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I was speaking with a friend of mine about Japanese, and we come up with a doubt I found no clear answer to: as far as I know, morae are relevant in everyday Japanese, and (at least on theory) each kana should take the same time to be pronounced (small っ included).

On the other end, he (with a C2 in Japanese, and having worked in Japanese translation) was saying that morae are something used to calculate rhythm in classical poetry, but they are not relevant in the phonetics of spoken language, and that when learning the language it's ok to think in syllables.

While I can understand why it's ok to think in syllables, if nothing else because it's easier to understand for people native in languages without mora but with syllable, this conflicts with my knowledge that morae do have relevance in today spoken language as well; I found that morae and syllables are different and counted as such (here and here), and the second answer does state that mora is "a rhythmic unit [used to count] in Japanese poetry", but I didn't find anything about its relevance in today speech, so I was wondering: are morae a concept relevant to the phonetics of spoken language, or something just used for rhythm in classical poetry?

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    I’m not sure I understand what you mean by thinking in syllables. Would you think in syllables and still be able to explain the difference in pronunciation between おばさん and おばあさん? Would it be explained as a difference in the length of corresponding syllables?
    – aguijonazo
    Commented Oct 9, 2021 at 14:26
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    てに and てんい have totally different pronunciations, but てんい can also be seen as having two syllables with the first ending with a nasalized vowel like tem in Portuguese. What I don't understand is what would convince you that morae are a concept relevant to the phonetics of spoken language. Some phonetic phenomena that can be explained only with the concept of mora?
    – aguijonazo
    Commented Oct 9, 2021 at 16:35
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    I guess what I don't understand is what you mean by relevant, or what you think makes them relevant. In other words, what kind of answer are you looking for?
    – aguijonazo
    Commented Oct 9, 2021 at 16:55
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    What about the pitch accent of おおきい? I guess thinking "long syllables" (or heavy syllables ?) is kind of thinking morae. Another thing is that Haiku or Waka is not necessarily classical, and the counting of 'sounds' are done in morae. Very practically, neither mora nor syllable is taught (in any substantial way) in Japanese school.
    – sundowner
    Commented Oct 10, 2021 at 4:20
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    Maybe this Linguistics.SE question helps. Also, afaik, accentuations of classical Greek (which has pitch accents) are explained with morae. I guess morae are generally more handy for explaining some aspects of pronunciation of Japanese (like おばあさん/おおきい mentioned above), but these are not part of the language covered in textbooks (just as syllables are not covered in depth in English-teaching in Japan.)
    – sundowner
    Commented Oct 10, 2021 at 8:33

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Japanese kindergarteners cannot enjoy haiku yet, but I think most of them can count "the number of sounds" in a word based on the mora system. See my answer in this question: Do native speakers think of prolonged vowels as one long vowel, or two vowel sounds following each other?

The mora system is important not only with classical poetry but also with modern songs and wordplays (example). Articles like this have little to do with classical Japanese, but are based entirely on the mora system. They don't need to explain how to count morae because everyone understands it intuitively. Everyone thinks that the number of "sounds" in 東京, 大阪, 埼玉 and 神奈川 are all 4. On the other hand, I have never met a Japanese speaker who counts the number of "sounds" based on (English-style) syllables, and I still do not know how to do that properly.

Researches show that Japanese babies recognize morae even before they turn 1 year old: Do native speakers learn consonant and vowel length easily, or is it difficult?

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  • I was reading your reply in the first question you linked, and I was wondering: since «so-called "long vowels" are fundamentally two separate sounds in native speakers' minds», do words like お婆さん and 場合 sound different to native speakers? I'm asking because to my non-native ear they do sound different: I hear the first as /oba:san/ (forvo.com/word/%E3%81%8A%E5%A9%86%E3%81%95%E3%82%93/#ja), a single long A sound without pause, while the second as /baai/ (forvo.com/word/%E5%A0%B4%E5%90%88/#ja), with two distinct A sounds, like with a small pause between them.
    – Mauro
    Commented Oct 10, 2021 at 15:51
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    @Mauro They sound different to me because there's a difference in pitch accent (おばあさん【LHLLL】; ばあい【LHH】), but I think neither has a "pause". ばあ in 場合 and バーベキュー【LHHLLL】 sound identical to me.
    – naruto
    Commented Oct 10, 2021 at 15:58
  • Ok, thanks; I think in 場合 I'm hearing the pitch accent, since after listening to them some more times I'd say it's not a pause, but rather a "strengthening" (not sure what's the proper term), that I hear like two vowels.
    – Mauro
    Commented Oct 10, 2021 at 16:37
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    @Mauro - This PDF document on how to count sounds in syllabeme dialects might interest you.
    – aguijonazo
    Commented Oct 11, 2021 at 15:26
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    @Mauro - シラビーム方言
    – aguijonazo
    Commented Oct 11, 2021 at 16:04

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