This article deals with the phonology (i.e. the sound system) of the Japanese language. Phonology (Greek phonÄ“ = voice/sound and logos = word/speech), is a subfield of linguistics which studies the sound system of a specific language (or languages). ... Japanese  ) is a language spoken by over 130 million people, in Japan and Japanese emigrant communities around the world. ...

Consonants

• Voiceless stops /p, t, k/ are slightly aspirated: less aspirated than English stops, but more so than Spanish. Voiced stops /b, g/ do not always achieve full occlusion, being sometimes realized as fricatives or approximants. /g/ is realized as [ŋ] in many dialects (only intervocalically), especially in eastern Japan.
• /t, d, n/ are apical and denti-alveolar (i.e. the tongue apex contacts the back of the upper teeth and the front part of the alveolar ridge). Before /i/, these sounds are alveolo-palatal; before /u/ they are alveolar.
• /s, z/ are laminal alveolar. Before /i/, these sounds are alveolo-palatal.
• /r/ (transcribed ɺ̠ above) is a lateral apical postalveolar flap. It is similar to the Korean r. To an English speaker's ears, its pronunciation lies somewhere between a flapped r /ɾ/ (as in American English better and ladder), an l, and a d, sounding most like d before /i/ listen (help· info), and most like l before /o/ listen (help· info). Spanish speakers often associate it with a soft r, as in pared.
• The compressed velar /ɰ/ is essentially a non-moraic version of the vowel /ɯ/. It is not equivalent to IPA [w] since it is pronounced with lip compression rather than rounding.
• N is a moraic nasal, fully a stop before another stop, where it becomes homorganic with that consonant, but not achieving full occlusion before fricatives or between vowels, where it is realized as a nasal vowel. Word finally before a pause, it may be realized as a uvular nasal stop, a bilabial nasal stop, or as a nasal vowel. Not all analyses include this abstract archiphoneme; some treat the coda nasal as /n/.
• h assimilates to [ç] before /i/ listen (help· info), and to [ɸ] before /u/ listen (help· info).
• Q is realized as the first half of a geminate obstruent. Other, less abstract analyses reject Q in favor of simple geminate consonant clusters, e.g., /pp/, /tt/, /ss/, etc.

