The is a Japanese symbol in the form of a small

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 ...

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 ...

'' 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 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, 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 the sokuon.) In addition, it does not appear before voiced consonants (''g'', ''z'', ''d'', or ''b''), or before ''h'', except in loanwords, or distorted speech, or dialects. However, uncommon exceptions exist for stylistic reasons: For example, the Japanese name of the Pokémon species Cramorant is , pronounced . The sokuon is also used at the end of a sentence, to indicate a glottal stop (IPA , a sharp or cut-off articulation), which may indicate angry or surprised speech. This pronunciation is also used for exceptions mentioned before (e.g. a sokuon before a vowel kana). There is no standard way of romanizing the sokuon that is at the end of a sentence. In

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ide ...

writing, this is often rendered as an em dash. Other conventions are to render it as ''t'' or as an apostrophe. In the

International Phonetic Alphabet The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) is an alphabetic system of phonetic notation based primarily on the Latin script. It was devised by the International Phonetic Association in the late 19th century as a standardized representation ...

, the sokuon is transcribed with either a colon-like length mark or a doubled consonant: * ''kite'' (来て, "come") – * ''kitte'' (切手, "postage stamp") – * ''asari'' (あさり, "clams") – * ''assari'' (あっさり, "easily") – The sokuon represents 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 ...

, thus for example the word ''Nippon'' (Japan) consists of only two syllables, but four morae: ni-p-po-n.

Use in other languages

In addition to Japanese, sokuon is used in Okinawan katakana orthographies. Ainu katakana uses a small ッ both for a final ''t''-sound and to represent a sokuon (there is no ambiguity however, as gemination is

allophonic In phonology, an allophone (; from the Greek , , 'other' and , , 'voice, sound') is a set of multiple possible spoken soundsor '' phones''or signs used to pronounce a single phoneme in a particular language. For example, in English, (as in '' ...

with syllable-final ''t'').

Computer input

There are several methods of entering the sokuon using a computer or word-processor, such as xtu, ltu, ltsu, etc. Some systems, such as

Kotoeri was a Japanese language input method that came standard with OS X and earlier versions of Classic Mac OS until OS X Yosemite. ''Kotoeri'' (written ことえり or 言選り) literally means "word selection". To convert ''kana'' to ''kanji'' in m ...

for

macOS macOS (; previously OS X and originally Mac OS X) is a Unix operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc. since 2001. It is the primary operating system for Apple's Mac computers. Within the market of desktop and lapt ...

and the Microsoft IME, generate a sokuon if an applicable consonant letter is typed twice; for example tta generates った.

Other representations

Braille Braille (Pronounced: ) is a tactile writing system used by people who are visually impaired, including people who are blind, deafblind or who have low vision. It can be read either on embossed paper or by using refreshable braille disp ...

: * Computer encodings

References

External links

{{Wiktionary, 促音, っ, ッ Kana Japanese phonology Japanese writing system terms