_o_ or _wo_

[Qcumber]

I think that conventionally the object particle that is pronounced [o] is transliterated as _wo_.
At least, all the books I have do this.

Yakú ni tatánu monó wo kawa-nái hô ga íi.
/usage / [place] / not stand / thing / [object] / buy-not / direction / [subject] / good /
"One shouldnt buy useless things."
(Vaccari 1969:431)

[Psi-Lord]

Yes. The postposition o is spelt wo, the postposition e is spelt he, and the postposition wa is spelt ha.

お⇒を
え⇒へ
わ⇒は

[Omoidebanashi]

Don't write "ha" or "he" for those particles in roomaji, though, because you'll look silly.

[Rounin]

Do the opposite of what the previous poster said.

[schalke81]

to be honest, i disagree rouin...

i think it is better to write..

`nihon e ikimasu` instead of `nihon he ikimasu`
and
`watashi no namae wa...desu` is better than `watashi no namae ha...desu`

but, that s just personal opinion!

[Psi-Lord]

I personally think that one can do whatever he wants to—I never take romanisations that seriously. And then, there'll be the differences between transcription and transliteration to follow… Even if we're to stick to what is / was commonly used, Nihon-shiki uses ha, he and wo, while Hepburn uses wa, e and o for the postpositions—at least that's so if my memory serves me right (and if the Wikipedia articles regarding them are to be trusted). And then there's Kunrei-shiki, JSL, Wāpuro…

[Gormur]

I think that conventionally the object particle that is pronounced [o] is transliterated as _wo_.
At least, all the books I have do this.

Yakú ni tatánu monó wo kawa-nái hô ga íi.
/usage / [place] / not stand / thing / [object] / buy-not / direction / [subject] / good /
"One shouldnt buy useless things."
(Vaccari 1969:431)

My Japanese tutor says 'wo' is an older pronunciation for the 'o' particle. I guess it's a fairly recent change because she herself uses 'wo' and is quite young.

[Kirk]

I think that conventionally the object particle that is pronounced [o] is transliterated as _wo_.
At least, all the books I have do this.

Yakú ni tatánu monó wo kawa-nái hô ga íi.
/usage / [place] / not stand / thing / [object] / buy-not / direction / [subject] / good /
"One shouldnt buy useless things."
(Vaccari 1969:431)

My Japanese tutor says 'wo' is an older pronunciation for the 'o' particle. I guess it's a fairly recent change because she herself uses 'wo' and is quite young.

It could also survive in different dialects, even if it's disappeared in whatever is considered "standard" Japanese.

[Gormur]

I think that conventionally the object particle that is pronounced [o] is transliterated as _wo_.
At least, all the books I have do this.

Yakú ni tatánu monó wo kawa-nái hô ga íi.
/usage / [place] / not stand / thing / [object] / buy-not / direction / [subject] / good /
"One shouldnt buy useless things."
(Vaccari 1969:431)

My Japanese tutor says 'wo' is an older pronunciation for the 'o' particle. I guess it's a fairly recent change because she herself uses 'wo' and is quite young.

It could also survive in different dialects, even if it's disappeared in whatever is considered "standard" Japanese.

Perhaps, but she said it is taught as the sound "o" now instead of "wo", so in that sense, it is "standard". How people speak is totally different, I agree, though I don't know anyone under 30 who uses "wo", and I know Japanese from Hokkaido down to Kyushu and everywhere in between.

[Kirk]

I think that conventionally the object particle that is pronounced [o] is transliterated as _wo_.
At least, all the books I have do this.

Yakú ni tatánu monó wo kawa-nái hô ga íi.
/usage / [place] / not stand / thing / [object] / buy-not / direction / [subject] / good /
"One shouldnt buy useless things."
(Vaccari 1969:431)

My Japanese tutor says 'wo' is an older pronunciation for the 'o' particle. I guess it's a fairly recent change because she herself uses 'wo' and is quite young.

It could also survive in different dialects, even if it's disappeared in whatever is considered "standard" Japanese.

Perhaps, but she said it is taught as the sound "o" now instead of "wo", so in that sense, it is "standard". How people speak is totally different, I agree, though I don't know anyone under 30 who uses "wo", and I know Japanese from Hokkaido down to Kyushu and everywhere in between.

Oh yeah, it's definitely taught as /o/, so I guess that fits in with how Standard Japanese is taught. I also see it Romanized as "o."

Random site note about Japanese Romanization--is there an official set of rules for Romanization used by the Japanese government? The reason I ask is that there are several different ways of Romanizing Korean but the (South) Korean government has established the official Romanization standard, and it's pretty widely used and understood. I'm just curious as to if any form of Japanese Romanization enjoys such official governmental endorsement as does Korean's official system.

