Jodai Tokushu Kanazukai - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

is an archaic kanazukai

Kanazukai

are the orthographic rules for spelling Japanese in kana. All phonographic systems attempt to account accurately the pronunciation in their spellings. However, pronunciation and accents change over time and phonemic distinctions are often lost...

used to write Japanese

Japanese language

is a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities. It is a member of the Japonic language family, which has a number of proposed relationships with other languages, none of which has gained wide acceptance among historical linguists .Japanese is an...

during the Nara period

Nara period

The of the history of Japan covers the years from AD 710 to 794. Empress Gemmei established the capital of Heijō-kyō . Except for 5 years , when the capital was briefly moved again, it remained the capital of Japanese civilization until Emperor Kammu established a new capital, Nagaoka-kyō, in 784...

. Its primary feature is to distinguish between two groups of syllables as discussed below that later merged together.

Syllables

Following are the syllabic distinctions made in Old Japanese

Old Japanese language

is the oldest attested stage of the Japanese language.This stage in the development of Japanese is still actively studied and debated, and key Old Japanese texts, such as the Man'yōshū, remain obscure in places.-Dating:...

a	i		u	e		o
ka	ki₁	ki₂	ku	ke₁	ke₂	ko₁	ko₂
ga	gi₁	gi₂	gu	ge₁	ge₂	go₁	go₂
sa	si		su	se		so₁	so₂
za	zi		zu	ze		zo₁	zo₂
ta	ti		tu	te		to₁	to₂
da	di		du	de		do₁	do₂
na	ni		nu	ne		no₁	no₂
ha	hi₁	hi₂	hu	he₁	he₂	ho
ba	bi₁	bi₂	bu	be₁	be₂	bo
ma	mi₁	mi₂	mu	me₁	me₂	mo₁	mo₂
ya			yu	ye		yo₁	yo₂
ra	ri		ru	re		ro₁	ro₂
wa	wi			we		wo

Those syllables marked in gray are known as jōdai tokushu kanazukai.

Transcription

The two groups merged together by the 9th century. It predates the development of kana

Kana

Kana are the syllabic Japanese scripts, as opposed to the logographic Chinese characters known in Japan as kanji and the Roman alphabet known as rōmaji...

, and the phonetic difference is unclear. Therefore an ad-hoc transcription system is employed.

Syllables written with subscript 1 are known as type and those with subscript 2 as type (these are the first two celestial stems, and are used for such numbering in Japanese).

There are several competing transcription systems. One popular system places a dieresis

Umlaut (diacritic)

The diaeresis and the umlaut are diacritics that consist of two dots placed over a letter, most commonly a vowel. When that letter is an i or a j, the diacritic replaces the tittle: ï....

above the vowel: ï, ë, ö. This typically represents i₂, e₂, and o₂, and assumes that unmarked i, e, and o are i₁, e₁, and o₁. It does not necessarily have anything to do with pronunciation. There are several problems with this system.

It implies a particular pronunciation, indirectly on the vowel.
It neglects to distinguish between words where the 1 / 2 distinction is not clear, such as the /to/ in /toru/ as well as in /kaditori/.

Another system uses superscripts instead of subscripts.

Meaning

There are many hypotheses to explain the distinction.
However, it is not clear whether the distinction applied to the consonant, vowel, or something else.
There is no general academic agreement.
See Old Japanese

Old Japanese language

for more information.

Usage

A word is consistently, without exception, written with syllables from a specific group.
For example, /kami₁/ "above" and /kami₂/ "god". While both words consists of an /m/ and an /i/, mi₁ can not substitute for mi₂ or vice versa. This strict distinction exists for all of the syllables marked in gray.

This usage is also found in the verb morphology. The quadrigrade conjugation is as follows:

Verb Class	Irrealis	Adverbial	Conclusive	Attributive	Realis	Imperative
Quadrigrade	-a	-i₁	-u	-u	-e₂	-e₁

The verb

Verb

A verb, from the Latin verbum meaning word, is a word that in syntax conveys an action , or a state of being . In the usual description of English, the basic form, with or without the particle to, is the infinitive...