Note that this table does not cover all the consonantal variation in the Japanese language. Please refer below for the details of pronunciation. In phonetics, a bilabial consonant is a consonant articulated with both lips. ... Dentals are consonants such as t, d, n, and l articulated with either the lower or the upper teeth, or both, rather than with the gum ridge as in English. ... Alveolar consonants are articulated with the tongue against or close to the superior alveolar ridge, which is called that because it contains the alveoli (the sockets) of the superior teeth. ... Postalveolar (or palato-alveolar) consonants are consonants articulated with the tip of the tongue between the alveolar ridge (the place of articulation for alveolar consonants) and the palate (the place of articulation for palatal consonants). ... Palatal consonants are consonants articulated with the body of the tongue raised against the hard palate (the middle part of the roof of the mouth). ... Velars are consonants articulated with the back part of the tongue (the dorsum) against the soft palate (the back part of the roof of the mouth, known also as the velum). ... Glottal consonants are consonants articulated with the glottis. ... A stop, plosive, or occlusive is a consonant sound produced by stopping the airflow in the vocal tract. ... In phonetics, a flap or tap is a type of consonantal sound, which is produced with a single contraction of the muscles so that one articulator (such as the tongue) is thrown against another. ... Fricatives (or spirants) are consonants produced by forcing air through a narrow channel made by placing two articulators close together. ... Affricate consonants begin as stops (most often an alveolar, such as or ) but release as a fricative (such as or or, in a couple of languages, into a fricative trill) rather than directly into the following vowel. ... A nasal consonant is produced when the velum—that fleshy part of the palate near the back—is lowered, allowing air to escape freely through the nose. ... Approximants are speech sounds that could be regarded as intermediate between vowels and typical consonants. ... In phonetics, aspiration is the strong burst of air that accompanies the release of some obstruents. ... An apical consonant is a phone produced by obstructing the air passage with the apex of the tongue (i. ... This article includes a list of works cited or a list of external links, but its sources remain unclear because it lacks in-text citations. ... An alveolar ridge is one of the two jaw ridges either on the roof of the mouth between the upper teeth and the hard palate or on the bottom of the mouth behind the lower teeth. ... Sagittal section of alveolo-palatal fricative In phonetics, alveolo-palatal (or alveopalatal) consonants are palatalized postalveolar fricatives, articulated with the blade of the tongue behind the alveolar ridge, and the body of the tongue raised toward the palate. ... A laminal consonant is a phone produced by obstructing the air passage with the blade of the tongue, which is the flat top front surface just behind the tip of the tongue. ... Laterals are L-like consonants pronounced with an occlusion made somewhere along the axis of the tongue, while air from the lungs escapes at one side or both sides of the tongue. ... An apical consonant is a phone produced by obstructing the air passage with the apex of the tongue (i. ... Image File history File links Ri_(Japanese). ... Image File history File links Ro_(Japanese). ... Exolabial and endolabial [ʏ] in Swedish. ... Mora (plural moras or morae) is a unit of sound used in phonology that determines syllable weight (which in turn determines stress or timing) in some languages. ... Sagittal section of nose mouth, pharynx, and larynx. ... In oral language, a phoneme is the theoretical basic unit of sound that can be used to distinguish words or morphemes; in sign language, it is a similarly basic unit of hand shape, motion, position, or facial expression. ... Image File history File links Hi_(Japanese). ... Image File history File links Fu_(Japanese). ... In phonetics, gemination is when a spoken consonant is doubled, so that it is pronounced for an audibly longer period of time than a single consonant. ... In phonetics, an obstruent is a consonant sound formed by obstructing the airway. ...

Vowels

Japanese has 5 vowels: Image File history File links This is a lossless scalable vector image. ...

• /i, ɯ, e, o, a/

Japanese vowels are pronounced as monophthongs, unlike in English; they are similar to their Spanish or Italian counterparts. However, the high back vowel /ü̜/ listen (help· info) is somewhat centralized as well as "compression rounded", rather than protrusion rounded as [u], or unrounded as [ɯ]. More precisely, /ü̜/ is pronounced with the lips compressed toward each other but not spread to the sides. The IPA transcriptions on the right side of the diagram at right are suggested by Okada (1999). Note, however, that there is no IPA symbol for lip compression, so no transcription will be complete. /ü̜/ is transliterated as u. A monophthong (in Greek μονόφθογγος = single note) is a pure vowel sound, one whose articulation at both beginning and end is relatively fixed, and which does not glide up or down towards a new position of articulation; compare diphthong. ... Vowels Near-close Close-mid Mid Open-mid Near-open Open Where symbols appear in pairs, the one to the right represents a rounded vowel. ... Image File history File links U_(Japanese). ... Centralization in phonetics may refer to central vowels central or medial consonants This is a disambiguation page — a navigational aid which lists other pages that might otherwise share the same title. ... Exolabial and endolabial [ʏ] in Swedish. ...

Japanese a is a low, non-palatal, non-retracted low vowel, IPA [ɑ], though it is also often represented as [a]. It is between the English a in "father" and the English a in "dad". The Japanese o listen (help· info) is a "flat" o, unlike the English one, which is a diphthong. Try to keep your tongue lowered while pronouncing the Japanese o, and also try to keep your lips from moving while pronouncing the Japanese o. The i is like English ee in "feet." The e sounds to English speakers like a mix between short e in as in "bed," and long e as in "lay," though it is closer to the former than the latter. Image File history File links O_(Japanese). ... In phonetics, a diphthong (also gliding vowel) (Greek δίφθογγος, diphthongos, literally with two sounds, or with two tones) is a monosyllabic vowel combination involving a quick but smooth movement from one vowel to another, often interpreted by listeners as a single vowel sound or phoneme. ...

