4.2.

Hiraganatable
Atableofthehiragana( "hiragana")iscalled "gozyonzu",whichmeansafiftysoundchart.It containsallthehiraganaexceptoneswithvoicedsoundmarks,oneswithsemivoicedsoundmarks,andsmallhiragana(/Q/and doublehiragana).SinceJapanesecharactersareordinarilywrittenverticallyfromtoptobottom,thetableitemsarewritteninthat way.Thelinesarewrittenfromrighttoleft. EachhiraganaisshownwithitsRomanization,anditislinkedtoaudiofiles. wa ra ya ma ha na ta sa ka a a n*3 wa ra ya ma ha*1 na ta sa ka a i i*2 ri mi hi ni ti (chi) si (shi) ki i u ru yu mu hu (fu) nu tu (tsu) su ku u e e*2 re me he*1 ne te se ke e o o*1 ro yo mo ho no to so ko o

*1Therearespecialsinglekanawordswiththesekana. *2ThesetwokanaarenotusedinmodernJapanese. *3Thiskanaactuallydoesn'tcontainthevowel"a". Thisisanadditionaltablethatcontainshiraganawithvoicedsoundmarksandsemivoicedsoundmarks: pa ba da za ga a pa ba da za ga i pi bi zi (ji) zi (ji) gi u pu bu zu zu gu e pe be de ze ge o po bo do zo go

Consonantgroupsarecalled

"gy",whichmeanslinesinJapanese,andvowelgroupsarecalled

"dan",which is

meanscolumns.Sothehiragana isthehiraganaof "sagyidan"(saline,icolumn).Thehiragana theonlyexception;itdoesn'tbelongtoavowelcolumnbecauseithasnovowel. Voicedsoundmarksandsemivoicedsoundmarkshavenoeffectontheorderofcharactersindictionaries.So , havethesameorder.Smallhiraganaalsohavethesameorderasordinaryones.So and havethesameorder. ,and

Asyouknow,someofthehiraganahavedifferentpronunciationsfromwhatyoumightexpectthemtohave.Youmaythinkthe vowel"i"worksalmostlike"yi".Linguistscallitpalatalization.That'swhy"si"islike"shi"and"ti"islike"chi". TheorderofkanacamefromDevanagari,whichisaphoneticalphabetusedforIndianlanguagessuchasSanskritandHindi. Devanagari'svowelorderis:a,,i,,u,,r,e,,o,.Itsconsonantorderisfromthebackofthetonguetothelips:velars(k,g, ng),palatals(ch,j,ny),retroflexes(.t,.d,.n),alveolars(t,d,n),bilabials(p,b,m),semivowels(y,r,w),andfricatives(sh,s,h). Japanesedoesn'thaveretroflexes,andtheconsonantofthesyllablesnowrepresentedby"h"+vowelswas"p".Inaddition,some linguiststhinktheconsonantofthesyllablesnowrepresentedby"s"+vowelswas"ch".(Otherlinguiststhinkitwaseither"ts"or "sh".)Devanagari'sconsonantorderthusgivestheJapaneseconsonantorder:k,ch(laters),t,n,p(laterh),m,y,r,andw.

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