/sak-/ "bloom" has quadrigrade conjugation class. Thus, its conjugation is as follows:

Verb Class	Irrealis	Adverbial	Conclusive	Attributive	Realis	Imperative
Verb Verb A verb, from the Latin verbum meaning word, is a word that in syntax conveys an action , or a state of being . In the usual description of English, the basic form, with or without the particle to, is the infinitive...	saka	saki₁	saku	saku	sake₂	sake₁

Before the jōdai tokushu kanazukai discovery, it was thought that quadrigrade realis and imperative shared the same form: -e. However, after the discovery, it became clear that realis was -e₂ while imperative was -e₁.

Also, jōdai tokushu kanazukai has a profound effect on etymology. It was once thought that /kami/ "above" and /kami/ "god" shared the same etymology, a god being an entity high above. However, after the discovery, it is known that "above" is /kami₁/ while "god" is /kami₂/. Thus, they are distinct words.

Man'yōgana chart

Following is a chart listing syllable and man'yōgana correspondences.

/a/	阿	安	婀	鞅	英	吾	足	嗚呼
/i/	伊	夷	怡	以	異	已	移	易	揖	因	印	壹	射	胆	五十	馬聲
/u/	汗	有	宇	于	羽	烏	紆	萬	雲	鬱	菟	鵜	卯	鸕	得
/e/	衣	愛	依	亞	哀	埃	榎	荏	得	可愛
/o/	意	於	隱	飫	淤	憶	應	邑	磤	乙
/ka/	加	可	賀	珂	迦	訶	箇	嘉	架	伽	歌	舸	軻	柯	介	甘	敢	甲	漢	干	葛	香	各	覺	髮	鹿	蚊	芳	歟
/ga/	奇	宜	何	我	賀	河	蛾	餓	峨	俄	鵝
/ki₁/	支	吉	岐	伎	棄	枳	企	耆	祇	祁	寸	杵	來
/ki₂/	歸	貴	紀	幾	奇	騎	綺	寄	記	基	機	己	既	氣	城	木	樹	黄
/gi₁/	藝	祇	岐	伎	儀	蟻	𡺸
/gi₂/	疑	宜	義	擬
/ku/	久	玖	口	句	群	苦	丘	九	鳩	倶	區	勾	矩	*	衢	窶	屨	君	訓	菊	來
/gu/	具	遇	求	隅	虞	愚	群
/ke₁/	祁	家	計	鶏	介	奚	谿	價	係	結	稽	啓	兼	監	險	異
/ke₂/	居	氣	希	擧	既	該	戒	階	開	愷	凱	慨	概	毛	食	飼	消	笥
/ge₁/	下	牙	雅	夏	霓
/ge₂/	義	宜	㝵	礙	皚
/ko₁/	古	故	高	庫	祜	姑	狐	枯	固	顧	子	兒	籠	小	粉
/ko₂/	己	許	巨	居	去	虚	忌	擧	*	拠	渠	金	今	近	乞	興	木
/go₁/	胡	呉	候	後	虞	吾	誤	悟	娯

Development

The distinction between /mo₁/ and /mo₂/ is only made in the oldest text: Kojiki
Kojiki
is the oldest extant chronicle in Japan, dating from the early 8th century and composed by Ō no Yasumaro at the request of Empress Gemmei. The Kojiki is a collection of myths concerning the origin of the four home islands of Japan, and the Kami...

. After that, they merged into /mo/.

In later texts, confusion between type A and B can be seen. Nearly all of the A/B distinctions had vanished by the Classical Japanese

Classical Japanese language

The is the literary form of the Japanese language that was the standard until the early Shōwa period . It is based on Early Middle Japanese, the language as spoken during the Heian era , but exhibits some later influences. Its use started to decline during the late Meiji period when novelists...

period. As seen in early Heian Period

Heian period

The is the last division of classical Japanese history, running from 794 to 1185. The period is named after the capital city of Heian-kyō, or modern Kyōto. It is the period in Japanese history when Buddhism, Taoism and other Chinese influences were at their height...