Vowels have a phonemic length distinction (i.e., short vs. long). Cf. contrasting pairs of words like ojisan /ojisaN/ "uncle" vs. ojiisan /ojiisaN/ "grandfather", or tsuki /tsuki/ "moon" vs. tsūki /tsuuki/ "airflow". In linguistics, vowel length is the perceived duration of a vowel sound. ...

In most phonological analyses, all vowels are treated as occurring with the time frame of one mora. Phonetically long vowels, then, are treated as a sequence of two identical vowels, i.e. ojiisan is /ojiisaN/ not /ojiːsaN/. Phonology (Greek phonÄ“ = voice/sound and logos = word/speech), is a subfield of linguistics which studies the sound system of a specific language (or languages). ... Mora (plural moras or morae) is a unit of sound used in phonology that determines syllable weight (which in turn determines stress or timing) in some languages. ...

Although the phonotactics of Japanese lead some to believe that the language lacks diphthongs, this may not be correct. A diphthong could very basically be defined as two vowels pronounced in one syllable; given this definition of diphthongs, Japanese, like so many other languages, would have them. In English, a diphthong such as the one in eye is pronounced as a vowel with a following off-glide: [aɪ̯] or [aj]; in Japanese the sequence in ai 愛 'love' is pronounced just as it is in 'eye' in English. At least phonetically, this suggests that diphthongs may occur in Japanese. Note: This page or section contains IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. ... In phonetics, a diphthong (also gliding vowel) (Greek δίφθογγος, diphthongos, literally with two sounds, or with two tones) is a monosyllabic vowel combination involving a quick but smooth movement from one vowel to another, often interpreted by listeners as a single vowel sound or phoneme. ... In phonetics, a diphthong (also gliding vowel) (Greek δίφθογγος, diphthongos, literally with two sounds, or with two tones) is a monosyllabic vowel combination involving a quick but smooth movement from one vowel to another, often interpreted by listeners as a single vowel sound or phoneme. ...

Within words and phrase, Japanese allows long sequences of phonetic vowels without intervening consonants, although the pitch accent and slight rhythm breaks help track the timing when the vowels are identical.

[hoo.o↓o]	hōō o (鳳凰を)	'phoenix (direct object)'
[to↑o.oo.o↓.o↑oɯ]	tōō o ōu (東欧を覆う)	'to cover Eastern Europe' (this artificial example is not something that would normally be said)

Phonological processes

Japanese contains a number of phonological processes which greatly alter the phonetic realization of consonants and vowels. A few are listed below.

Consonant processes

Weakening

Non-coronal voiced stops /b, ɡ/ between vowels may be weakened to fricatives, especially in fast and/or casual speech: Coronal consonants are articulated with the flexible front part of the tongue. ... A voiced consonant is a sound made as the vocal cords vibrate, as opposed to a voiceless consonant, where the vocal cords are relaxed. ... A stop, plosive, or occlusive is a consonant sound produced by stopping the airflow in the vocal tract. ... Note: This page contains phonetic information presented in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) using Unicode. ...

However, /ɡ/ is further complicated by its variant realization as a velar nasal [ŋ]. Standard Japanese speakers can be categorized into 3 groups (A, B, C), which will be explained below. If a speaker pronounces a given word consistently with the allophone [ŋ] (i.e. a B-speaker), that speaker will never have [ɣ] as an allophone in that same word. If a speaker varies between [ŋ] and [ɡ] (i.e. an A-speaker) or is generally consistent in using [ɡ], then the velar fricative [ɣ] is always another possible allophone in fast speech. The voiced bilabial fricative is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. ... The voiced velar fricative is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. ... The velar nasal is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. ... In phonetics, an allophone is one of several similar phones that belong to the same phoneme. ...

