Questions tagged [obsolete-kana]
歴史的仮名遣. Kana no longer in common use.
15
questions
2
votes
1answer
153 views
Is ょう still one single word/助動詞 in the expression しましょう?
Kuromoji is a Japanese tokenizer. When using it on the expression しましょう, it gave the following analysis:
Surface form Part-of-Speech Base form Reading Pronunciation
し 動詞,自立,*,* ...
3
votes
1answer
111 views
Is まはりて an archaic form of 廻って, and how is it broken down grammatically?
I came across a cover version of "Bad Apple", where the singer uses a more traditional style than the original song, including a translation of the (modern) lyrics into more archaic/poetic language.
...
0
votes
1answer
233 views
‘Nanpū’ (難風), ‘Bōrei’ (亡霊) and other matters
A couple of questions, including the use of the word ‘nanpū’ 難風.
I am looking at (and transliterating) a cartouche with a combination of hiragana, hentaigana, and kanji, some in sōsho, however, there ...
3
votes
1answer
176 views
Questions about 絵本 by 林芙美子
I'm reading several short texts as a part of a university course that's starting this fall, but I'm having problem understand parts of this one text. It's called 絵本 and is written by 林芙美子
http://www....
11
votes
2answers
325 views
戦前はどうやってしりとりをしていたのですか？
（日本語でもしてみむとて）
現在遊ばれている「しりとり」は基本的に終わりの一文字をつないでやるものだと思いますが、例えば「がっこう」なら（東京の発音ではガッコーですが）次は「う」、「こうてい」（コーテー）なら「い」というルールになると思います。
これを旧かな遣いで考えると「杖（つゑ）」は「ゑ」、「家（いへ）」は「へ」でないといけないと思います。...
2
votes
1answer
528 views
Japanese words with を in shiritori?
I've been playing some しりとり recently at http://www.shiritori.org/ and was wondering why no words with を show up.
siritori.net suggests there are quite a few nouns starting with を:
を
をかし
...
1
vote
2answers
183 views
Are there words still containing を either officially or colloquially?
I used to work in a Japanese restaurant where the owner and his wife always wrote 「かつを」 rather than 「かつお」. I thought this was kind of cool, so I looked it up. The only information I could find was ...
3
votes
2answers
326 views
Can ゐ/ヰ be combined with ゃゅょ/ャュョ?
I'm writing a program which replaces kana characters with romaji, so that りょかん becomes ryokan etc. I thus need to handle cases where ゃゅょ (or ャュョ) combine with the preceding character.
My ...
10
votes
1answer
508 views
Orthography at the turn of the previous century
A couple of days ago I purchased an old book published in 1908.
It uses a strange orthography I haven't encountered before. Everything that is not in kanji is written in katakana, including particles,...
6
votes
1answer
4k views
Why is katakana /va/ normally written ヴァ rather than ヷ?
Even though there is a katakana character ヷ, most of the time when I see something that is transcribed into Japanese as /va/, it is in the form ヴァ (say, for example, in the title of the anime series ...
14
votes
1answer
3k views
Why has を been spared but ゐ and ゑ been deemed obsolete?
According to When is the katakana form of wo (ヲ) used?, を is almost always used only for the particle, and is usually pronounced o (お).
There are some dialects where を is pronounced with a "w", but ...
22
votes
5answers
2k views
Modern names of the obsolete kana ゑ and ゐ
In modern Japanese, the kana ゑ/ヱ (we) and ゐ/ヰ (wi) are largely obsolete. Words formerly containing them now are pronounced with /e/ and /i/, so they were replaced by え and い, respectively.
But when ...
21
votes
2answers
9k views
When did the “wu” character drop out of use?
In the last century, the ゐ and ゑ characters were eliminated from common use. But it seems like there used to also be a "wu" character that has since been lost. Given that it's a lot harder to find ...
7
votes
2answers
2k views
Can anyone explain the obsolete, non-phonetic use of hiragana from pre war times?
At university our most learned lecturer in Japanese once mentioned there were non-phonetic usages of hiragana at the end of kanji verbs and adjectives pre WWII. Apparently books printed prewar used ...
60
votes
1answer
4k views
Why were ゐ and ゑ eliminated?
Sometime in the early 20th century, usage of the now-historical kana ゐ and ゑ (and their katakana equivalents) dropped off, being replaced with い and え in modern Japanese. What exactly happened here ...
