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The historical kana spelling
The pronounciation of Japanese words have changed a lot since the
Heian period. Although students of classical Japanese usually
read the old texts in modern pronounciation, they still have to
understand the old spelling, in order to recognize words written
with hiragana.
For example, the word for "river" in classical texts, if written
in kana, is spelled kaha. It would be kawa in modern
pronounciation. The word "today", kyou, was written as kehu
in old Japanese.
Fortunately, we rarely need to find out the old kana spelling from
the modern word. We usually see a word in the old spelling, and we need
to derive its modern form, in order to understand the text; - this is
much easier. We have to follow the same changes as spelling changed
during the centuries:
- h becomes w in the middle of words, and later
w disappeared in all positions except before a, as in
kaha -> kawa ( "river" )
kohi -> koi ( "love" )
mahe -> mae ( "before" )
In other words, except when they appear at the beginning of a word,
ha, hi, hu, he, ho are read as
wa, i, u, e, o respectively.
- ou and au become oo (long o).
tahu -> tau -> too ( "tower" )
This rule does not apply for verbs ending in u, eg. au
( "to meet" ).
- iu becomes yuu:
shihu -> shiu -> shuu ( "collection", eg. Kokinshuu )
- eu becomes yoo:
kehu -> keu -> kyoo
- wi becomes i, we becomes e, wo becomes o:
wido -> ido ( "well" )
tsuwi ni -> tsui ni ( "finally" )
wokashi -> okashi ( "sweet" )
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