Japanese Orthography

“Well, I guess I’ll ask Miyuki-san about things that I don’t know.” (Lucky Star Volume 1, p. 119.)

This article explains a topic not directly related to Lucky Star.

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Takara Miyuki attempts to read Izumi Konata’s strange handwriting.

Japanese is written using primarily a combination of morphemic script (kanji, Chinese characters) and moraic script (kana).

Kana

Gojūon table. In each cell, hiragana is on the left and katakana is on the right.

	a	i	u	e	o
∅	あ ア	い イ	う ウ	え エ	お オ
k	か カ	き キ	く ク	け ケ	こ コ
g	が ガ	ぎ ギ	ぐ グ	げ ゲ	ご ゴ
s	さ サ	し シ	す ス	せ セ	そ ソ
z	ざ ザ	じ ジ	ず ズ	ぜ ゼ	ぞ ゾ
t	た タ	ち チ	つ ツ	て テ	と ト
d	だ ダ	ぢ ヂ	づ ヅ	で デ	ど ド
sokuon			っ ッ
n	な ナ	に ニ	ぬ ヌ	ね ネ	の ノ
h	は ハ	ひ ヒ	ふ フ	へ ヘ	ほ ホ
p	ぱ パ	ぴ ピ	ぷ プ	ぺ ペ	ぽ ポ
b	ば バ	び ビ	ぶ ブ	べ ベ	ぼ ボ
m	ま マ	み ミ	む ム	め メ	も モ
y	や ヤ		ゆ ユ		よ ヨ
yōon	ゃ ャ		ゅ ュ		ょ ョ
r	ら ラ	り リ	る ル	れ レ	ろ ロ
w	わ ワ				を ヲ
hatsuon			ん ン

Kana are moraic scripts (syllabaries) used to write Japanese. Each character represents a single mora, which is generally a consonant followed by a vowel. In modern Japanese, hiragana and katakana are used. Hiragana is the primary moraic script, used to write suffixes, structural words, and native words when not written in kanji. Katakana are used when it is desired for a word to stand out; generally when words are emphasized, onomatopoeia, loans, scientific names, or company names.

Kanji

Kanji are Chinese characters used to write Japanese. They can often look different from simplified and traditional Hanzi (Chinese characters used for writing Chinese). Kanji have several readings (yomi), so the pronunciation depends on context. On’yomi are readings corresponding to older Chinese loans, and can thus sometimes vaguely resemble Chinese pronunciations of Hanzi. Kun’yomi are readings corresponding to native Japanese morphemes.

Romanization with Modified Hepburn

Modified Hepburn consonant romanization chart. Parentheses is used for gemination. y in square brackets is not written before i.

Before u	Plain	Palatalized
(k)k (g)g		(k)k[y] (g)g[y]
(s)s (z)z		(s)sh (j)j
(t)ts (z)z	(t)t (d)d	(t)ch (j)j
(n)n		(n)n[y]
(f)f (p)p (b)b	((h)h (p)p (b)b	(h)h[y] (p)p[y] (b)b[y]
(m)m		(m)m[y]
y
(r)r		(r)r[y]
w

There are several systems for romanizing Japanese, but the most common is Modified Hepburn.

Vowels are written with a, i, u, e, and o. Within a morpheme, long vowels are written with a macron, except i which is doubled (ii). Within a morpheme, the sequence ou is written as ō. Vowels followed by chōonpu (ー) are written with a macron.

Moraic n (ん) is always written as n, and is followed by an apostrophe if the next letter is a vowel (a, i, u, e, or o) or y, to prevent confusion with a non-moraic n.

Particles は, へ and を are written wa, e and o.

The consonants sh, j, ch, ts, and f can appear before other vowels in loanwords, and likewise the sequences s, z, t, d may appear before other vowels and y in loanwords.