Romanization can be a tricky thing, especially when various forms are competing. The current official Romanization was adopted by S. Korea in 2000, so some place names on maps may be listed in differing ways since it's pretty new.

To show the craziness of the different sets of Romanization, I'll Romanize the following words which are in IPA: [sɔul] [tʃedʒu] [[b̬jɔ] [wɔ] [pʰada] [poda]:

Official (2000-): Seoul, Jeju, ppyeo, wo, pada, boda

Official (1959-2000): Seoul, Jeju, bbyeo, weo, pada, boda

Yale: Sewul, Ceycwu, ppye, we, phata, pota

McCune-Reischauer: Sŏul, Cheju, ppyŏ, wŏ, p'ada, poda

[Psi-Lord]

Random site note about Japanese Romanization--is there an official set of rules for Romanization used by the Japanese government?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romaji
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hepburn
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nihon-shiki
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kunrei-shiki
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wapuro_romaji

[Qcumber]

Some of you, including the teacher mentioned, do not seem to realize that wo is a mere transliteration, definitely not a phonemic or phonetic transcription.

Some authors use o instead of wo, but the best ones are consistent: they supply a phonemic transcription. For example 春 を 待つ。is transcribed as Háru o mátu. « [ ] expects spring. » by Samuel E. MARTIN (A reference grammar of Japanese, 1988, 2004 :187)

The same sentence would be transliterated as Haru wo matsu. By other authors.

[Psi-Lord]

Shinji Takasugi, in his Teach Yourself Japanese, does mention that, although the standard has gone from [wo] to [o] when it comes to the accusative marker, some people still pronounce it as [wo], though he gives no details about it being dialectal or anything. [we] and [wi] have changed into [e] and [i] such a long time ago, though, that ゑ and ゐ were definitely dropped out.

Edit: I've seen some sources that mention [wi] being directly simplified to [i], while [we] would have been simplified to [je] first, and then to [e]. That seems to have happened somewhere around the 10th–11th centuries.

[Kirk]

Random site note about Japanese Romanization--is there an official set of rules for Romanization used by the Japanese government?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romaji
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hepburn
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nihon-shiki
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kunrei-shiki
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wapuro_romaji

Thanks for the links!

Shinji Takasugi, in his Teach Yourself Japanese, does mention that, although the standard has gone from [wo] to [o] when it comes to the accusative marker, some people still pronounce it as [wo], though he gives no details about it being dialectal or anything. [we] and [wi] have changed into [e] and [i] such a long time ago, though, that ゑ and ゐ were definitely dropped out.

Edit: I've seen some sources that mention [wi] being directly simplified to [i], while [we] would have been simplified to [je] first, and then to [e]. That seems to have happened somewhere around the 10th–11th centuries.

Oh, interesting--is that the locative particle [e] you're talking about?

[Psi-Lord]

Oh, interesting--is that the locative particle [e] you're talking about?

No. The [e] particle comes from [he] (and is still spelt へ he instead of え e). The [wa] particle, incidentally, also comes from [ha] (and is still spelt は ha instead of わ wa). Historically, though, the process was about the same—older [h] became [w] in the middle of words, and later this [w] was dropped except when it appeared before [a]. Since postpositions are closely linked to the word they follow, they were treated like being in the middle of words. The postposition [o] was probably caught in the [w]-dropping wave, though it didn't derive from an earlier [ho].

Pre World War spelling was very etymological and still showed signs of these changes, even if the pronunciation had actually changed centuries ago. かわ kawa 'river', for instance, was spelt かは kaha; こい koi 'love' was spelt こひ kohi; おかし okashi 'sweet' was spelt をかし wokashi; いど ido 'well' was spelt ゐど wido; and so on.

[Kirk]

Oh, interesting--is that the locative particle [e] you're talking about?

No. The [e] particle comes from [he] (and is still spelt へ he instead of え e). The [wa] particle, incidentally, also comes from [ha] (and is still spelt は ha instead of わ wa). Historically, though, the process was about the same—older [h] became [w] in the middle of words, and later this [w] was dropped except when it appeared before [a]. Since postpositions are closely linked to the word they follow, they were treated like being in the middle of words. The postposition [o] was probably caught in the [w]-dropping wave, though it didn't derive from an earlier [ho].

Interesting! Sounds like a typical case of sandhi reanalysis to me.

Pre World War spelling was very etymological and still showed signs of these changes, even if the pronunciation had actually changed centuries ago. かわ kawa 'river', for instance, was spelt かは kaha; こい koi 'love' was spelt こひ kohi; おかし okashi 'sweet' was spelt をかし wokashi; いど ido 'well' was spelt ゐど wido; and so on.

Cool--historical developments in Japanese are pretty interesting.