Product Code Database
The is a Japanese symbol in the form of a small hiragana or katakana , as well as the various consonants represented by it. In less formal language, it is called 3=chiisai tsu or 3=chiisana tsu, meaning "small ". It serves multiple purposes in Japanese writing.
Examples:
The sokuon never appears at the beginning of a word or before a vowel ( a, i, u, e, or o), and rarely appears before a syllable that begins with the consonants n, m, r, w, or y. (In words and loanwords that require geminating these consonants, n, mu, ru, u, and i are usually used, respectively, instead of the sokuon.) In addition, it does not appear before voiced consonants ( g, z, d, or b), or before h, except in loanwords, or distorted speech, or dialects. However, uncommon exceptions exist for stylistic reasons: For example, the Japanese name of the Pokémon species Cramorant is ウッウ, pronounced .The pronunciation is verifiable here: Nintendo Direct (September 5, 2019; 23 min 48 s). Retrieved 2019-09-05.
The sokuon is also used at the end of a sentence, to indicate a glottal stop (IPA , a sharp or cut-off articulation), which may indicate angry or surprised speech. This pronunciation is also used for exceptions mentioned before (e.g., a sokuon before a vowel kana). There is no standard way of romanizing the sokuon that is at the end of a sentence. In English language writing, this is often rendered as an em dash. Other conventions are to render it as t or as an apostrophe.
In the International Phonetic Alphabet, the sokuon is transcribed with either a colon-like length mark or a doubled consonant:
The sokuon represents a mora, thus for example the word consists of only two syllables, but four morae: ni-p-po-n.
The Meiji-era linguist used the terms sokuon ("plosive") and hatsuon ("nasal") to describe ending consonants in Chinese (which he called Shinago, an outdated term used from the Edo period until after World War II). These sounds were classified as shinnai, zetsunai and kōnai. Sokuon, in particular, were classified as follows: is the 唇內促音, is the 舌內促音, and is the 喉內促音. Another of Ōshima's descriptions even more explicitly related the terms sokuon and hatsuon to the four tones of Middle Chinese.
Modern Japanese sokuon arose, in no small part, from consonant assimilation that occurred when an Early Middle Japanese approximation of a Chinese sokuon, such as pu (labial), t(i) (lingual) or ki/ku (guttural), was followed by an obstruent (plosive or fricative).
Use in other languages
In addition to Japanese, sokuon is used in Okinawan katakana orthographies to represent glottal or ejective consonants. Ainu katakana uses a small ッ both for a final t-sound and to represent a sokuon (there is no ambiguity however, as gemination is Allophone with syllable-final t). As with tsu, sokuon’s katatana form can be used as an emoticon due to its similar appearance to the smile emoticon.
Computer input
There are several methods of entering the sokuon using a computer or word-processor, such as xtu, ltu, ltsu, etc. Some systems, such as Kotoeri for macOS and the Microsoft IME, generate a sokuon if an applicable consonant letter is typed twice; for example tta generates った.
Other representations
Japanese Braille:
See also
External links
|
|
