Japanese language
[[ja:%93%FA%96%7B%8C%EA]][[pl:J%EAzyk_japo%F1ski]]
The Japanese language is very different from English and most other European languages. Like Finnish, Turkish, and Korean, Japanese is an agglutinative language, with two (phonologically distinctive) tones like Serbian/Croatian and Swedish. It is a language where sentences need no subject and adjectives can have past tenses. It is of uncertain affiliation, though there are theories that it is related to E. Asian languages such as Korean (but not Chinese), though phonological and lexical similarities to Malayo-Polynesian languages have also been noted.
The Japanese Writing System
Written Japanese uses four different scripts: Romaji, Hiragana, Katakana, and Kanji. Romaji refers to the Roman alphabet and is the writing system that will be used here.
Full-blown Japanese text is typically written in a combination of the other three: Kanji, which is an adaptation of Chinese ideograms, and Hiragana and Katakana, which are syllabaries. Although roman letters are not typically used to write Japanese, wholesale borrowing of English and other western loan words can include their foreign spelling. Also, important acronyms, such as 'NATO' and 'WTO' are written alphabetically.
Here is word "I" in hiragana, kanji and romaji:
File:Pismo japonskie sample small.png
Pronunciation
The Japanese sound system, for the purpose of native literacy, is expressed in terms of syllables rather than isolated vowels or consonants. This is because written Japanese possesses two syllabaries, not an alphabet, in which each character represents a syllable (though some characters represent only one vowel). Any Japanese syllable can be written in Hiragana or Katakana, the two syllabaries, or in Romaji, as shown below.
Japanese Syllabary in Romaji
Basic Syllables: Vowel, Consonant plus vowel and "n".
N.B. Japanese vowels are pure sounds like their Italian counterparts. Japanese /u/, however is unrounded.
. a i u e o
k ka ki ku ke ko
s sa shi su se so
t ta chi tsu te to N.B. chi, tsu
n na ni nu ne no
h ha hi fu he ho N.B. fu (hu)
m ma mi mu me mo
y ya yu yo N.B. no ye or yi
r ra ri ru re ro
w wa wi we wo N.B. wi and we are archaic due to
n n changes in pronunciation of
N.B. "n" comprises a syllable in itself the spoken language
Modified Syllables: Consonant plus basic vowel
g ga gi gu ge go
z za ji zu ze zo N.B. ji
d da ji zu de do N.B. ji,zu (dzu)
b ba bi bu be bo
p pa pi pu pe po
Modified Syllables: Consonant plus ya, yu, yo, or palatalized consonants.
k kya kyu kyo
s sha shu sho N.B. sha, shu,sho
t cha chu cho N.B. cha, chu, cho
n nya nyu nyo
h hya hyu hyo
m mya myu myo
r rya ryu ryo N.B. the Japanese "r" is
between the English
"r" and "l."
g gya gyu gyo
z ja ju jo N.B. ja,ju,jo
b bya byu byo
p pya pyu pyo
Double (Geminate) Consonants: length of two syllables
kk - preceded by a glottal stop and held for 2 syllables. pp - preceded by a glottal stop and held for 2 syllables. ss - preceded by a glottal stop and held for 2 syllables. tt - preceded by a glottal stop and held for 2 syllables.
(Note: the so-called 'doubled' consonants often involve the glottis in speech, but may not necessarily be a full glottal stop.)
Long Vowels: length of two syllables
aa - same as "a" but held an extra syllable. ii - same as "i" but held an extra syllable. uu - same as "u" but held an extra syllable. ee - same as "e" but held an extra syllable. oo - same as "o" but held an extra syllable.
You'll notice that "n" is both a syllable unto itself and the leading consonant in some other syllables. Written out in kana, there is no ambiguity, because each kana is a single distinct character. To prevent ambiguity in Romaji, when the "n" that is a syllable unto itself is followed by a vowel, it is separated from the vowel by an apostrophe.
Pronunciation: Features
1. In English, stressed syllables in a word are pronounced louder and longer. In Japanese, all syllables, with a few exceptions, are pronounced with equal length and loudness.
2. In Japanese, a stressed syllable is merely pronounced at a higher pitch. This is part of the Japanese intonation pattern.
3. Japanese does have a distinct intonation pattern. Their intonation pattern can be heard not only in individual words, but also in whole sentences. Intonation is produced by a rise and fall in pitch over certain syllables. In the case of questions, the Japanese intonation patterns bear little resemblance to the English ones. This is a source of a lot of confusion.
Example: What typical Japanese syllables look like
A typical exchange between two people would look like this: Mr. Hayashi introduces Mr. Tanaka to Mr. Sanger.