/g/ may be weakened to nasal [ŋ] when it occurs within words — this includes not only between vowels but also between a vowel and a consonant. There is a fair amount of variation between speakers, however. Some, such as Vance (1987), have suggested that the variation follows social class; others, such as Akamatsu (1997), suggest that the variation follows age and geographic location. The generalized situation is as follows.

At the beginning of words:

• all present-day standard Japanese speakers generally use the stop [ɡ] at the beginning of words:  /ɡaijɯɯ/ → [ɡaijɯɯ] gaiyū 外遊 'overseas trip'   (but not *[ŋaijɯɯ])

In the middle of simple words (i.e. non-compounds): In linguistics, a compound is a lexeme (a word) that consists of more than one other lexeme. ...

• A. majority of speakers uses either [ŋ] or [ɡ] in free variation:  /kaɡɯ/ → [kaŋɯ] or [kaɡɯ] kagu 家具 'furniture'
• B. minority of speakers consistently uses [ŋ]:  /kaɡɯ/ → [kaŋɯ]   (but not *[kaɡɯ])
• C. smaller minority of speakers consistently uses [ɡ]^[1]:  /kaɡɯ/ → [kaɡɯ]   (but not *[kaŋɯ])

In the middle of compound words morpheme-initially: In morpheme-based morphology, a morpheme is the smallest lingual unit that carries a semantic interpretation. ...

• B-speakers mentioned directly above consistently use [ɡ]: 

So, for some speakers the following two words are a minimal pair while for others they are homophonous: In phonology, minimal pairs are pairs of words or phrases in a particular language, which differ in only one phone, phoneme, toneme or chroneme and have a distinct meaning. ...

• sengo 1,005 (せんご) 'one thousand five' = [seŋɡo] for B-speakers
• sengo 戦後 (せんこ゜) 'postwar' = [seŋŋo] for B-speakers^[2]

To summarize using the example of hage はげ 'baldness':

• A-speakers: /haɡe/ → [haŋe] or [hage] or [haɣe]
• B-speakers: /haɡe/ → [haŋe]
• C-speakers: /haɡe/ → [hage] or [haɣe]

Palatalization and affrication

The palatals /i/ and /j/ palatalize the consonants they follow:

The coronals /s, z, n, t/ and glottal /h/ are affected as follows: Palatalization means pronouncing a sound nearer to the hard palate, making it more like a palatal consonant; this is towards the front of the mouth for a velar or uvular consonant, but towards the back of the mouth for a front (e. ... (Linguistics) Coronals refer to Coronal consonants. ... Glottal consonants are consonants articulated with the glottis. ...

Of the allophones of /z/, the affricate [ʥ] is most common, especially at the beginning of utterances and after /N/ (or /n/, depending on the analysis), while fricative [ʑ] may occur between vowels. Both sounds, however, are in free variation. The (laminodorso-)alveolopalatal [ȵ] allophone differs from a palatalized apico-dental [n̺ʲ], a palatalized apico-alveolar nasal, [nʲ] or a palatal nasal [ɲ]. Similarly, while the symbols [c] and [ɟ] may be encountered, they are not strictly correct, as they represent palatal stops, whereas the Japanese sounds are articulated more forward as alveolopalatal [ȶ] and [ȡ]. The voiceless alveolo-palatal fricative or laminal postalveolar fricative is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. ... Sagittal section of alveolo-palatal fricative In phonetics, alveolo-palatal (or alveopalatal) consonants are palatalized postalveolar fricatives, articulated with the blade of the tongue behind the alveolar ridge, and the body of the tongue raised toward the palate. ... Sagittal section of alveolo-palatal fricative In phonetics, alveolo-palatal (or alveopalatal) consonants are palatalized postalveolar fricatives, articulated with the blade of the tongue behind the alveolar ridge, and the body of the tongue raised toward the palate. ... The voiceless alveolo-palatal affricate is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. ... The voiceless palatal fricative is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. ... An affricate is a consonant that begins like a stop (most often an alveovelar, such as [t] or [d]) and that doesnt have a release of its own, but opens directly into a fricative (or, in one language, into a trill). ... The voiced alveolo-palatal voiceless or laminal postalveolar fricative is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. ... Free variation in linguistics is the phenomenon of two (or more) sounds or forms appearing in the same environment without a change in meaning and without being considered incorrect by native speakers. ... The palatal nasal is a type of consonant, used in some spoken languages. ...

