Strange Kana You (Probably) Don't Know

[@JJMcCullough]

This was fascinating. Great job!

[@FreeBirdJPYT]

@@JJMcCullough I’ve been a fan of yours for a while. Happy to see you here and I appreciate the compliment ✌️

[@JJMcCullough]

@@FreeBirdJPYT it’s inspired a future video!

[@FreeBirdJPYT]

@@JJMcCullough happy to help, and I’m excited to see it!

[@strike6621]

ohmigod its actually the real jjmccullough

[@evanlindsey1300]

Why do you have the Scottish flag behind you?

[@ChristianJiang]

I kept trying to wipe the screen of my phone thinking that it was dirty but it was just the white background 💀

[@mezameku]

oh my god, same.... i spent like 5 minutes trying to wipe it

[@grqfes]

same with my monitor

[@Mikelaxo]

Same. I was eating toast and kept thinking I was getting crumbs on the screen. I kept wiping, and they would come back even when I didn't take a bite. I was so mad when I realized

[@ChristianJiang]

@@Mikelaxo lol I opened a can of beer and when I wiped and it didn’t go away I thought that it had already solidified somehow

[@Sammysapphira]

The intelligence of the average youtube user is at an all time low

[@kshope855]

Someone already mentioned this but in the Ainu language (in Hokkaido), there's some unique kanas. For example the small letters (non-vowel), such as, ㇰ (-k), ㇷ゚ (-p) and ㇽ (-r). There's also small ha-hi-hu-he-ho to represent ending kh (-kh) so ㇵ, ㇶ, ㇷ, ㇸ and ㇹ. And a lot of other quirks such as the usage of "we" (ヱ) and "wi" (ヰ).

[@AbeNomiks]

Good mention, I remember seeing this at an Ainu museum

[@metalema6]

Woooow, so that's where you find those "we" and "wi"

[@Tiqerboy]

It makes sense for Ainu to use these variants because they are going to have sounds that don't exist in Japanese and if they are going to use the Japanese writing system, they have to have some way of writing them down. Many place names in Hokkaido are Japanese pronunciations of the original names in Ainu.

[@DinnerForkTongue]

Interesting how these emulate sounds you hear a lot in Russian.

[@joemetzengerstein8519]

@@DinnerForkTongue ...If anyone happens to know if there's proximity between Ainu language and Russian due to some sort of geopolitics and sociohistoric heritage (???)

[@TH-lu9du]

ヴ is probably the most known to Japanese speakers. It is sometimes written, but the v is rarely pronounced. People still say baiorin, berry guddo. Edit: oh and あ゛is well known as well from manga.

[@dooshmasta]

新世紀エヴァンゲリオン

[@ProsecutorZekrom]

Hell, I learned it from my first youtube video teaching Kana (by Japanesepod101)

[@SenhorKoringa]

⁠@@dooshmasta「エバンゲリオン」or 「エワンゲリオン」

[@HelderGriff]

I was going to mention Evangelion but a reply already did

[@dooshmasta]

@@SenhorKoringa エヴァ

[@PringoOrSomething]

I saw ヴ when reading My Hero Academia and that shit was like a jumpscare. I almost fell out of my chair

[@UnimportantAcc]

ヴァンフォーレ

[@PringoOrSomething]

AAAAAHHHHH!

[@bryant6996]

ゔ

[@loisloopez1973]

ヱ゛

[@gunngg908]

hentaigana looks like ai trying to generate hiragana

[@kaboooooomyay]

lmao

[@ACETHTraducoes]

3:08 it's official, I can't escape Touhou

[@AM22Salabok]

Tewi jumpscare

[@ACETHTraducoes]

@@AM22Salabok literally

[@CathPaluigi]

I haven't been able to for a decade

[@YWolf777]

2hu mentioned

[@tofulemon783]

Annnnnd there is a Cirno fumo in the background all along.

[@ChibbyTibblers]

When I asked my Japanese teacher why Ga is sometimes said Nga he told me something along the lines of "it is beautiful speech" and that is how they might say it on news broadcasts. It coming from the Tokyo dialect makes sense, I'm sure that is a dominant dialect on TV.

