The , also written as ''yōon'', is a feature of the

Japanese language is spoken natively by about 128 million people, primarily by Japanese people and primarily in Japan, the only country where it is the national language. Japanese belongs to the Japonic or Japanese- Ryukyuan language family. There have been ma ...

in which a

mora Mora may refer to: People * Mora (surname) Places Sweden * Mora, Säter, Sweden * Mora, Sweden, the seat of Mora Municipality * Mora Municipality, Sweden United States * Mora, Louisiana, an unincorporated community * Mora, Minnesota, a city * M ...

is formed with an added sound, i.e., palatalized, or (more rarely in the modern language) with an added sound, i.e.

labialized Labialization is a secondary articulatory feature of sounds in some languages. Labialized sounds involve the lips while the remainder of the oral cavity produces another sound. The term is normally restricted to consonants. When vowels involve ...

. ''Yōon'' are represented in

hiragana is a Japanese syllabary, part of the Japanese writing system, along with ''katakana'' as well as ''kanji''. It is a phonetic lettering system. The word ''hiragana'' literally means "flowing" or "simple" kana ("simple" originally as contrast ...

using a kana ending in ''i'', such as き (''ki''), plus a smaller version of one of the three ''y'' kana, ''ya'', ''yu'' or ''yo''. For example, ''kyō'', "today" (今日), is written きょう [], using a small version of the ''yo'' kana, よ. Contrast this with ''kiyō'', "skillful" (器用), which is written きよう [], with a full-sized ''yo'' kana. In historical kana orthography, ''yōon'' were not distinguished with the smaller kana, and had to be determined by context. In earlier stages of Japanese, and in certain dialects, ''yōon'' can also be formed with the kana ''wa'', ''wi'', ''we'', and ''wo''; for example, くゎ/クヮ ''kwa'',　くゐ/クヰ ''kwi'', くゑ/クヱ ''kwe'',　くを/クヲ ''kwo''. Although obsolete in modern Japanese, ''kwa'' and ''kwi'' can still be found in several of the

Ryukyuan languages The , also Lewchewan or Luchuan (), are the indigenous languages of the Ryukyu Islands, the southernmost part of the Japanese archipelago. Along with the Japanese language and the Hachijō language, they make up the Japonic language family. Al ...

today, while ''kwe'' is formed with the digraph くぇ. Instead of the kana き, these are formed with the kana for ''ku'', く/ク.

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Other representations

Japanese Braille Japanese Braille is the braille script of the Japanese language. It is based on the original braille script, though the connection is tenuous. In Japanese it is known as , literally "dot characters". It transcribes Japanese more or less as it w ...

, Yōon is indicated with one of the yōon, yōon+dakuten, or yōon+handakuten prefixes. Unlike in kana, Braille yōon is prefixed to the -a/-u/-o syllables, rather than appending ya, yu or yo to an -i kana, e.g. ''kyu'': きゅ - ki + yu → - yōon + ku. Likewise, the -w- syllables are indicated by a prefix of the -a/-i/-e/-o syllables, rather than an -u syllable, e.g. くぁ / くゎ (kwa) = -w- + ka: . {{DEFAULTSORT:Yoon Japanese phonology Kana Japanese writing system terms