In the case of the /s/, /z/, and /t/, when followed by /j/, historically, the consonants were palatalized with /j/ merging into a single pronunciation. In modern Japanese, these have become separate phonemes:

The vowel /ɯ/ also affects consonants that it follows:

The voiceless bilabial fricative is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. ... An affricate is a consonant that begins like a stop (most often an alveovelar, such as [t] or [d]) and that doesnt have a release of its own, but opens directly into a fricative (or, in one language, into a trill). ...

Moraic nasal

Some analyses of Japanese treat the moraic nasal as the archiphoneme /N/. However, other, less abstract approaches treat a syllable-final nasal as a regular coronal /n/. In either case, it almost always follows vowels (but never consonants) and undergoes a variety of assimilatory processes. Within words, it is variously: In oral language, a phoneme is the theoretical basic unit of sound that can be used to distinguish words or morphemes; in sign language, it is a similarly basic unit of hand shape, motion, position, or facial expression. ... Coronal consonants are articulated with the flexible front part of the tongue. ... Assimilation is a regular and frequent sound change process by which a phoneme changes to match an adjacent phoneme in a word. ...

• uvular [ɴ] at the end of utterances and in isolation.
• bilabial [m] before [p] and [b]; this pronunciation is also sometimes found at the end of utterances and in isolation. Singers are taught to pronounce all instances of this sound as [m].
• dental [n] before coronals [d] and [t]; never found utterance-finally.
• velar [ŋ] before [k] and [g].
• [Ṽ] (a nasalized vowel) before vowels, approximants (/j/ and /ɰ/), and fricatives (/s/, /z/, and /h/). Also found utterance-finally.

Some speakers produce /n/ before /z/, while others produce a nasalized vowel before /z/ (see Akamatsu 1997). Coronal consonants are articulated with the flexible front part of the tongue. ... In phonetics, nasalization is the production of a sound while the velum is lowered, so that air escapes partially or wholly through the nose during the production of the sound. ...

Moraic obstruent

In some analyses of Japanese, the archiphoneme /Q/ is posited. However, not all scholars agree that this is the best analysis. In those approaches that incorporate the moraic obstruent, it is said to completely assimilate to the following obstruent, resulting in a geminate (that is, double) consonant. The assimilated /Q/ remains unreleased and thus the geminates are phonetically long consonants. /Q/ does not occur before vowels or nasal consonants. This archiphoneme has a wide variety of phonetic realizations, for example: In human language, a phoneme is the theoretical representation of a sound. ... Listen to this article · (info) This audio file was created from the revision dated 2005-07-20, and does not reflect subsequent edits to the article. ...

Another analysis of Japanese dispenses with /Q/ and other archiphonemes entirely. In this approach, the words above are phonemicized as shown below:

/d, z/ neutralization

• The contrast between /d/ and /z/ is neutralized before /ɯ/ and /i/. By convention, it is often assumed to be /z/, though some analyze it as /dz/, the voiced counterpart to /ts/. Among younger speakers, the contrast between /du/ and /zu/ has been reintroduced through loan words.

In human language, a phoneme is the theoretical representation of a sound. ... Phoneticians define phonation as use of the laryngeal system to generate an audible source of acoustic energy, i. ... A loanword (or a borrowing) is a word taken in by one language from another. ...

Vowel processes

Devoicing

Japanese vowels, especially /i/ and /ɯ/, tend to be devoiced when between unvoiced consonants except when they are in accented moras. Additionally, /i/ and /ɯ/ are optionally devoiced following a voiceless consonant and at the end of an utterance. Phoneticians define phonation as use of the laryngeal system to generate an audible source of acoustic energy, i. ...