[@cadestrathern1260]

I know people in Tohoku mask their accents because they are embarrassed to sound uncivilised, and most young people there now speak exactly the same as young people in Tokyo or Osaka. But the "nga" is more of an older person thing, young people don't use it often in my experience.

[@cadestrathern1260]

​@@TTKDMS I'm just talking about the use of some Osaka-ben slang, like meccha and uchi wa etc.

[@juliansmith4295]

The nga thing is one of the first things I noticed when I watched NHK. I asked Japanese people about it at the time, but they had no idea what I was talking about.

[@Astrid-jx5dw]

Bidakuon, or nasal pronunciation (Nga etc), is not particularly Tokyo dialect, but more like Eastern Japan thing. Western Japan dialects tend to lack this. So people in eastern Japan tend to feel it sounds soft, classy, and beautiful because it’s been a part of their way of speaking. (Now this is my opinion. Maybe there’s other reasons.) Because Standard Japanese was created based on the speech spoken by samurai class, and the top samurai family resided in Tokyo, Standard Japanese sounds more like Tokyo dialect, but they are actually different. Anyway, as the population migrated from a place to place after mid-19th century, Ng pronunciation started to decline. Languages are alive and change as you know. Even in 1930s it was a topic among linguists and announcers at radio/tv stations. So the training of announcers used to include the Ng pronunciations. However the stations other than NHK seem to not so strict about it anymore. That’s why you’d notice more Ng pronunciations when you watch NHK. More young people don’t use Ng these days but it still exists. It’s just like silent k or p in English. They were probably used in the past but not anymore and we don’t exactly know why, except linguists probably.

[@graxxor]

A former gf came from a super wealthy family in choufu-shi (west tokyo where many politicians and shachos live) and they all spoke very nasally... Seemed quite in common with some upper class folk in the UK who occasionally also seem to have somewhat nasal accents.

[@KyoichiShido-cq6oi]

Handakuten is also used with R-syllables to represent l sounds:- ラ゚( la) リ゚( li) ル゚ (lu) レ゚( le)ロ゚( lo) Dakuten is also used with W-syllables to represent V-sounds(an alternative toう&ウwith Dakuten).

[@darpmosh6601]

THE LALILULELO!

[@kaboooooomyay]

i learned that from wikipedia

[@mderooij7851]

How To Type Those?

[@KyoichiShido-cq6oi]

@@mderooij7851 copy text(ラリルレロ with Handakuten).

[@Astrid-jx5dw]

Added dakuten to kana is more popular thanks to manga, and added handakuten to kana has been almost strictly to express pronunciation, like symbols, so it’s not seen in everyday writings. If you want to type dakuten, just type “dakuten” on the keyboard with Japanese word processor function, and it’ll show you ゛as an option. So if you type あthen ゛without space between them you’ll get あ゛for example.

[@bgregz]

Japanese is so cool. I find it generally to be a very consistent language, but with the occasional quirk, such as with these kana.

[@rynabuns]

i love japanese, but consistent? 😅

[@KabalFromMK9]

No natural language (as opposed to conlangs) is free from exceptions and inconsistencies. I'll give you an example of inconsistecy in Japanese; The kango (Sino-Japanese) word "sō'ō" 相応 means along the lines of appropriate; worthy; suitable. Its native synonym "fusawashii" is written as 相応しい to reflect their similar meanings. On the contrary, the kango word "fukuzatsu" 複雑 means along the line of complex; complicated; intricate. There is a native synonym of this word, "yayakoshii", but it's simply written in full hiragana as ややこしい instead of something like *複雑しい.

[@jtmassecure4488]

@@rynabunsYes it is consistent

[@ilmnt.guidance]

@@jtmassecure4488lol. I speak Mando Canto and Japanese, learned 10 lessons and after that can speak naturally a bit. Japanese? No!!! I studied 10 years now and my reading comprehension still so bad.

