|
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 would be written in the ''hiragana'' or ''katakana'' syllabaries, without any provision for writing ''kanji''. Japanese Braille is a vowel-based abugida. That is, the glyphs are syllabic, but unlike kana they contain separate symbols for consonant and vowel, and the vowel takes primacy. The vowels are written in the upper left corner (points 1, 2, 4) and may be used alone. The consonants are written in the lower right corner (points 3, 5, 6) and cannot occur alone. However, the semivowel ''y'' is indicated by point 4, one of the vowel points, and the vowel combination is dropped to the bottom of the block. When this point is written in isolation, it indicates that the following syllable has a youon, medial ''y'', as in ''mya''. Syllables be ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Abugida
An abugida (, from Ge'ez: ), sometimes known as alphasyllabary, neosyllabary or pseudo-alphabet, is a segmental writing system in which consonant-vowel sequences are written as units; each unit is based on a consonant letter, and vowel notation is secondary. This contrasts with a full alphabet, in which vowels have status equal to consonants, and with an abjad, in which vowel marking is absent, partial, or optional (although in less formal contexts, all three types of script may be termed alphabets). The terms also contrast them with a syllabary, in which the symbols cannot be split into separate consonants and vowels. Related concepts were introduced independently in 1948 by James Germain Février (using the term ) and David Diringer (using the term ''semisyllabary''), then in 1959 by Fred Householder (introducing the term ''pseudo-alphabet''). The Ethiopic term "abugida" was chosen as a designation for the concept in 1990 by Peter T. Daniels. In 1992, Faber sug ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sokuon
The is a Japanese symbol in the form of a small hiragana or katakana '' tsu''. In less formal language it is called or , meaning "small ''tsu''". It serves multiple purposes in Japanese writing. Appearance In both hiragana and katakana, the sokuon appears as a ''tsu'' reduced in size: Use in Japanese The main use of the sokuon is to mark a geminate consonant, which is represented in most romanization systems by the doubling of the consonant, except that Hepburn romanization writes a geminate ''ch'' as ''tch''. It denotes the gemination of the initial consonant of the symbol that follows it. Examples: The sokuon never appears at the beginning of a word or before a vowel (''a'', ''i'', ''u'', ''e'', or ''o''), and rarely appears before a syllable that begins with the consonants ''n'', ''m'', ''r'', ''w'', or ''y''. (In words and loanwords that require geminating these consonants, ''n'', ''mu'', ''ru'', ''u'', and ''i'' are usually used, respectively, instead of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Latin Alphabet
The Latin alphabet or Roman alphabet is the collection of letters originally used by the ancient Romans to write the Latin language. Largely unaltered with the exception of extensions (such as diacritics), it used to write English and the other modern European languages. With modifications, it is also used for other alphabets, such as the Vietnamese alphabet. Its modern repertoire is standardised as the ISO basic Latin alphabet. Etymology The term ''Latin alphabet'' may refer to either the alphabet used to write Latin (as described in this article) or other alphabets based on the Latin script, which is the basic set of letters common to the various alphabets descended from the classical Latin alphabet, such as the English alphabet. These Latin-script alphabets may discard letters, like the Rotokas alphabet, or add new letters, like the Danish and Norwegian alphabets. Letter shapes have evolved over the centuries, including the development in Medieval Latin of lower-c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Numerical Digits
A numerical digit (often shortened to just digit) is a single symbol used alone (such as "2") or in combinations (such as "25"), to represent numbers in a positional numeral system. The name "digit" comes from the fact that the ten digits (Latin ''digiti'' meaning fingers) of the hands correspond to the ten symbols of the common base 10 numeral system, i.e. the decimal (ancient Latin adjective ''decem'' meaning ten) digits. For a given numeral system with an integer base, the number of different digits required is given by the absolute value of the base. For example, the decimal system (base 10) requires ten digits (0 through to 9), whereas the binary system (base 2) requires two digits (0 and 1). Overview In a basic digital system, a numeral is a sequence of digits, which may be of arbitrary length. Each position in the sequence has a place value, and each digit has a value. The value of the numeral is computed by multiplying each digit in the sequence by its ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Japanese Particles
