uma,

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the following m doubled in the pronunciation of the four words "horse"; umaki, tasty"; umaruru, "to be born"; ume, "plum-tree," pronounced mma, mmaki, mmaruru, mme. But these deviations are slight and unimportant. above words will be understood if pronounced as written.

All the

The diphthongs, such as ao, au, ei, ii, ou, call for no special comment, as each vowel retains its own proper sound.

The consonants are pronounced approximately as in English, subject to the following remarks:

ƒ is a true labial ƒ, not the English labio-dental.

g never has the sound of j. At the beginning of a word it is pronounced hard, like the g in give. In the middle of a word it has the sound of English ng in "longing." Thus Kiga, the name of a place, rhymes almost exactly with "singer" (not with "finger"). The words ga, "of," and gotoki, "like," also take the ng sound.

h before i sounds nearly like the German ch in "mich," and sometimes passes almost into sh.

n at the end of a word is pronounced half-way between a true n and the French nasal n. Nouns having a final n are mostly of Chinese origin.

y is always a consonant. Thus the syllable mya in myaku, "the pulse," is pronounced as one syllable, like mia in the English word "amiable." Care must be taken not to confound it with the dissyllable in such words as miyako, "a capital city."

z has almost the sound of dz when preceding the vowel u; thus mizu, "water," is pronounced almost midzu.

Double consonants must be distinctly sounded, as in Italian, thus:

kite, "having come"; kitte, "a ticket."

koka, "an ancient poem "; kokka, "hearth and home."

Generally speaking, the Japanese pronunciation both of vowels and of consonants is less broad and heavy than that current in most European languages, and especially in English. This remark applies more particularly to the letters ch, j, r, sh, and ts. Tones, such as those of the Chinese, are entirely absent. There is little or no tonic accent, and only a very slight rhetorical accent; that is to say, that all the syllables of a word and all the words of a sentence are pronounced equally, or nearly so. Students must beware of importing into Japanese the strong and constantly recurring stress by which we in English single out one syllable in every word, and the chief words in every sentence.

All Japanese words end either in a vowel or in the consonant n. There are no combinations of consonants excepting ts and the double consonants already mentioned, among which must be counted ssh and tch, standing for double sh and double ch, as in kesshin, "resolve"; zetchō, "peak." By some very careful speakers a w is pronounced after k in many words taken from the Chinese. Thus kwannin, "an official"; Gwaimushō, "the Foreign Office." But the pronunciation current in Tōkyō and in most parts of the country is simply kannin, Gaimushō, etc.

The

1.-"Nigori," i.e. "muddling," is the name given by the Japanese to the substitution of sonants for surds. consonants affected are:

* In contradistinction to the sonant letters, the surd letters are said to be sumi, i.e. "clear." The two categories together are termed sei-daku, sei being the Chinese equivalent for "clear," and daku for "muddled,"

Ω

N.B.-F and h also often change into p, especially in Chinese compounds. This is called "han-nigori," i.e. "half muddling."

The rule regarding the nigori, stated broadly, is that the initial surd of an independent word changes into the corresponding sonant when the word is used as the second member of a compound, thus:

kuni-jū, 'throughout the land," from kuni and chū.

waru-jare, "a practical joke,"

fune-bune, "all sorts of vessels," mushiba, a carious tooth," hongoku, "native country," ronzuru, "to discuss,"

waruki and share.

fune repeated.

mushi and ha.

hon and koku.

ron and suru.

The above rule is by no means an absolute one, euphony, and sometimes the varying caprice of individuals, deciding in each case whether the change shall or shall not take place. F and h, however, always change either into b or into p if the first member of the compound ends in the consonant n, thus:

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патри, 'the south wind," from nan and fu.

sam-ben, "three times,"

san and hen.

2. As shown in the preceding examples, n changes into m before a labial,

3. The following category of changes affects a large number of compound words of Chinese origin, and notably the numerals as combined with the "auxiliary numerals":

4.-The Japanese cannot pronounce all their consonants before all their vowels. This leads to the following euphonic laws :-d, j, and z are correlated in such wise that d stands only before the three vowels a, e, and o; j only before a, i, o, and u ; and only before a, e, o, u. Apparent irregularities are hereby caused in the conjugation of many verbs, thus:

Fand h are similarly correlated, ƒ standing only before u, and h only before the other four vowels, thus :

S and sh are correlated, sh standing only before i, and s only before the other four vowels, thus: