Japanese Phonology

Miyuki Takara speaks Japanese.

Consonants

Phonemic consonants in Tokyo dialect.

	Bilabial	Dental	Alveolar	Postalveolar	Palatal	Velar	Uvular	Glottal
Plosive	p b	t d				k ɡ
Affricate			ts
Nasal	m	n					ɴ
Flap				ɽ
Fricative			s z					h
Approximant					j	w

• /p, t, tˢ, k/ are moderately aspirated
• /tˢ/ is geminated as /ttˢ/
• /b/ is typically realized as [b], but can become [β] or [v̠] in rapid speech.
• /ɡ/ often becomes [ɣ] intervocalically. It becomes [ŋ] medially in older speakers, with some exceptions.
• /ɽ/ is postalveolar medially. It is typically realized as an affricate [d̠^ɹ̝̆] initially and after /ɴ/. It may be postalveolar [l̠] in any position. Sometimes it may be approximant [ɹ].
• Phonemic /tˢ/ is normally realized as a cluster [ts]. It is palatalized to [tɕ] before /i/.
• /n/ is palatalized to [ɲ̟] before /i/. Some speakers realize it as alveolar before /u/.
• Consonants are strongly palatalized before /i/; /Ci/ typically becomes [Cʲi].
• /ɴ/, the moraic nasal, has variable realization. Word-finally, it is usually a uvular nasal consonant, or a close to close-mid nasal vowel. Before a vowel, approximant, /s/, or /h/, it is typically a close to close-mid nasal vowel. Before other consonants, it takes on the same place of articulation.
• /s, z/ are palatalized to [ɕ, ʑ] before /i/.
• /z/ is typically [^dz] initially and after /ɴ/; initially, it is palatalized to [^dʑ] before /i/.
• /h/ is realized as [ç] and [ɸ] before /i/ and /u/ respectively.
• /hh/ is intervocallically realized as [çç] before /i/, [ɸɸ] before /u/, or [xx] otherwise.
• /j/ affects the preceding consonant just like /i/, but is absorbed.
• /w/ has little to no rounding, except after /o/, and has no spreading. [ɰ].

Vowels

Phonemic vowels in Tokyo dialect.

	Front	Back
Close	i	u
Mid	e	o
Open	a

• /u/ resembles [ɯ]. It is compressed, unrounded, without spreading: narrowly [ü̜̞] or [ɯ̹̞̈]. It may be [ɨ] among younger speakers.
• /i, u/ are devoiced [i̥, u̥] between voiceless consonants. Preceding fricatives may entirely replace them.
• /su/ is often realized as [s]

Tone

Japanese is a pitch-accent language. The first mora of a word is either high or low pitch, and the second mora is the opposite pitch. High pitch is represented with an acute accent: /á/. A high mora within a word will make preceding morae in that word high-pitched.

Bibliography

• Okada, Hideo. “Japanese.” In Handbook of the International Phonetic Association. Cambridge University Press, 1999.