Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume IX.djvu/569

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The following is the iroha in hira-kana, with the Chinese characters from which the Japanese are derived prefixed:

In the transcription the sounds of the consonants are the same as in English, and the vowel sounds as in Italian (a as in father, e like a in fate, i as in machine, u like oo in moon), except in the syllables tsu, su, and dzu, where the is u a close sound, like the French u. The syllabary consists in full of 72 syllabic sounds, including the final n; but excluding this, and several others which, though having different letters to represent them, are really the same sound, and are constantly interchanged with each other by the natives, the number of distinct syllabic sounds is reduced to 68. These are divided by the Japanese into 44 pure (sei-on), and 24 impure (daku-on) syllables. The latter are not included in the syllabary, and are as follows: ba, pa, euphonic changes of ha; bo, po, from ho; be, pe, from he; do, from to; ji, from chi or shi; ga, from ka; da, from ta; zo, from so; dzu, from tsu or su; gu, from ku; ge, from ke; bu, pu, from fu; go, from ko; de, from te; za, from sa; gi, from ki; bi, pi, from hi; ze, from se. The impure syllables are represented by the characters for the corresponding pure ones, with diacritical marks added; thus ba is written by the letter ha with two dots over the right shoulder, and pa by the same letter with a small circle in the same place. In analyzing the Japanese syllables, we find they have 5 vowel, a, e, i, o, u, and 19 consonantal sounds, b, ch, d, f, g, h, j, k, m, n, p, r, s, sh, t, ts, w, y, and z. They have not the sounds of l, qu, v, th, or x, and the people find it very difficult to make them. All the syllables of the native words end in a vowel, except the future tense of the verb, which now ends in a final n, though anciently it was written with the character for mu, and there is reason to believe it was so pronounced. In all other cases the final n is only used in spelling Chinese words. The syllables commencing with the weak aspirates h and f, or with y, when preceded by another syllable, for the most part lose their consonants, and their vowels combine with the vowel of the preceding syllable, sometimes forming a diphthong; thus a-hi becomes ai, pronounced like the long English i; a-fu becomes au, pronounced like ow in cow. Sometimes the sound of the first vowel is reduplicated or lengthened; thus nu-fu becomes nuu, written nū; i-hi becomes ii; yo-fu becomes yō. In Chinese words, the vowel of the first syllable and the consonant of the second are often both elided in pronunciation; thus chi-ya is pronounced cha; shi-yo, sho. The syllable tsu, when preceding the consonants k, s, p, and t, is elided, and the consonant of the syllable following is doubled; thus batsu-kun is pronounced bakkun; matsusugu, massugu. Ku, when followed by a syllable beginning with k, loses its vowel; thus baku-ka is pronounced bakka; koku-ka, kokka.—The Japanese language has no article. The noun has no inflections; case, gender, and number are designated by words or particles either prefixed or affixed to the noun. The case is designated by postpositions, as follows: nominative, wa or ga, as neko wa, a cat; genitive, no or ga, as neko no, of a cat; dative, ni, ye, ni oite, as neko ni, to a cat; accusative, wo, as neko wo, a cat; vocative, yo, ya, kana, as neko yo, O cat; ablative, kara, yori, de, nite, wo