To a lesser extent /o/ (and even rarer /a/) may be devoiced with the further requirement that there be two or more adjacent moras containing /o/.

Devoicing is common in even normal slow speech and is not restricted to only fast speech.

The common sentence-ending copula desu is pronounced [desɯ̥]. This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ...

Gender roles also play a part: it is regarded as effeminate to pronounce devoiced vowels, particularly the terminal "u" as in "arimasu". Basilectic varieties of Japanese can sometimes be recognized by their hyper-devoicing, while in some Western dialects and some registers of formal speech, every vowel is pronounced. In linguistics, a basilect is a dialect of speech that has diverged so far from the standard language that in essence it has become a different language. ...

Nasalization

Japanese vowels are slightly nasalized when adjacent to nasals /m, n/. Before the moraic nasal /N/, vowels are heavily nasalized: In phonetics, nasalization is the production of a sound while the velum is lowered, so that air escapes partially or wholly through the nose during the production of the sound. ...

Glottal stop insertion

At the beginning and end of utterances, Japanese vowels may be preceded and followed by a glottal stop [ʔ], respectively. This is demonstrated below with the following words (as pronounced in isolation): The glottal stop or voiceless glottal plosive is a type of consonantal sound, used in many spoken languages. ...

When an utterance-final word is uttered with emphasis, this glottal stop is plainly audible, and is often indicated in the writing system with a small letter tsu っ called a sokuon. Japanese writing Kanji Kana Hiragana Katakana Hentaigana Manyogana Uses Furigana Okurigana Rōmaji The sokuon (Japanese: ) is a Japanese symbol consisting of a small hiragana or katakana tsu. ...

Moras and phonotactics

If considered as a system of morae (or moras) instead of syllables (as the katakana and hiragana phonetic writing systems explicitly do), the sound structure is very simple: The language is made of morae, each with the same approximate time value and stress (stress, here, being correlated with loudness, not pitch). The Japanese mora may consist of either a vowel or one of the two moraic consonants, /N/ and /Q/ (the less abstract analysis that dispenses with archiphonemes defines possible moraic consonants as any voiceless obstruent, or a nasal, in the syllable coda position. Scholars disagree over whether the coda nasal is limited to /n/ or can also include /m/). A vowel may be preceded by an optional (non-moraic) consonant, with or without a palatal glide /j/. Mora (plural moras or morae) is a unit of sound used in phonology that determines syllable weight (which in turn determines stress or timing) in some languages. ... Katakana ) is a Japanese syllabary, one component of the Japanese writing system along with hiragana, kanji, and in some cases the Latin alphabet. ... Japanese writing Kanji Kana Hiragana Katakana Hentaigana Manyōgana Uses Furigana Okurigana Rōmaji Hiragana ) is a Japanese syllabary, one component of the Japanese writing system, along with katakana and kanji; the Latin alphabet is also used in some cases. ... In oral language, a phoneme is the theoretical basic unit of sound that can be used to distinguish words or morphemes; in sign language, it is a similarly basic unit of hand shape, motion, position, or facial expression. ...

• In this table, the period represents a division between moras, rather than the more common usage of a division between syllables.

Consonantal morae are restricted from occurring word initially, though utterances starting with [n] are possible. Vowels may be long, and consonants may be geminate (doubled). Geminate consonants are limited to a sequence of /Q/ plus a voiceless obstruent, though some words are written with geminate voiced obstruents. In the analysis without archiphonemes, geminate clusters are simply two identical consonants, one after the other. Phoneticians define phonation as use of the laryngeal system to generate an audible source of acoustic energy, i. ... In phonetics, an obstruent is a consonant sound formed by obstructing the airway. ...

