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Dakuten and handakuten

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◌゙
◌゚
Dakuten and handakuten
  • Combining characters
    • U+3099 ◌゙ COMBINING KATAKANA-HIRAGANA VOICED SOUND MARK
    • U+309A ◌゚ COMBINING KATAKANA-HIRAGANA SEMI-VOICED SOUND MARK
  • Stand-alone characters
    • U+309B ゛ KATAKANA-HIRAGANA VOICED SOUND MARK
    • U+309C ゜ KATAKANA-HIRAGANA SEMI-VOICED SOUND MARK
    • U+FF9E ﾞ HALFWIDTH KATAKANA VOICED SOUND MARK
    • U+FF9F ﾟ HALFWIDTH KATAKANA SEMI-VOICED SOUND MARK
kana gojūon
warayamahanatasakaa
wiri(yi)mihinichishikii
(wu)ruyumufunutsusukuu
were(ye)mehenetesekee
woroyomohonotosokoo
n
Kana modifiers and marks
Multi-moraic kana

The dakuten (Japanese: 濁点, Japanese pronunciation: [dakɯ̥teꜜɴ] or [dakɯ̥teɴ], lit. "voicing mark"), colloquially ten-ten (点々, "dots"), is a diacritic most often used in the Japanese kana syllabaries to indicate that the consonant of a mora should be pronounced voiced, for instance, on sounds that have undergone rendaku (sequential voicing).

The handakuten (半濁点, Japanese pronunciation: [handaꜜkɯ̥teɴ], lit. "half voicing mark"), colloquially maru (丸, "circle"), is a diacritic used with kana for morae pronounced with /h/ or /f/ to indicate that they should instead be pronounced with /p/.

Glyphs

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The dakuten resembles a quotation mark, while the handakuten is a small circle, similar to a degree sign, both placed at the top right corner of a kana character:

  • U+3099 ◌゙ COMBINING KATAKANA-HIRAGANA VOICED SOUND MARK
  • U+309A ◌゚ COMBINING KATAKANA-HIRAGANA SEMI-VOICED SOUND MARK
  • U+309B ゛ KATAKANA-HIRAGANA VOICED SOUND MARK
  • U+309C ゜ KATAKANA-HIRAGANA SEMI-VOICED SOUND MARK
  • U+FF9E ﾞ HALFWIDTH KATAKANA VOICED SOUND MARK
  • U+FF9F ﾟ HALFWIDTH KATAKANA SEMI-VOICED SOUND MARK

Both the dakuten and handakuten glyphs are drawn identically in hiragana and katakana scripts. The combining characters are rarely used in full-width Japanese characters, as Unicode and all common multibyte Japanese encodings provide precomposed glyphs for all possible dakuten and handakuten character combinations in the standard hiragana and katakana ranges. However, combining characters are required in half-width kana, which does not provide any precomposed characters in order to fit within a single byte.

The similarity between the dakuten and quotation marks (") is not a problem, as written Japanese uses corner brackets (「」).

Phonetic shifts

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The following table summarizes the phonetic shifts indicated by the dakuten and handakuten. Literally, morae with dakuten are "muddy sounds" (濁音, dakuon), while those without are "clear sounds" (清音, seion). However, the handakuten (lit. "half-muddy mark") does not follow this pattern.

None Dakuten Handakuten
か ka が ga か゚ nga
さ sa ざ za None
た ta だ da None
は ha ば ba ぱ pa
ら ra None ら゚ la
わ wa わ゙ va None

(Yellow shading indicates non-standard use.)

