Introduction to Nihongo PDF

INTRODUCTION TO NIHONGO PREPARED BY: CRIZZIA YMANA  HISTORY Japanese is most widely believed to be connected to the Ural-Altaic family, which includes Turkish, Mongolian, Manchu, and Korean within its domain. Korean is most frequently compared to Japanese, as bot...

INTRODUCTION TO NIHONGO PREPARED BY: CRIZZIA YMANA  HISTORY Japanese is most widely believed to be connected to the Ural-Altaic family, which includes Turkish, Mongolian, Manchu, and Korean within its domain. Korean is most frequently compared to Japanese, as both languages share significant key features such as general structure, vowel harmony, lack of conjunctions, and the extensive use of honorific speech, in which the social rank of the listener heavily affects the dialogue.  HISTORY The adaptation of Chinese characters during the sixth to ninth centuries A.D. was the most important event in the development of the language. “hiragana” and “katakana”, were created out of “kanji” Since the mid-18th century the Japanese have adopted a huge amount of “gairaigo”: foreign words mainly from English. These include “teburu” (table), “biru” (beer), “gurasu” (glass), “aisu” (ice), “takushi” (taxi) and “hoteru” (hotel).  HISTORY There are also a few words from Portuguese, Dutch and Spanish, such as “pan” (bread) and “igirisu” (the UK), from the Portuguese “po” and “ingles”. Such words arrived in Japan mainly during the 16th and 17th centuries, when missionaries and merchants started to visit the country.  CHARACTERISTICS VOCABULARY The Japanese language is written with a combination of three different types of scripts: Chinese characters, kanji, and two syllabic scripts, hiragana and katakana. The Latin alphabet, rōmaji, is also often used in modern Japanese, especially for company names and logos, advertising, and when inputting Japanese into a computer.  CHARACTERISTICS Japanese vocabulary has been heavily influenced by loans from other languages. A vast number of words were borrowed from Chinese, or created from Chinese models, over a period of at least 1,500 years. Since the late nineteenth century, Japanese has borrowed a considerable number of words from Indo-European languages, primarily English.  CHARACTERISTICS SOUND OF THE LANGUAGE The Japanese has an open-syllable sound pattern, so that most syllables end in a vowel. There are five vowels. /a/, /i/, /u/, /e/, /o/. Vowel length often distinguishes words, as in to for “door” and too for “ten”. The basic consonants are: /k/, /s/, /t/, /n/, /h/, /m/, /y/, /r/, /w/, and the syllabic nasal /N/. Many of these consonants can be palatalized in front of the vowels /a/, /u/, and /o/, for example, /kya/, /kyo/ /kyo/. When the two consonants, /s/ and /t/ occur with the vowel /i/, these consonants are automatically palatalized as /shi/ and /chi/. The /t/ is pronounced as /ts/ in front of the vowel /u/.  CHARACTERISTICS WRITING SYSTEM Japanese consists of two scripts (referred to as kana) called Hiragana and Katakana, which are two versions of the same set of sounds in the language. Hiragana and Katakana consist of a little less than 50 “letters”, which are actually simplified Chinese characters adopted to form a phonetic script.  CHARACTERISTICS Hiragana is used mainly for grammatical purposes. We will see this as we learn about particles. Words with extremely difficult or rare Kanji, colloquial expressions, and onomatopoeias are also written in Hiragana. It’s also often used for beginning Japanese students and children in place of Kanji they don’t know. While Katakana represents the same sounds as Hiragana, it is mainly used to represent newer words imported from western countries (since there are no Kanji associated with words based on the roman alphabet). The next three sections will cover Hiragana, Katakana, and Kanji.  VARIATIES REGIONAL DIALECT There are a large number of dialects throughout the four main islands and the smaller islands of Okinawa and others. Some dialects such as those spoken in the southern parts of Japan (Kyushu, Okinawa) are virtually incomprehensible to the speakers of other dialects, requiring the use of the standard dialect for communication. The two dialect families with the largest number of speakers are the dialect spoken in and around Tokyo, which is equivalent to the “common” dialect, and the dialects of the Kansai region in western Japan in cities such Kyoto, Osaka, and Kobe.  VARIATIES SOCIAL STYLES OF SPEECH Unlike most western languages, Japanese has an extensive grammatical system to express politeness and formality. Broadly speaking, there are three main politeness levels in spoken Japanese: the plain form (“kudaketa”), the simple polite form (“teinei”) and the advanced polite form (“keigo”).  VARIATIES Since most relationships are not equal in Japanese society, one person typically has a higher position. This position is determined by a variety of factors including job, age, experience, or even psychological state. The person in the lower position is expected to use a polite form of speech, whereas the other might use a more plain form. Strangers will also speak to each other politely. Japanese children rarely use polite speech until their teens, at which point they are expected to begin speaking in a more adult manner.  