Japanese particles, or , are suffixes or short words in Japanese grammar that immediately follow the modified noun, verb, adjective, or sentence. Their grammatical range can indicate various meanings and functions, such as speaker affect and assertiveness. Orthography and diction Japanese particles are written in hiragana in modern Japanese, though some of them also have kanji forms ( or for ''te'' ; for ''ni'' ; or for ''o'' ; and for ''wa'' ). Particles follow the same rules of phonetic transcription as all Japanese words, with the exception of (written ''ha'', pronounced ''wa'' as a particle), (written ''he'', pronounced ''e'') and (written using a hiragana character with no other use in modern Japanese, originally assigned as ''wo'', now usually pronounced ''o'', though some speakers render it as ''wo''). These exceptions are a relic of historical kana usage. Types of particles There are eight types of particles, depending on what function they serve. : ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Yōon
The , also written as ''yōon'', is a feature of the Japanese language in which a mora is formed with an added sound, i.e., palatalized, or (more rarely in the modern language) with an added sound, i.e. labialized. ''Yōon'' are represented in hiragana 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 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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 , colloquially , is a diacritic used with the kana for syllables starting with ''h'' to indicate that they should instead be pronounced with . History The ''kun'yomi'' pronunciation of the character is ''nigori''; hence the ''daku-ten'' may also be called the ''nigori-ten''. This character, meaning ''muddy'' or ''turbid'', stems from historical Chinese phonology, where consonants were traditionally classified as ''clear'' ( "voiceless"), ''lesser-clear'' ( " aspirated") and ''muddy'' ( "voiced"). (See: Middle Chinese § Initials) ''Dakuten'' were used sporadically since the start of written Japanese; their use tended to become more common as time went on. The modern practice of using dakuten in all cases of voicing in all writing only ca ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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 , colloquially , is a diacritic used with the kana for syllables starting with ''h'' to indicate that they should instead be pronounced with . History The ''kun'yomi'' pronunciation of the character is ''nigori''; hence the ''daku-ten'' may also be called the ''nigori-ten''. This character, meaning ''muddy'' or ''turbid'', stems from historical Chinese phonology, where consonants were traditionally classified as ''clear'' ( "voiceless"), ''lesser-clear'' ( " aspirated") and ''muddy'' ( "voiced"). (See: Middle Chinese § Initials) ''Dakuten'' were used sporadically since the start of written Japanese; their use tended to become more common as time went on. The modern practice of using dakuten in all cases of voicing in all writing only ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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 ''diacritic'' is a noun, though it is sometimes used in an attributive sense, whereas ''diacritical'' is only an adjective. Some diacritics, such as the acute ( ◌́ ) and grave ( ◌̀ ), are often called ''accents''. Diacritics may appear above or below a letter or in some other position such as within the letter or between two letters. The main use of diacritics in Latin script is to change the sound-values of the letters to which they are added. Historically, English has used the diaeresis diacritic to indicate the correct pronunciation of ambiguous words, such as "coöperate", without which the letter sequence could be misinterpreted to be pronounced . Other examples are the acute and grave accents, which can i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Voiced Consonant
Voice or voicing is a term used in phonetics and phonology to characterize speech sounds (usually consonants). Speech sounds can be described as either voiceless (otherwise known as ''unvoiced'') or voiced. The term, however, is used to refer to two separate concepts: *Voicing can refer to the ''articulatory process'' in which the vocal folds vibrate, its primary use in phonetics to describe phones, which are particular speech sounds. *It can also refer to a classification of speech sounds that tend to be associated with vocal cord vibration but may not actually be voiced at the articulatory level. That is the term's primary use in phonology: to describe phonemes; while in phonetics its primary use is to describe phones. For example, voicing accounts for the difference between the pair of sounds associated with the English letters "s" and "z". The two sounds are transcribed as and to distinguish them from the English letters, which have several possible pronunciations, de ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