[@Geneius2509]

​@@SiimKogeryeah the more you know the more you start to see how ridiculously inconsistent it is

[@projectgodwill4635]

10:38 There is also the possibility to add the maru to R-row characters to get an L-row. Now, Japanese does not distinguish such sounds at all, not even in modern transcription, but Catholic missionaries in the previous century did use such to teach the readings of chants in Latin

[@ankokunokayoubi]

I heard it's also used in classical music realm in Japan to get Latin choirs right

[@SirusStarTV]

ラ゚ラ゚ティーナ

[@graxxor]

Me: Cries in ラ゚ティン

[@Eltipoquevisteayer]

​@@SirusStarTV😭😭😭

[@UnimportantAcc]

This should be used in their カタカナ英語 classes, get introduced to separating the sounds as early as possible

[@eruantien9932]

ヱ is occasionally used in names, more for stylistic reasons than anything else; e.g. クロエ and クロヱ have identical pronunciations, and the beer brand Yebisu is stylised as ヱビス (pronounced Ebisu).

[@trueloverhn]

that characer looks so cool.. it looks like 고 !

[@magicwomanm]

That character is used in the title of Evangelion, isn't it? I was wondering what that kana was!

[@tsukodome6132]

For Vocaloid fans, that character was used and known from a popular Vocaloid Song named "イ *ヱ* スマン", which translates "Yesman" by Niru Kajitsu.

[@themaniceraser]

​@@tsukodome6132 vocaloid fans!! always wondered why it was written that way but never actually bothered to research why lol, thanks for the info

[@21cpu21]

@@magicwomanm only in the rebuilds

[@Alberto2]

I'll be honest, when I heard "hentaikana", I had to do a double take, because I was thinking somethimg very different...

[@AbigailTheSimpsonsFan200]

same

[@asheep7797]

yeah

[@Lettuce1214]

hiragana.. Katakana.. Obosete Kana.. H.. Hen... WHAT

[@rutalorp4777]

That hentai actually has the same writing in kanji as the hentai u were thinking about I believe so yeah

[@yamyamyiyen]

THE CIRNO PLUSH

[@OmegaTaishu]

Strongest plush

[@FreeBirdJPYT]

⠀⠀⠀⣠⠤⡀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⣀⣀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⡜⠁⠀⠈⢢⡀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⢀⣴⠋⠷⠶⠱⡄ ⠀⢸⣸⣿⠀⠀⠀⠙⢦⡀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⢀⡴⠫⢀⣖⡃⢀⣸⢹ ⠀⡇⣿⣿⣶⣤⡀⠀⠀⠙⢆⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⣠⡪⢀⣤⣾⣿⣿⣿⣿⣸ ⠀⡇⠛⠛⠛⢿⣿⣷⣦⣀⠀⣳⣄⠀⢠⣾⠇⣠⣾⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣽ ⠀⠯⣠⣠⣤⣤⣤⣭⣭⡽⠿⠾⠞⠛⠷⠧⣾⣿⣿⣯⣿⡛⣽⣿⡿⡼ ⠀⡇⣿⣿⣿⣿⠟⠋⠁⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠈⠙⠻⣿⣿⣮⡛⢿⠃ ⠀⣧⣛⣭⡾⠁⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠈⢿⣿⣷⣎⡇ ⠀⡸⣿⡟⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠘⢿⣷⣟⡇ ⣜⣿⣿⡧⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⡀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⣄⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⣸⣿⡜⡄ ⠉⠉⢹⡇⠀⠀⠀⢀⣞⠡⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⡝⣦⠀⠀⠀⠀⢿⣿⣿⣹ ⠀⠀⢸⠁⠀⠀⢠⣏⣨⣉⡃⠀⠀⠀⢀⣜⡉⢉⣇⠀⠀⠀⢹⡄⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⡾⠄⠀⠀⢸⣾⢏⡍⡏⠑⠆⠀⢿⣻⣿⣿⣿⠀⠀⢰⠈⡇⠀⠀ ⠀⢰⢇⢀⣆⠀⢸⠙⠾⠽⠃⠀⠀⠀⠘⠿⡿⠟⢹⠀⢀⡎⠀⡇⠀⠀ ⠀⠘⢺⣻⡺⣦⣫⡀⠀⠀⠀⣄⣀⣀⠀⠀⠀⠀⢜⣠⣾⡙⣆⡇⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠙⢿⡿⡝⠿⢧⡢⣠⣤⣍⣀⣤⡄⢀⣞⣿⡿⣻⣿⠞⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⢠⠏⠄⠐⠀⣼⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⡇⠀⠳⢤⣉⢳⠀⠀⠀ ⢀⡠⠖⠉⠀⠀⣠⠇⣿⡿⣿⡿⢹⣿⣿⣿⣿⣧⣠⡀⠀⠈⠉⢢⡀⠀ ⢿⠀⠀⣠⠴⣋⡤⠚⠛⠛⠛⠛⠛⠛⠛⠛⠙⠛⠛⢿⣦⣄⠀⢈⡇⠀ ⠈⢓⣤⣵⣾⠁⣀⣀⠤⣤⣀⠀⠀⠀⠀⢀⡤⠶⠤⢌⡹⠿⠷⠻⢤⡀ ⢰⠋⠈⠉⠘⠋⠁⠀⠀⠈⠙⠳⢄⣀⡴⠉⠀⠀⠀⠀⠙⠂⠀⠀⢀⡇ ⢸⡠⡀⠀⠒⠂⠐⠢⠀⣀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⢀⠤⠚⠀⠀⢸⣔⢄⠀⢾⠀ ⠀⠑⠸⢿⠀⠀⠀⠀⢈⡗⠭⣖⡒⠒⢊⣱⠀⠀⠀⠀⢨⠟⠂⠚⠋⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠘⠦⣄⣀⣠⠞⠀⠀⠀⠈⠉⠉⠀⠳⠤⠤⡤⠞⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀

[@Zorgot.]

@@FreeBirdJPYT gotta bring back ascii art

[@yamyamyiyen]

@@OmegaTaishu REALEST

[@yamyamyiyen]

@@FreeBirdJPYT OH MY GOD REAL LIVE STATEMENT

[@doesthisusername]

They also used to use kanbun for "translating" other languages, including English. It looks pretty cursed. You can find some examples if you image search something like "英語　漢文"

[@rickyturner.]

Transliterating would be the word you’re looking for

[@starpeep5769]

Yup

[@doesthisusername]

@@rickyturner. No, since kanbun doesn't preserve the original pronunciation. It's more like annotating the source text in order to give the reader enough information to understand it, mainly by showing character order and readings/particles when necessary

[@prezentoappr1171]

Kanbun kundoku is the whole process That's classical Chinese annotated and then tl'd into Japanese ​@@doesthisusername

[@XiaosChannel]

11:32 it's kind of like writing chinese characters but reading in shakespeherian english? that is the closest metaphor i can think of. the text you have i think is in mixed kanbun and manyogana so it would be only readable by japanese aristocrats, not technically what i would call classic chinese, but it's pretty close

[@oyoo3323]

It isn't. A lot of Japanese thing it is, but in reality the chants they read are utter nonsense gibberish in all languages.

[@bang5284]

It’s kind of writing French but pronounce it in southern accent

[@oyoo3323]

@@bang5284 what, like a kiwi?

[@michaeltsui3435]

More like the English pronunciation of Latin.

[@Eb0nut]

Oh my god. I've been picking up some japanese speakers having the 'nga' thing going on, but had no idea it was this! Really cool video.

[@FreeBirdJPYT]

@@Eb0nut yeah ever since I found out about it I hear it everywhere

[@Japanalysis]

love the thumbnail concept

[@FreeBirdJPYT]

I wanted something that was just slightly off

[@duyguncihangurman9895]

@@FreeBirdJPYT Why was it here

[@azineox9633]

@Japanalysis hey dude! I love your content. Didn't expect to see you here

[@iusearchbtw69]

I legit seen the usage of that あ with dakuon in the Doujinshi, indicating the character is making weird noises 💀

[@dovahfruit9503]

I didn't know about the maru diacritic being used on the ka family! Nor about tenten being used to roughen up the vowel kana. Really interesting and informative video, I've found the Japanese writing system so interesting since I begun learning it, so getting to know more hentaigana is really exciting. Most of my attention has been diverted towards phonetics since I begun learning the language, and there's so many obscure intricacies your average joe, or even native speaker simply wouldn't pick up on, and its opened my mind to so many oddities in the the English language as well. Love this video and hope you have ideas for more like it in the future, I think I'll enjoy the content either way though.

[@bennythetiger6052]

This was a pretty fun video! I'd always hear the "nga" sound and be wondering "why tho" 😂. I didn't realize it was a dialect EDIT: Glad to see that you hit your 1k subs goal pretty quick! It seems like this is your most watched video so far!