Yamada: Tanaka-san, kochira wa, Senga-san desu. Senga: Hajimemashite, Senga desu. Doozo yoroshiku. Tanaka: Hajimemashite. ABC no Tanaka desu. Doozo yoroshiku. Yamada: Senga-san, Nupiidia no kaishain desu.
Yamda: Mr. Tanaka, this is Mr. Sanger.
Sanger: How do you do. My name is Sanger. I'm very glad to meet you.
Tanaka: How do you do. I am Mr. Tanaka from ABC Company. I'm very glad
to meet you.
Yamda: Mr. Sanger is of an employee of Nupedia.
Writing System
The preceding conversation could be written in a mix of Hiragana, Katakana, and Kanji. Content roots of words would be written in Kanji, the partially pictographic and iconic logograms/morphograms that the Japanese borrowed from the Chinese.
Particles marking parts of speech, like "wa", and "o" and verb inflections would be spelled out syllable by syllable in Hiragana, one of the two Japanese syllabaries. Many everyday spoken words, if written down, are also written using hiragana instead of the kanji.
Hiragana is also used to spell out words which have particularly complex kanji, when writing for younger children or foreigners who have limited knowledge of kanji, or when displaying text on character-cell displays. Foreign words like "Sanger," "Nupedia" would be spelled out syllable by syllable in Katakana, the second Japanese syllabary, which is most often used to write loan words of non-Chinese origin (the relationship of Chinese to Japanese is somewhat like French to English, except Chinese is not at all related to Japanese).
Grammar: Features
1. The basic sentence structure of a Japanese sentence is
TOPIC: PARTICLE: COMMENT.
For example:
Kochira wa, Senga-san desu.
Kochira is the topic of the sentence, indicated by the particle "wa."
This means "as for this person."
The verb is "desu" meaning 'is.'
"Senga-san desu" is the comment.
Therefore, this loosely translates to:
"As for this person, (it) is Mr. Sanger."
Japanese, like Chinese, is often called a 'topic prominent' language, which means it marks topic separately from subject, and the two do not always coincide.
2. Japanese nouns have neither number nor gender. Thus "hon" meaning "book" can be used for the singular or plural.
3. Verbs normally come at the end of a sentence.
4. Verbs are conjugated to show only tenses, of which there are two: the present and the past. The present tense in Japanese serves the function of the simple present, the continuous present, the habitual present, and the future tense, while the past tense in Japanese serves the function of the simple past tense, the present perfect and the past perfect tense. The exact meaning is determined from the context.
5. Adjectives are inflected to show the present, past, affirmative and negative.
6. The grammatical function of nouns like possession, direct object, indirect object etc. are indicated by particles, like "wa" and "no" above. Particles play an extremely important function in Japanese.
7. Japanese has many different dialects which change pronunciation dramatically.
8. Japanese has many ways to express different levels of politeness, including special verbs, verbs indicating relative status, use of different nouns, etc.
9. The verb desu/da does is not a copula in the western sense of the verb "to be". In the sentences above, it has played the copulative function of equality, that is: A = B. However a separate function of "to be" is to indicate existence, for which the verbs arimasu/aru and imasu/iru are used for inaninmate and animate things respectively.
Example Basic Japanese Sentence structure
Note the importance of the particles, verb tenses, and adjectives.
Mr. Sanger and Mr. Wales eat at a Japanese restaurant.
Senga: Sumimasen, menyuu o misete kudasai. Please show us the menu.
Ueitoresu: Hai, doozo. Certainly sir. Here you are.
Nomimono wa nani ga ii desu ka. What would you like to drink?
Weruzu: Biiru ga, hoshii desu. I like beer.
Senga: Sukiyaki ga, ii desu I'll have the "sukiyaki."
Weruzu: Biiru o 2-hon to sukiyaki o kudasai. Two bottles of beer and some
sukiyaki, please.
Senga: Dezaato wa, meron ga ii desu. For dessert we'll have melon.
Ueitoresu: Hai, wakarimashita. I see (understood).
Notes
Vocabulary: sumimasen - excuse me menyuu - menu hai - yes nomimono - beverage nani - what hoshii - desirable ii - good biiru - beer hon - bottle dezaato - dessert meron - melon kudasai - please Particles: wa - indicates the topic. ga - indicates the topic with de-emphasis on the topic o - indicates the direct object ka - indicates a question to - and Verbs: misemasu - show desu - to be (copulative) wakarimasu - to understand.
Additional resources
- A huge collection of resources, including links to online dictionaries and translators, is available at http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/~jwb/japanese.html
- There is a Japanese version of wikipedia at http://nihongo.wikipedia.com/.
- Ethnologue report for Japanese