The is a system of manual ''

kana The term may refer to a number of syllabaries used to write Japanese phonological units, morae. Such syllabaries include (1) the original kana, or , which were Chinese characters (kanji) used phonetically to transcribe Japanese, the most p ...

'' used as part of

Japanese Sign Language , also known by the acronym JSL, is the dominant sign language in Japan and is a complete natural language, distinct from but influenced by the spoken Japanese language. Population There are 304,000 Deaf and Hard of Hearing people who are above ...

(JSL). It is a signary of 45 signs and 4

diacritic A diacritic (also diacritical mark, diacritical point, diacritical sign, or accent) is a glyph added to a letter or to a basic glyph. The term derives from the Ancient Greek (, "distinguishing"), from (, "to distinguish"). The word ''diacriti ...

s representing the phonetic syllables of the Japanese language. Signs are distinguished both in the direction they point, and in whether the palm faces the viewer or the signer. For example, the manual syllables ''na, ni, ha'' are all made with the first two fingers of the hand extended straight, but for ''na'' the fingers point down, for ''ni'' across the body, and for ''ha'' toward the viewer. The signs for ''te'' and ''ho'' are both an open flat hand, but in ''te'' the palm faces the viewer, and in ''ho'' it faces away. Although a syllabary rather than an

alphabet An alphabet is a standardized set of basic written graphemes (called letters) that represent the phonemes of certain spoken languages. Not all writing systems represent language in this way; in a syllabary, each character represents a syllab ...

, manual

is based on the

manual alphabet Fingerspelling (or dactylology) is the representation of the letters of a writing system, and sometimes numeral systems, using only the hands. These manual alphabets (also known as finger alphabets or hand alphabets) have often been used in deaf ...

of American Sign Language. The simple vowels ''a, i, u, e, o'' are nearly identical to the ASL vowels, while the ASL consonants ''k, s, t, n, h, m, y, r, w'' are used for the corresponding syllables ending in the vowel ''a'' in manual kana: ''ka, sa, ta, na, ha, ma, ya, ra, wa''. The sole exception is ''ta'', which was modified because the ASL letter ''t'' is an obscene gesture in Japan. The other 31 manual ''kana'' are taken from a variety of sources. The signs for ''ko, su, tu (tsu), ni, hu (fu), he, ru, re, ro'' imitate the shapes of the ''

katakana is a Japanese syllabary, one component of the Japanese writing system along with hiragana, kanji and in some cases the Latin script (known as rōmaji). The word ''katakana'' means "fragmentary kana", as the katakana characters are derived f ...

'' for those syllables. The signs for ''no, ri, n'' trace the way those ''katakana'' are written, just as ''j'' and ''z'' do in ASL. The signs ''hi, mi, yo, mu, shi, ku, ti (chi)'' are slight modifications of the numerals 1 ''hito'', 3 ''mi'', 4 ''yo'', 6 ''mu'', 7 ''shichi'', 9 ''ku'', 1000 ''ti''. The syllable ''yu'' represents the symbol for 'hot water' (''yu'') displayed at public bath houses. Other symbols are taken from words in Japanese Sign Language, or common gestures used by the hearing in Japan, that represent words starting with that syllable in Japanese: ''se'' from JSL "back, spine" (Japanese ''se''); ''so'' from "that" (''sore''); ''ki'' from "fox" (''kitsune''); ''ke'' from "fault" (''ketten''), or perhaps "hair" (''ke''); ''te'' from "hand" (''te''); ''to'' from "together with" (''to''); ''nu'' from "to steal" (''nusumu''); ''ne'' from "roots" (''ne''); ''ho'' from "sail" (''ho''); ''me'' from "eye" (''me''), ''mo'' from "of course" (''mochiron''). These signs may be modified to reflect the diacritics used in written ''kana''. All the modifications involve adding an element of motion to the sign. The ''

dakuten The , colloquially , is a diacritic most often used in the Japanese kana syllabaries to indicate that the consonant of a syllable should be pronounced voiced, for instance, on sounds that have undergone rendaku (sequential voicing). The , ...

'' or ''ten ten'', which represents voicing, becomes a sideways motion; the ''

handakuten The , colloquially , is a diacritic most often used in the Japanese kana syllabaries to indicate that the consonant of a syllable should be pronounced voiced, for instance, on sounds that have undergone rendaku (sequential voicing). The , c ...

'' or ''maru'', used for the consonant ''p'', moves upwards, small ''kana'' and silent ''w'' move inwards, and long vowels move downwards. That is, the voiced consonants are produced by moving the sign for the syllable with the corresponding unvoiced consonant to the side. (That is, to the right if signing with the right hand.) The manual ''kana'' ''ga, gi, gu, ge, go'' are derived this way from ''ka, ki, ku, ke, ko''; likewise, those starting with ''z, d, b'' are derived from the ''s, t, h'' kana. The ''p'' ''kana'' are derived from the ''h'' kana by moving them upwards. The long vowel in ''kō'' (indicated in ''katakana'' by a long line) is shown by moving the sign ''ko'' downward. In written ''kana'', a consonant cluster involving ''y'' or ''w'' is indicated by writing the second ''kana'' smaller than the first; a

geminate In phonetics and phonology, gemination (), or consonant lengthening (from Latin 'doubling', itself from '' gemini'' 'twins'), is an articulation of a consonant for a longer period of time than that of a singleton consonant. It is distinct from ...

consonant by writing a small ''tu'' for the first segment. In foreign borrowings, vowels may also be written small. In manual ''kana'', this is indicated by drawing the kana that would be written small in writing (the ''ya, yu, yo, wa, tu,'' etc.) inwards, toward the body. This motion is also used to derive the ''kana'' ''wi, we, wo'' (now pronounced ''i, e, o'') from the ''kana'' ''i, e, o''.

The ''Yubimoji''

See also

External links

References