[@NihongoWakannai]

Sungoi ne

[@epik1391]

@@NihongoWakannai un

[@WoodEe-zq6qv]

Standard japanese pronounces the g very far back in the mouth. That's why you'll sometimes hear だが pronounced like だんが as well.

[@deithlan]

The "nga" sound was actually the original sound. The "ga" pronunciation is much newer. The Tokyo dialect and others that have kept "nga" are actually the conservative ones here. It is also why you’ll tend to hear the "nga" sound much more in older demographics.

[@bennythetiger6052]

@@deithlan hell yeah, more lore

[@warman1944]

Thanks for the explanation on dakuten added to あいうえお。I've wondered about that for years, but always forgot to ask my teachers.

[@AkiiiiDesu]

i got jumpscared by the thumbnail

[@seseiSeki]

There's even more weird Kana, if you look at the Ainu language. For example, they got stuff like ツ゚, セ゚ and ㇱ. "tu" (unlike Japanese tsu), "tse" and "-s" respecitively.

[@KabalFromMK9]

There's also ラ゜for la when a distinction between r and l is needed

[@KabalFromMK9]

Also, isn't "tu" written like "ト゜"?

[@seseiSeki]

@@KabalFromMK9 according to good old uncited Wikipedia articles, they are both interchangeable. Couldn't find better sources and the two book scans I've got lying around are only in Roman letters. On the other hand, I've never seen a distinction between r and l in Ainu. Where did you find that? :D

[@kijete]

​@@seseiSekias far as i can tell, ら゚ was introduced in the meiji era to distinguish l and r in loanwords. my only sources for this are english and japanese wikipedia, though the former has no source and the latter's is apparently invalid

[@seseiSeki]

@@KabalFromMK9 Alright, found the source. "Untersuchungen über den Bau der Aino-Sprache" by Dr. August Pfizmaier, 1851. It is very possible, that that's outdated lol Kinda hard to track, since Ainu writing isn't standardized.

[@interruptingPreempt]

Knew about the w- and v- sounds, but the rest were entirely new to me. Thank you for this explanation. And thanks for the recommendations on further explanations. I appreciate it.

[@rougepilot5513]

I love using obsolete letters or words, especially in Italian, so this is a new can of worms for me! Some examples of obsolete words/letters in Italian are î (ii), with the circonflex is also applicable to other vowels to lengthen them) I mostly use it with "zî (zii, uncles)". Another example is th eobsolete contraction "pel" (per+il, where con+il = col), "mescere" (pouring, usually wine), and a few others that I sometimes float around.

[@0Aquamelon]

I studied japanese in college (I've forgotten a lot of it) and we did learn が is pronounced /ga/, but also: we heard our professor say /ŋa/ when speaking quickly. I never used/saw people use the "ka" with the Maru. I always associated ”が” to sound either like /ga/ or /ŋa/

[@SpringySpring04]

3:09 Tewi was actually how I was introduced to the "wi" kana in the first place, nice to see it mentioned here! I also spotted the cirno fumo in the background, nice

[@FreeBirdJPYT]

tewi jumpscare

[@katyungodly]

I first saw one of these weird nonstandard kana in the film Spirited Away. There is one on the wall in the first shots of the spirit town market.

[@KabalFromMK9]

Fun fact, the katakana エ was originally meant to write "ye". The old katakana for "e" was 𛀀, which may not display for some devices. For people whose device does not support the character, it looks like ラ but with the first (top) stroke being 丶instead of 一

[@Mikelaxo]

I also find it funny when someone talks talks about a character and it's just a hatched box

[@okand6156]

yea i see a box with a question mark in the middle

[@KabalFromMK9]

​@@Mikelaxo hence the disclaimer. Let me just describe it, it's kind of like ラ but the first top stroke is a 丶 instead of 一

[@KabalFromMK9]

​@@okand6156 For those with device that does not display the characters, it's kind of like ラ but the first stroke is 丶instead of 一

[@Mikelaxo]

@@KabalFromMK9 so this kanji 之 but without the lower stroke?

[@FantomMC2]

New subscriber!!! I'm learning JP and I noticed the "nga" pronunciations and was confused but realized it's a dialect so I've naturally picked it up. It's good to see it covered here. The other things here were super interesting and I didn't know. Learning a new language is so fascinating

[@Murakamiyu_]

First time just got this video on recommended, watched it and loved it I even subbed because of the topic of it please bring more videos like this I loved it, I'm Japanese and I didn't even know some of those Kanas existed😅

[@FreeBirdJPYT]

動画を見てありがとうございます～＾＾ 面白い日本トピックの動画を作るのが大好きだから、未来にもっと動画を作るのをけいかくしています！

[@ChibiChidorii]

dude, I feel like I've learned so much from such a precise, nice, short video. I've been missing these kinda very informative less than 15 minute video. It seems everything has to be at least 50 minutes nowadays and at that point I just can't store the information shown. This one? I feel like I learned a lot and I can still remember it all.

[@StephEatsnTravels]

I'm a fluent Japanese speaker who has lived in Japan and planning to live in Japan in the future. And yet I learned new things today. 教えてくれてありがとう!

[@ドラゴンボールセンター]

Fascinating stuff, ProJared with language skills.

[@barnabasvarvolgyi3533]

I’d failed my end term exam and I have to retake it in January. ( my major was Japanese studies ans I just couldn’t get my head around linguistics. Thank you so much for this video. It helped me a lot.

[@SonnyDarvish]

I thought I'm being smart by recognizing these subtleties around "ng" sound like in watashi(n)ga. Which reminds me of British English adding an "r" sound in-between two words that the first one ends with a vowel and the second one starts with a vowel. I learned so much in this video. Thank you!

[@loamysoil]

There's this Buddhist deity, the King of Hell, whose name is Enma, and the traditional way to write it (which is still used until today by the Kyoto temple centered around his medieval statue) is ゑんまさま. Interestingly enough, though the accurate modern transcription would be Enma, the temple's website romanizes it as Yenma, which falls very well in line with the 円 example you've given.

[@exxelsetijadi5348]

i think the only other time i've seen the we kana used is in the name of a character, just like wi without going into the rabbit hole to keep it short, it's a character played by a streamer; the character's name is Chloe but instead of being written as クロエ "Kuroe" it was written as クロヱ "Kurowe" but still pronounced the exact same way the other time is the logo for Neon Genesis Evangelion where it looks like they wrote ヱヴァンゲリヲン "Wevangeriyon" but i could just be mistaking the stylized エ as ヱ since they are literally one hook and nudge away from being identical, and wevangeriyon doesn't make any sense though in both cases it's the katakana we, so that means i still have never seen hiragana we used anywhere in any words until this video

[@hakurou8960]

a little correction, it's "wevangeriwon"

[@kokorochacarero8003]

Stinky orca?

[@exxelsetijadi5348]

@@kokorochacarero8003 ah, looks like i've been busted

[@outerlast]

in old books, there were uweda and uyehara for today's ueda and uehara :)

[@seneca983]

In addition to these, there's also the katakana extension for writing the Ainu language. I think these are basically just small versions of some katakana and they represent only the consonant sound of the character. They are used to write final consonants that don't occur in Japanese.

[@ral2cool]

omg as for the “ye” character there is one instance that i’ve seen a character i don’t recognize and can’t find that seems to be it is in jojos bizarre adventure (of all places 😭) steel ball run chapter 34, gyro near the end yells JOHNNYYYYY, and it reads ジョニイイイイイ and then a bunch of a character that i can’t type or find, and it looks pretty similar to the “ye” character. the only problem i thought of was that since the character is repeated it would be pronounced “yeyeyeyeye”, but apparently the character can also be pronounced “e” so that would make since, gyro yelling JOHNYYYYYEEEE and ジョニイイイイイエエエエエエエエエエエ also subscribed, very good video

[@andrexavier7943]

Wondeful! You just got a New fan from Brazil! Please keep up the great work!

[@FreeBirdJPYT]

@@andrexavier7943 thank uuuu 🥺🥺

[@andrexavier7943]

@@FreeBirdJPYT 🙌🙌🙌🙌🙌🙌😍😍😍

[@Jumptohistory]

I never knew characters like け゚ even existed. Now I have some newfound knowledge about my first language. But the "Yi" and "Wu" sounds? I don't think they even exist in Japanese. In fact, many Japanese people seem to struggle distinguishing between "Yee" and "Ee" sounds and "Woo" and "Oo" sounds even in English. Also, the 鼻濁音(bidakuon) are actually used in the Standard Japanese as well, although less people in the younger generations tend to use them. And as far as I know, they are never used at the beginning of a clause.

