a/, い /i/, う /u/, え /e/, お /o/ (respectively pronounced [a], [i], [ɯ], [e] and [o])
• 42 consonant–vowel unions: for example き /ki/, て /te/, ほ /ho/, ゆ /ju/, わ /wa/ (respectively pronounced [ki], [te], [ho], [jɯ] and [wa])

These statements include that kana, the Hepburn within '/ /', and "pronounced..." the IPA inside '[ ]'. I think that slashes are one standard for indicating IPA, so the putting the Hepburn inside slashes is not helpful. But the word "pronounced" clearly implies that the second listing in square brackets is meant to be the IPA. Well, at least it was: so in particular ゆ was listed as "yu", pronounced IPA 'ju'. Now we have a claim that 'ju' is "pronounced" 'jɯ', whatever that is supposed to mean. Actually, since this article is entirely about part of the Japanese writing system, not its pronunciation, I do not see any need at all for IPA (except perhaps in isolated places) here. Imaginatorium (talk) 04:23, 19 January 2024 (UTC)

Slashes denote phonemic representation in IPA, as explains International Phonetic Alphabet#Brackets and transcription delimiters, which is linked in the bottom of the infobox. If it is Hepburn then it shouldn't be in slashes. It's obvious the parts enclosed in slashes are phonemic transcriptions in IPA, or you wouldn't have "/N/". In fact the version you reverted to already contains "/ju/" and "/ji/". Mixing them and "/ye/" makes no sense. Nardog (talk) 05:15, 19 January 2024 (UTC)

I think Imaginatorium is correct that those are supposed to be Hepburn. Like Nardog, I thought it was IPA because of the slashes, but upon rereading it it's clear that the first ones are meant to be Hepburn followed by the IPA pronunciations.

I suggest we italicize the Hepburn à la WP:WORDSASWORDS EvergreenFir (talk) 06:06, 19 January 2024 (UTC)

How would you explain /N/ then? In fact they were changed from n etc. to phonemic IPA by Maidodo here. I don't particularly have a preference as to which it should be but the intent is clearly phonemic IPA. Nardog (talk) 06:22, 19 January 2024 (UTC)

As well understood by Nardog, I added some of those slashes and the intent was to show the (abstract) phonemic representations of hiragana rather than the Modified Hepburn romanization because there is a lack of direct correspondance between Hepburn and hiragana (kana). But, I understand it may be confusing and this can be limited to the cases it makes more sense, such as /N/. The remark saying "since this article is entirely about part of the Japanese writing system, not its pronunciation" sounds reasonable. Maybe the (tentative) strict IPA representations in the table should be deleted. Maidodo (talk) 07:19, 19 January 2024 (UTC)

Sorry to be a long time getting back to this. I understand most of the points made; sure, I understand that anything within slashes should be some sort of pronunciation (IPA). But as I originally said: I think discussion of a writing system calls for something which identifies the written symbol, not its pronunciation. As in the yotsugana article, you could make a case for using kunreishiki, because of the conflation in Hepburn, but I think this is marginal, and as far as I know the only case where there is not a one-to-one correspondance. (Is this what you are referring to, Maidodo?) And since we have to be able to distinguish お and を, even in principle pronunciation is inadequate: I suggest that an adhoc notation is appropriate, such as "(w)o", if there are "WP:LEGAL" reasons we can't write 'wo'. OTOH, I might suggest か(ka) as a notation, but this conflicts with needing double parens for を((w)o). Anyway, please let's get rid of the "phonetic" reduplication, at least. Imaginatorium (talk) 11:46, 21 January 2024 (UTC)

IMO it should be on a case-by-case basis. "It has not been demonstrated whether the mora wu existed in old Japanese" would make little sense, as orthography reflects and represents phonology and not vice versa, and morae consist of phonemes, not graphemes. Nardog (talk) 04:32, 22 January 2024 (UTC)