The is a feature of the

Japanese language is the principal language of the Japonic languages, Japonic language family spoken by the Japanese people. It has around 123 million speakers, primarily in Japan, the only country where it is the national language, and within the Japanese dia ...

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 is a Japanese language, Japanese syllabary, part of the Japanese writing system, along with ''katakana'' as well as ''kanji''. It is a phonetic lettering system. The word ''hiragana'' means "common" or "plain" kana (originally also "easy", ...

using a kana ending in ''i'', such as き (''ki'') or に (''ni''), plus a smaller version of one of the three ''y'' kana, ''ya'', ''yu'' or ''yo''. For example, 今日 (''kyō'', "today") is written きょう [], using a small version of the よ kana. Contrast this with 器用 (''kiyō'', "skillful"), which is written きよう [], with a full-sized よ 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. Ju ...

today (e.g. Okinawan), while ''kwe'' is formed with the digraph くぇ. ''Kwa'' also appears in the

Kagoshima dialect The , often referred to as the , is a group of dialects or dialect continuum of the Japanese language spoken mainly within the area of the former Ōsumi and Satsuma provinces now incorporated into the southwestern prefecture of Kagoshima. It ...

. Instead of the kana き, these are formed with the kana for ''ku'', く/ク. Some older transliterations in English follow the earlier pronunciation, e.g. '' Kwaidan'', '' Kwannon'', and such ''yōon'' may appear in loanwords e.g. ムジカ・アンティクヮ・ケルン " Musica Antiqua Köln". They were also used to write Hakka in

Taiwan under Japanese rule The Geography of Taiwan, island of Taiwan, together with the Penghu, Penghu Islands, became an annexed territory of the Empire of Japan in 1895, when the Qing dynasty ceded Taiwan Province, Fujian-Taiwan Province in the Treaty of Shimonoseki a ...

Table

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 morae, rather than appending ya, yu or yo to an -i kana, e.g. ''kyu'': きゅ - ki + yu → - yōon + ku. Likewise, the -w- morae are indicated by a prefix of the -a/-i/-e/-o morae, rather than an -u mora, e.g. くぁ / くゎ (kwa) = -w- + ka: .

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Yoon Japanese phonology Kana Japanese writing system terms