Hatsuon - Hatsuon

It is also called a "bouncing sound." Today, this phoneme is written as " n " in hiragana and "n" in katakana, such as "donna" and " shinbun ." It is indicated by the symbol "N." When looking at the actual pronunciation phonetically, it is divided into [m] (followed by p, b, m), [n] (followed by t, d, n, r), [ŋ] (followed by k, g, ŋ), and [] (followed by a, o, u, etc.), depending on the difference in the following consonant. Historically, it did not originally exist in Japanese, and one was established in the Japanese phonological system after the Heian period as the sound of Chinese characters, and the other as a phonetic change in Japanese words. In documents from the late Heian period to the Insei period, characters with the labial glottal stop -m of the Chinese characters are written as the kana "mu" such as "Kim" and "Shim" and characters with the tongue glottal stop -n are written as the kana "n" such as "Min" and "Bun." Even in Japanese words, the glottal stop of "ri" or "ni" is written as "n" in "kuda-nno" and "nanzo", while the glottal stop of "mi" or "bi" is written as "mu" in "tsumu-mu-dar" and "sen-mude". This shows that at that time, there was a distinction between intralabial glottal stop "-m" and intralingual glottal stop "-n" as phonemes, but it is thought that this distinction was lost in the Kamakura period and has continued to exist to this day.

[Katsuaki Numamoto]

Source: Shogakukan Encyclopedia Nipponica About Encyclopedia Nipponica Information | Legend

「はねる音」ともいう。「どんな」「シンブン」のように、今日、平仮名「ん」、片仮名「ン」で表記する音韻。記号《N》で示される。実際の発音を音声学的にみると、後続する子音の違いに応じて、［m］（p,b,mが後続）、［n］（t,d,n,rが後続）、［ŋ］（k,g,ŋが後続）、［］（a,o,uなどが後続）などに分かれる。歴史的にみると、本来日本語にはなく、一つは漢字音として、一つは和語の音便として、平安時代以後に日本語の音韻体系のなかに定着したものである。平安後期から院政期の文献では、漢字音の唇内撥音-mを有する字は「金(キム)」「森(シム)」のように仮名「ム」で、舌内撥音-nを有する字は「民(ミン)」「文(ブン)」のように仮名「ン」で、それぞれ表記し分けられている。和語の音便でも、「件(クダ)ンノ」「何(ナ)ンゾ」のように「リ」や「ニ」からの撥音便は「ン」、「摘ムダル」「選ムデ」のように「ミ」や「ビ」からの撥音便は「ム」で表記し分けられている。これは、当時、音韻として唇内撥音≪-m≫と舌内撥音≪-n≫とを区別していたことを物語るもので、のち鎌倉時代に入ってその区別が失われ、今日に至ったと考えられる。

［沼本克明］

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