[@KabalFromMK9]

While it may be true that "yi" and "wu" never existed in Japanese, some linguists from the Meiji era did actually create artificial (if you prefer that term) kanas for yi and wu (and a new katakana for ye, as エ historically denoted ye) to fill in the gap.

[@darinaprstmmprhdl6975]

that's a super cool topic. i've been _teaching_ Japanese for years, but it's actually the first time I see goryakugana - and also all of these things discussed in such a concise way and with clear examples. thank you very much for the work 🙏

[@chockie]

commenting to boost this in the algorithm more, i clicked this without thinking (or seeing the only 1k viewcount!) and was blown away by the quality at your current channel size. may the algorithm bless you and blow up your channel. knew about wi/we and most of these but had no clue about the ng- sounds, crazy!

[@chockie]

also JUST NOTICED THE CIRNO FUMO, makes sense you would know about and mention tewi and know nichijou, based af. subscribed

[@FREAKSLICER]

Lol me too, I fat fingered this video while trying to go to another one, but it was so good I kept watching

[@rutalorp4777]

Very nice vid! Some of those odd kana pronunciations actually crossed into sounding like Vietnamese which is super interesting!

[@Foas]

Found your channel this morning, great content. Hope you keep blowing up, がんばれ！

[@alexstucky]

Thank you for sharing these! I've ran into these before, but never understood how they're pronounced, or why they existed. As someone who studies Chinese, the Kanbun sounds really intriguing! I'd love to look closer at that poster you have!

[@eljaminlatour6633]

Also, there's the obsolete Hiragana ゔ(v) which is the same as its Katakana counterpart, but it's obsolete since there are no Japanese words with "v" sounds. I also remember the use of ヴ(v) in an anime called "Magic Knight Rayearth". The protagonist Hikaru Shidou meets a doppelgänger named ノヴァ(Nova) who is the darkness inside of Hikaru's heart. There's also other kana such as ぢ/ヂ(dji) and づ/ヅ(dzu). They exist, but rarely are used. I've seen ぢ before, like the "Fun is infinite" page from Sonic CD, saying that its signed by まぢん(Majin) which is the childhood nickname of Masao Nishimura, or チヂミ(chijimi) which is a transliteration of a Korean dish. Also, there's あいづち(aidzuchi) which refers to Japanese expressions like はい("hai", yes) when listening to a conversation.

[@lqr824]

続く"continue" is written in hiragana as つづく. It's a quite common word and I'm sure there's many others I don't think of off-hand.

[@moroha10085]

日本人だけど、あまり知らないことが多くてとても面白かったです。鼻濁音の「が」は一般的には意識して発音が区別されていないけど、アナウンサーは正しい発音を求められるため「私が」の「が」を鼻濁音で区別するし、歌手は「が」の音を柔らかくするために鼻濁音で意図的に発音したりします。あと、小さい「ゐ」や「ゑ」は実際に使われているところがあるか分かりませんが、少なくとも私はこの動画で初めて知りました。

[@XiaosChannel]

overall great video! glad that i helped :)

[@carlosreptile]

Saw the thumbnail and my mind said the "huh" cat sound

[@srslywtfcl4p404]

way to make my japanese language learning even harder

[@KabalFromMK9]

Well, let me ask you this, When you found out about Early Modern English grammar such as the pronoun "thou" and the verb ending -(s)t as in "thou hast", will that make English learning harder for you, even though virtually no one speaks like that nowadays and so you could simply forget about those things?

[@FrozenGale]

*Start watching video *See Cirno Fumo "This. This is a man I can trust"

[@damnnits]

I was wondering today about a line stamp with diacriticized vowels, and this explained, thanks!

[@Dan_the_man-ls5vb]

Interesting, no clue that you could put Maru on かきくけこ. I guess my teachers accent rubbed off on me 😂. Nice vid.