HIRAGANA Hiragana is one of 3-character sets used in the Japanese language. Each Hiragana letter represents particular syllable. Letter itself has no meaning and is used widely to form a sentence. Hiragana was developed in the 8-10th century by simplifying the form of particular Kanji symbols. In modern Japanese, there are 46 basic Hiragana letters. In addition to these 46 basic letters called gojūon, there are modified forms to describe more sounds - 20 dakuon, 5 handakuon, 36 yōon, 1 sokuon and 6 additional letters.  HIRAGANA GOJŪON-ZU In Japanese, syllables are organized in the form of a table (5 x 10). This table is called gojūon-zu (literally means table of 50 sounds). Letters い , う and え appear more than once in the table. These 5 duplicates (gray colored) are usually skipped or ignored. Another syllable ん is included. It doesn't belong to any row or column. In total, 46 letters (45+1) are counted as gojūon (50 sounds).  HIRAGANA The first row - あ [a], い [i], う [u], え [e] and お [o] are five vowels of the Japanese language. Letters in the same column contain the same vowel. Letters in the same row are considered to contain the same consonant. Letters お and を represent the same sound [o]. を is used only as the particle in a sentence.  HIRAGANA DAKUON Dakuon literally means turbid or murky sound. It is the voiced sound of か [ka], さ [sa], た [ta] and は [ha]-row syllables. Dakuon is indicated with two small dots. Pronunciation of じ and ぢ , ず and づ are the same.  HIRAGANA HANDAKUON Handakuon literally means half-turbid or half-murky sound. Handakuon is indicated with a small circle. YŌON Yōon is a combination of the consonant of i-column syllables and ya, yu or yo. For example, k + ya = kya. Yōon is described by i-column letters plus small や , ゆ or よ. For example, き + ゃ = きゃ [kya]. Pronunciation of じゃ , じゅ , じょ and ぢゃ , ぢゅ , ぢょ are the same.  HIRAGANA SOKUON Sokuon is a pause (no sound) between two syllables. Sokuon is described by small つ. Ex: さっき [sakki], ひっし [hisshi], いった [itta], やっぱり [yappari] ADDITIONAL LETTERS These additional letters are invented in modern era to describe the sounds of foreign language. Foreign words are usually written in Katakana. These additional Hiragana letters are rarely used. Ex: ふぁ [fa], てぃ [ti], どぅ [du], うぇ [we], ふぉ [fo] Small あ [a], い [i], う [u], え [e] and お [o] are attached after particular letters. Ex: う゛ぁ [va], う゛ぃ [vi], う゛ [vu], う゛ぇ [ve], う゛ぉ [vo]  KATAKANA Katakana is one of three characters used in the Japanese language and is also a phonetic alphabet - each letter represents the sound of a syllable (like English ABC). Letter itself has no meaning. Katakana and Hiragana represent exactly the same set of sounds. It is used mostly for foreign loan words. Katakana was developed in the 8th century by simplifying the form of Kanji symbols.  KATAKANA In modern Japanese, there are 46 basic Katakana letters. In addition to these 46 basic letters called gojūon, there are modified forms to describe more sounds - 20 dakuon, 5 handakuon, 36 yōon, 1 sokuon and 6 additional letters.  KATAKANA GOJŪON-ZU Traditionally, sounds of basic syllables are organized in the form of a table (5 x 10). This table is called gojūon-zu (literally means table of 50 sounds). To describe these sounds, Katakana and Hiragana alphabets are used. Letters イ , ウ and エ appear more than once in the table. These 5 duplicates (colored in gray) are usually skipped or ignored. Another syllable ン is included. It doesn't belong to any row or column.  KATAKANA In total, 46 letters (45+1) are counted as gojūon (50 sounds). The structure is exactly the same as the Hiragana table. The first row - ア [a], イ [i], ウ [u], エ [e] and オ [o] are five vowels of the Japanese language. Letters in the same column contain the same vowel. Letters in the same row are considered to contain the same consonant. Letters オ [o] and ヲ [o] represent the same sound. Letter ヲ is rarely used.  KATAKANA DAKUON Dakuon literally means turbid or murky sound. It is the voiced sound of カ [ka], サ [sa], タ [ta] and ハ [ha]-row syllables. It is indicated with two small dots. Pronunciation of ジ [ji] and ヂ [ji], ズ [zu] and ヅ [zu] are the same. Letters ヂ and ヅ are rarely used. HANDAKUON Handakuon literally means half-turbid or half-murky sound. It is indicated with a small circle.  KATAKANA YŌON Yōon is a combination of the consonant of i-column syllables and ya, yu or yo. For example, k + ya = kya. It is described by i-column letters associated with ャ (small ya), ュ (small yu) or ョ (small yo). For example, キ + ャ = キャ [kya]. Pronunciation of ジャ [ja], ジュ [ju], ジョ [jo] and ヂ ャ [ja], ヂュ [ju], ヂョ [jo] are the same. Letters ヂ ャ , ヂュ , ヂョ are rarely used.  KATAKANA SOKUON Sokuon is a pause (no sound) between two syllables. It is described by ッ (small ツ [tsu]). Ex: サッカー [sakkā] メッセージ [messēji] ポケット [poketto] カップ [kappu] ADDITIONAL LETTERS These additional letters are invented in modern era to describe the sound of foreign languages. Ex: ファ [fa] ティ [ti] ドゥ [du] ウェ [we] フォ [fo] ァ , ィ , ゥ , ェ and ォ (small ア [a] イ [i] ウ [u] エ [e] オ [o]) are attached after particular letters. Ex: ヴァ [va] ヴィ [vi] ヴ [vu] ヴェ [ve] ヴォ [vo] ヴ is used for [v] sound.