In historical kana usage: • Two kana are used that are obsolete today:
wi and
we. These are today read as
i and
e. Words that formerly contained those characters are now written using
i and
e respectively. • Outside of its use as a
particle, the
wo kana is used to represent the
o sound in some, but not all, words. •
Yōon sounds, such as
shō or
kyō, are not written with a small kana ; depending on the word, they are written with either two or three full-sized kana. If written with two kana and the last one is
ya,
yu, or
yo, then it represents a short syllable of one
mora, such as
kyo. If written with two or three kana and the last one is
u or
fu, then it represents a long syllable of two morae. The first kana is not always the same as one used in the modern spelling, as in
kyō "today", written
kefu. If written with three kana, the middle one will always be
ya,
yu, or
yo, and the last kana will always be
u or
fu, as in
chō, the counter for tools, guns, etc., written
chiyau. • The series of kana
ha hi fu he ho are used to represent, in some words, the sounds
wa,
i,
u,
e,
o, respectively. • Precedence is given to grammar over pronunciation. For example, the verb
warau (to laugh) is written
warafu, and in accordance with Japanese grammar rules,
waraō, the
volitional form of
warau, is written
warahau. • The kana
du and
di, which are mostly only used in
rendaku in modern kana usage, are more common. Modern kana usage replaces them with the identically pronounced
zu and
ji in most cases. For example,
ajisai (
hortensia) is written
adisawi. Most of the historical kana usage has been found to accurately represent certain aspects of the way words sounded during the
Heian period. As the spoken language has continued to develop, some orthography looks odd to the modern eye. As these peculiarities follow fairly regular patterns, they are not difficult to learn. However, some of the historical kana usages are etymologically mistakes. For example, :
aruiwa (or) might be found written incorrectly as
*aruhiwa or
*aruwiwa :
mochiwiru (use) might be found written incorrectly as
*mochihiru :
tsukue (desk, table) might be found written incorrectly as:
*tsukuwe Those familiar with Japanese writing may notice that most of the differences apply to words which are usually written in Kanji anyway, and so would require no changes to switch from one Kana system to another (unless
furigana are employed). In particular, yōon sounds occur almost exclusively in the
Chinese-derived readings that are usually only seen in Kanji compounds (although not entirely;
kyō "today," written
kefu in the old system, is a native Japanese word), and therefore do not look any different (without furigana). The relative lack of difference in appearance in practice between the two systems was a major reason the spelling reform succeeded, and also why the three grammatical particles
o,
e,
wa continue to be written as
wo,
he, and
ha instead of
o,
e, and
wa; many felt that changing these exceedingly common spellings would unnecessarily confuse readers. It is also for this reason that many character dictionaries continue to include the historical spellings, since they are relevant there. Some forms of unusual kana usage are not, in fact, historical kana usage. For example, writing
dojō (
loach, a sardine-like fish) in the form
dozeu is not historical kana usage (which was
dodiyau), but a kind of slang writing originating in the
Edo period. ==Examples==