Handakuten on ka, ki, ku, ke, ko (rendered as か゚, き゚, く゚, け゚, こ゚) represent the sound of ng in singing ([ŋ]), which is an allophone of /ɡ/ in many dialects of Japanese. They are not used in normal Japanese writing, but may be used by linguists and in dictionaries (or to represent characters in fiction who speak that way). This is called bidakuon [ja] (鼻濁音, "nasal muddy sound"). Another rare application of handakuten is on the r-series, to mark them as explicitly l: ラ゚ /la/, and so forth.[1] This is only done in technical or pedantic contexts, as many Japanese speakers cannot tell the difference between r and l. Additionally, linguists sometimes use ウ゚ to represent /ɴ/ in cases when speaker pronounces う at the beginning of a word as a moraic nasal.[2]

In katakana only, the dakuten may also be added to the character ウ u and a small vowel character to create a [v] sound, as in ヴァ va. However, a hiragana version of this character also exists, with somewhat sporadic compatibility across platforms (ゔ). As /v/ does not exist in Japanese, this usage applies only to some modern loanwords and remains relatively uncommon, and e.g. Venus is typically transliterated as ビーナス (bīnasu) instead of ヴィーナス (vīnasu). Japanese speakers, however, pronounce both the same, with [b] or [β], an occasional allophone of intervocalic /b/.[3]

An even less common method is to add dakuten to the w-series, reviving the mostly obsolete characters for /wi/ (ヰ) and /we/ (ヱ). /vu/ is represented by using /u/, as above; /wo/ becomes /vo/ despite its /w/ normally being silent. Precomposed characters exist for this method as well (/va/ ヷ /vi/ ヸ /vu/ ヴ /ve/ ヹ /vo/ ヺ), although most IMEs do not have a convenient way to enter them.

In Ainu texts, handakuten can be used with the katakana セ to make it a /t͡s/ sound, セ゚ ce [t͡se] (which is interchangeable with ツェ), and is used with small fu to represent a final p, ㇷ゚. In addition, handakuten can be combined with either katakana ツ or ト (tsu and to) to make a [tu̜] sound, ツ゚ or ト゚.

In Miyakoan, handakuten can be used with イ (normally [i]) to represent the vowel [ɨ].

In informal writing, dakuten is occasionally used on vowels to indicate a shocked or strangled articulation; for example, on あ゙ or ゔ. Dakuten can also be occasionally used with ん (ん゙) to indicate a guttural hum, growl, or similar sound.

Kana iteration marks

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The dakuten can also be added to hiragana and katakana iteration marks, indicating that the previous kana is repeated with voicing:

Type None Dakuten
Hiragana ゝ ゞ
Katakana ヽ ヾ

Both signs are relatively rare, but can occasionally be found in personal names such as Misuzu (みすゞ) or brand names such as Isuzu (いすゞ). In these cases the pronunciation is identical to writing the kana out in full. A longer, multi-character iteration mark called the kunojiten (〱), only used in vertical writing, may also have a dakuten added (〲).

Other communicative representations

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  • Representations of Dakuten
  • Representations of Handakuten

* Voiced morae and semi-voiced morae do not have independent names in radiotelephony and are signified by the unvoiced name followed by "ni dakuten" or "ni handakuten".

  • Full Braille representation
Braille
Dakuten Handakuten Yōon + Dakuten Yōon + Handakuten Dakuten + Handakuten Yōon + Dakuten + Handakuten
⠐ (braille pattern dots-5) ⠠ (braille pattern dots-6) ⠘ (braille pattern dots-45) ⠨ (braille pattern dots-46) ⠰ (braille pattern dots-56) ⠸ (braille pattern dots-456)

