The Phonetics of Japanese Language: With Reference to Japanese Script

Front Cover
Routledge, Oct 18, 2010 - Literary Collections - 144 pages

This book gives true characters of Japanese speech sounds in reference to European speech sounds. When it was first published in 1931, it was the first book of its kind. There are only 5 Japanese vowel elements as opposed to 18 in English, 13 in French and 8 in German. There are 15 Japanese consonants, 26 in English, 22 in French & 23 in German. Because of the lesser number of elements, it follows that the wider range in vowels and consonants is heard by Japanese ears, so this volume gives average sounds uttered by Japanese in the twentieth century in relation to the English sounds.

 

Contents

Chapter I How Japan Acquired the Writing
1
Chapter II Sounds of Kanji
6
Chapter III Japanese Sounds of Kanji
15
Chapter IV Japanmade Characters Japancreated Sounds
23
Chapter V Calligraphy
29
Chapter VI Japanese Compositions
32
Chapter VII Japanese Compounds
38
Chapter VIII Phonetic Use of Kanji
43
Chapter X Sounds of Japanese Speech
55
Chapter XI Japanese Consonants
66
Chapter XII Romaji
80
Chapter XIII Accents and Stresses
89
Chapter XIV Japanese Orthography
97
Chapter XV Early Japanese Sounds
110
Errata
116
Glossary
117

Chapter IX Kana
45

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About the author (2010)

P. M. Suski

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