Can we predict if a kanji has a reading that ends in long う? By "long う" I mean that the preceding mora also is in a u-row syllable such as ふう, くう, つう.
Consider these. I will list the kanji followed by its Mandarin Chinese pronunciation followed by its Japanese pronunciation:
- 風 fēng→fuu (ふう)
- 空 kōng→kuu (くう)
- 龍 lóng→ryuu (りゅう)
- 通 tōng→tsuu (つう)
- 痛 tòng→tsuu (つう)
- 勇 yǒng→yuu (ゆう)
- 中 zhōng→chuu/juu (ちゅう・じゅう)
- 終 zhōng→shuu (しゅう)
It seems that it starting consonant is maintained (except zh
which seems to be able to go to ch
, j
, sh
) while ng
maps to the long う sound. It also seems that the vowel sound in Mandarin is limited to e
and o
for the penultimate mora in Japanese to also be in the u-row.
And if the vowel were a
(e.g. 方 fāng→ほう, 放 fàng→ほう, 講 jiǎng→こう, 郎 láng→ろう, 浪 làng→ろう, 様 yàng→よう, 障 zhàng→しょう) then it seems to take a おう
ending instead of うう
.
In summary this is my hypothesis:
- The
ng
ending in Chinese corresponds to a final う mora in Japanese. - If the vowel is
a
in Chinese it corresponds to a penultimate o-row mora in Japanese. - If the vowel is
e
oro
in Chinese it corresponds to a penultimate u-row mora in Japanese.
Restating the question, what are the sounds that allow me to predict if a kanji reading ends in a う sound with the penultimate mora in the u-row in Japanese?