In the writing system, each kana corresponds to a mora. The moraic /Q/ (i.e., the first half of a geminate cluster) is indicated by a small "tsu" symbol called a sokuon (subscript ッ in katakana, or っ in hiragana). Long vowels are usually indicated in katakana by a long dash following the first vowel, as in sābisu サービス 'service'. The direction of this dash follows the direction of writing. Japanese writing Kanji 漢字 Kana 仮名 Hiragana 平仮名 Katakana 片仮名 Manyogana 万葉仮名 Uses Furigana 振り仮名 Okurigana 送り仮名 Rōmaji ローマ字 For other meanings of Kana, see Kana (disambiguation). ... Japanese writing Kanji Kana Hiragana Katakana Hentaigana Manyogana Uses Furigana Okurigana Rōmaji The sokuon (Japanese: ) is a Japanese symbol consisting of a small hiragana or katakana tsu. ... Nihongo (meaning Japanese language), written vertically in kanji Yokogaki (横書き, horizontal writing) and tategaki (縦書き, vertical writing) are two systems of Japanese writing. ...

In English, stressed syllables in a word are pronounced louder, longer, and with higher pitch, while unstressed syllables are relatively shorter in duration. In Japanese, all morae are pronounced with equal length and loudness. Japanese is therefore said to be a mora-timed language. The English language is a West Germanic language that originates in England. ... In linguistics, stress is the emphasis given to some syllables (often no more than one in each word, but in many languages, long words have a secondary stress a few syllables away from the primary stress, as in the words cóunterfòil or còunterintélligence. ... A syllable (Ancient Greek: ) is a unit of organization for a sequence of speech sounds. ... A word is a unit of language that carries meaning and consists of one or more morphemes which are linked more or less tightly together, and has a phonetical value. ... Mora (plural moras or morae) is a unit of sound used in phonology that determines syllable weight (which in turn determines stress or timing) in some languages. ... In linguistics, the timing in a language comprises the rhythmic qualities of speech, in particular how syllables are distributed across time. ...

On the other hand, since all syllables have equal stress in Japanese, some unstressed syllables in European languages tend to be inaudible to the Japanese ear, leading to confusion. The Indo-European languages comprise a family of several hundred related languages and dialects [1], including most of the major languages of Europe, as well as many spoken in the Indian subcontinent (South Asia), the Iranian plateau (Southwest Asia), and Central Asia. ...

(Compare to the syllable system of Finnish and Italian.)

Prosody

Main article: Japanese pitch accent

In Japanese, an accented mora is pronounced with higher pitch than the following mora. This is part of the Japanese intonation pattern. Most dialects of the Japanese language have lexically-distinct pitch accent, though the position of the accent for a given word may vary among them. ... Pitch accent is a kind of accent system employed in many languages around the world. ... Intonation, in linguistics, is the variation of pitch when speaking. ...

Japanese does have a distinct intonation pattern. This 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 large source of confusion for many non-native speakers. In linguistics, a sentence is a unit of language, characterized in most languages by the presence of a finite verb. ...

The Japanese intonation pattern varies with regional dialect. A dialect (from the Greek word διάλεκτος, dialektos) is a variety of a language characteristic of a particular group of the languages speakers. ...

Notes

1. Akamatsu (1997) speculates that only 10% of population are consistent [ɡ] users.
2. Note that the symbol ゜is used by Japanese academia to distinguish between [ɡ] and [ŋ].

Bibliography

• Akamatsu, Tsutomu. (1997). Japanese phonetics: Theory and practice. München: LINCOM EUROPA. ISBN 3-89586-095-6.
• Akamatsu, Tsutomu. (2000). Japanese phonology: A functional approach. München: LINCOM EUROPA. ISBN 3-89586-544-3.
• Bloch, Bernard. (1950). Studies in colloquial Japanese IV: Phonemics. Language, 26, 86–125.
• Haraguchi, Shosuke. (1977). The tone pattern of Japanese: An autosegmental theory of tonology. Tokyo: Kaitakusha. ISBN 0-87040-371-0.
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