On (Japanese prosody): Difference between revisions
Reverted 1 edit by 24.8.50.83 (talk): Rv unsourced likely wp:original research. (TW) |
I posted before to the editor if they wanted me to add more verifications to contact me if possible. This is not "private research" here, this is what every single Japanese course and book teaches: Rosetta Stone, Primsleur, Langenscheidts...etc... |
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There is disagreement among linguists as to the definitions of "syllable" and "mora".<ref>Ellen Broselaw, ''Skeletal Positions and Moras'', in John A Goldsmith (ed.), ''The Handbook of Phonological Theory''. Wiley-Blackwell, 1996, ISBN 9780631201267, p175ff</ref> In contrast ''ji'' (and hence ''on'') is unambiguously defined by reference to hiragana. |
There is disagreement among linguists as to the definitions of "syllable" and "mora".<ref>Ellen Broselaw, ''Skeletal Positions and Moras'', in John A Goldsmith (ed.), ''The Handbook of Phonological Theory''. Wiley-Blackwell, 1996, ISBN 9780631201267, p175ff</ref> In contrast ''ji'' (and hence ''on'') is unambiguously defined by reference to hiragana. |
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A correct English comparison of "ohn" would be to our Latin-style roots, prefixes and suffixes. They serve the exact same function. This is a direct link to what first year Japanese students learn: http://japanese.about.com/blqow44.htm "On" refers to the Chinese reading of Kanji, and are typically used when in formations of words through compounds, conjunctions and radicals (some Kanji have no "On" and instead only have "Kun"). They function exactly the same as the Latin prefix, suffix and root system English uses. To simulate on in English you'd need to count conjunctions that make up English words in the same way Japanese count "on" or "oh-n". |
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==Examples== |
==Examples== |
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Revision as of 07:36, 18 February 2012
On (音) is Japanese for "sound". It is used to mean the phonetic units counted in haiku, tanka and other such poetic forms. Known as "morae" to English-speaking linguists, the modern Japanese term for the linguistic concept is hyōon moji (表音文字).[1]
Ji (字) is Japanese for "symbol" or "character". The concatenation of the two words on and ji into onji (音字), was used by Meiji era (1868–1912) grammarians to mean "phonic character" and was translated into English by Nishi Amane in 1870 as "letter". Since then, the term has become obsolete in Japan, and only survives in foreign-language discussion of Japanese poetry. Gilbert and Yoneoka [2] call the use of the word onji "bizarre and mistaken". It was taken up after a 1978 letter to Frogpond: Journal of the Haiku Society of America decrying the then-current use of the word jion, which itself appears to have arisen in error.[3][4] The normal Japanese term in the context of counting sounds in poetry is "on".[3]
Counting on in Japanese poetry is the same as counting characters when the text is transliterated into hiragana. In cases where a hiragana is represented by a pair of symbols each pair (or "digraph" e.g. "kyo" (きょ)) equates to a single on. When viewed this way, the term "ji" ("character") is used in Japanese.[3]
In English-language discussions of Japanese poetry, the more familiar word syllable is sometimes used. Although the use of "syllable" is inaccurate, it often happens that the syllable count and the on count match in Japanese-language haiku. The disjunction between syllables and on becomes clearer when counting sounds in English-language versions of Japanese poetic forms, such as haiku in English. An English syllable may contain one, two or three morae and, because English word sounds are not readily representable in hiragana, a single syllable may require many more ji to be transliterated into hiragana.
There is disagreement among linguists as to the definitions of "syllable" and "mora".[5] In contrast ji (and hence on) is unambiguously defined by reference to hiragana.
A correct English comparison of "ohn" would be to our Latin-style roots, prefixes and suffixes. They serve the exact same function. This is a direct link to what first year Japanese students learn: http://japanese.about.com/blqow44.htm "On" refers to the Chinese reading of Kanji, and are typically used when in formations of words through compounds, conjunctions and radicals (some Kanji have no "On" and instead only have "Kun"). They function exactly the same as the Latin prefix, suffix and root system English uses. To simulate on in English you'd need to count conjunctions that make up English words in the same way Japanese count "on" or "oh-n".
Examples
To illustrate the distinction between on and syllables, the following four words each contain four on, but two, three, three and four syllables respectively:
- Nippon (ni-p-po-n)
- Tokyo (to-o-kyo-o)
- Osaka (o-o-sa-ka)
- Nagasaki (na-ga-sa-ki)[6]
References
- ^ Official Definitions of Haiku and Related Terms on the HSA website
- ^ Richard Gilbert and Judy Yoneoka, From 5-7-5 to 8-8-8: An Investigation of Japanese Haiku Metrics and Implications for English Haiku
- ^ a b c Richard Gilbert, Stalking the Wild Onji
- ^ T. Kondo, "In support of onji rather than jion," Frogpond: Journal of the Haiku Society of America, 1:4, 30-31 (1978)
- ^ Ellen Broselaw, Skeletal Positions and Moras, in John A Goldsmith (ed.), The Handbook of Phonological Theory. Wiley-Blackwell, 1996, ISBN 9780631201267, p175ff
- ^ Peter Howell, John Van Borsel. Multilingual Aspects of Fluency Disorders. Volume 5 of Communication Disorders Across Languages. Multilingual Matters, 2011. ISBN 9781847693587 p146