History

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The kun'yomi pronunciation of the character 濁 (daku in on'yomi) is nigori; hence the dakuten may also be called the nigori-ten. This character, meaning "muddy", stems from historical Chinese phonology, where consonants were traditionally classified as "fully clear" (全清, voiceless unaspirated obstruent), "partly clear" (次清, voiceless aspirated obstruent), "fully muddy" (全濁, voiced obstruent) and "partly muddy" (次濁, voiced sonorant) (see Middle Chinese § Initials and w:zh:清濁音). Unlike in Chinese where "clear" and "muddy" were phonological, in Japanese, these terms are purely orthographic: a "muddy sound" (濁音, dakuon) is simply a kana with a "muddy mark", or a dakuten; a "partly clear" (次清音, jiseion)[4][5][6] or "half muddy sound" (半濁音, handakuon) is simply a kana with a "half muddy mark", or a handakuten; a "clear sound" (清音, seion) is any other kana without either of these marks. In fact, the "partly clear/half muddy" consonant /p/ in Japanese would be considered "fully clear" in Chinese, while "clear" Japanese consonants such as /m/, /n/, /ɾ/, /j/ and /w/ would be "partly muddy" in Chinese. Meiji-era descriptions of the Japanese "sound" system (either the actual phonology, or the orthography) in terms of "clear" and "muddy" always referenced the kana spelling and the two diacritics dakuten and handakuten.[7][8][9][6]

Dakuten were used sporadically since the start of written Japanese; their use tended to become more common as time went on. The modern practice of using dakuten in all cases of voicing in all writing only came into being in the Meiji period.[citation needed]

The handakuten is an innovation by Portuguese Jesuits, who first used it in the Rakuyōshū.[10] These Jesuits needed to accurately transcribe Japanese sounds, which the Japanese tended to neglect by making no distinction between /h/, /b/ and /p/ in their own writing.

See also

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References

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  1. ^ Yamaguchi, Ryusei (2016), Character Sets and Internationalization (L2 Technical Committee) Document L2/16-354 : Proposal to add Kana small letters (PDF), pp. 6, 9, retrieved April 23, 2019
  2. ^ "文部省制定発音符号 - 国立国会図書館デジタルコレクション". dl.ndl.go.jp (in Japanese). Retrieved 2021-04-03.
  3. ^ Labrune, Laurence (2012). The Phonology of Japanese. Oxford University Press. p. 98. ISBN 978-0-19-954583-4.
  4. ^ "次清音". コトバンク.
  5. ^ Sakakibara, Yoshino (August 1874). "次清音". 小𭓘綴字書. Ministry of Education, Science, Sports and Culture. p. 3.
  6. ^ a b Hirano, Hidekichi (1902). "第十九章 淸音濁音半濁音". 國語聲音學 (in Japanese). 國光社. p. 152. 濁音がある故に、之に對して淸音をも作らねばならず、半濁音（次淸音）と云ふものもあることになる。
    ぱ　ぴ　ぷ　ぺ　ぽ
    の一行五音の半濁音（一名次淸音）として、アカサタナハマヤラワ十行五十音が淸音と云はれて居る。
  7. ^ Ōmiya, Sōji (1893). "第三章 濁音 半濁音及その文字". 日本辭林 (in Japanese). Tokyo: Hakubunkan. p. 10. 五十音の外に、また、一種の熟音あり。これを濁音、及び、半濁音といふ。濁音とは、本音を濁りて呼ぶものにて、子音の中、加、佐、多、波、の四行の諸音をいふ。この音を示すには別に、その文字なく、本音の假字の肩に、二個の小點を加ふ。卽ち、左の如し。
  8. ^ Ōmiya, Sōji (1893). "第三章 濁音 半濁音及その文字". 日本辭林 (in Japanese). Tokyo: Hakubunkan. p. 11. 半濁音とは、本音を半濁りて呼ぶものにて、子音の中、波行の五音のみに限れり。この音を示すには、本音の假字の肩に、圈點一個を加ふ。卽ち、左の如し。
  9. ^ Hirano, Hidekichi (1902). "第十九章 淸音濁音半濁音". 國語聲音學 (in Japanese). 國光社. p. 151. 舊來の音韻では濁音といふものがあって、
    が　ぎ　ぐ　げ　ご
    ざ　じ　ず　ぜ　ぞ
    だ　ぢ　づ　で　ど
    ば　び　ぶ　べ　ぼ
    の四行二十音を之に充てゝ居る。
  10. ^ Frellesvig, Bjarke (2010). A History of the Japanese Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-65320-6.
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