[@ricardofigueiredo3585]

this video has much more quality than what you would expect from a channel with 1000 subs

[@metalema6]

I love learning about the origins of things as many strange details start to make sense that otherwise would get misinterpreted by guesswork

[@nitroglyccerin]

this is a great video, thank you. i always wondered how do i pronounce あ゛

[@mderooij7851]

It Should Be Pronounced “Va”.

[@nitroglyccerin]

@@mderooij7851 va is ヴァ

[@canaanyamashita4560]

I'm Japanese, and no we do not pronounce Va. あ゛is basically pronounced the exact same as あ, but we use it to express screaming in comedies, mangas and texting friends. Like あああああ゛あ゛ぁぁ゛ぁ！！ is just saying Aaaah!! in english.

[@nitroglyccerin]

@@mderooij7851 "Va" is written as ヴァ

[@Sonavyon]

That's really cool. I've been studying Japanese for a few years now and I came across a few of these but it was nice to see a video with full explanations. Good job.

[@Sakanakao]

Good video, I was surprised by ヴ getting so brief a mention near the end, but then again I think it's common enough not to count as strange/unknown.

[@SugoiChiisaiわ]

ありがとうございます! Very interesting topic! And what I love about Japanese is that while you’re learning this language there’s almost always some cool stuff you can meet like that CIRNO plush! It’s just a reminder for us, that we are in a right place, doing the right things

[@Kaihatsu]

か゚ is used for transcribing Dunan, the language spoken on Yonaguni island (some people claim it's a dialect of Japanese but it's not). あか゚い (pronounced angai) means "East", whereas in Japanese it's "higashi" (ひがし). The sentence あか゚いぬ　てぃんがら　'くゆ　あか゚ん (angai tingara 'kuyu angan) means "The moon rose in the Eastern sky" I spent a little while on the island a few months ago and got to know a bit more about the language. It's quite distinct from Japanese! The Ainu language also has its fair share of kana, ranging from small kana to mark consonants モシㇼ (moshir - meaning land), to ones for syllable combinations that aren't in standard Japanese, like ト゚, which is used in the word ト゚ナカイ (tunakay - meaning reindeer). In a sentence: アト゚イ オㇿ ウン チェㇷ゚ クエ (Atuy orun chep ku=e) means "I ate a fish from the ocean". Ainu is a language that I've actually received instruction in, and it's much easier than the Yonaguni language, which has a really complicated grammar compared to Japanese and Ainu...

[@phmagnabosc0]

Very interesting, thanks! Lots of discoveries and aha moments (the a with tenten of manga...). Also, thought provoking on how the Japanese of today see their own language in relation to itself (its diversity) and the rest of the world. Also, I feel that the writing reform of 1945 (I think) was much wider ranging than people often imagine. Def not just limiting the official number of kanji. It looks to have been quite a significant change in the written environment of post-1945 Japanese, and a sign that new times were coming -even though they did not of course change era.

[@ryjitarose5590]

It's always intersting to research scripts develop, be it from Mdw-nṯr (Egyptian hieroglyphs) or glyphs from Zēmānāwac (Mesoamerica). I do wonder though why some of the now faded kana don't get re-vitalized or why new ones like one for won't be make that's based on Hànzì. Not necessarily for writing Nihon-go, but for foreign languages to better phonetically represent their pronunciation Anyways, Scotland forever (I ain't from Alba)! 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿‼️🔥💯🗣

[@tenshirei]

I encountered ヱ once in the wild, in a very old building on a sign for the ヱレベーター. It has always stuck with me.

[@AylienYu]

Cirno plushie makes the video even better

[@FreeBirdJPYT]

ᗜˬᗜ

[@Nonov_Yurbisniss]

9:00 - Gonna try and clear this up, cuz it's not the first time I've come a cross this misconception: "Watashi-ga" does not mean "I am", is just means "I". が is a nominative case particle (compare with を marking the accusative in "Watashi-wo", "Me"). The main Japanese copula (equivalent to is/am/are) is です/だ "desu/da" (also いる/ある, and possibly others that I'm unaware of)

[@lucadomenichini4926]

I have a degree in japanese studies and I had never heard about some of these things before, so thank you a lot! Also, I remember seeing a る゛once in a manga, probably because the character was crying and his pronounciation was altered

[@jajathree9506]

I was impressed by how thoroughly researched it was. It's amazing that even variant kana and classical Chinese characters were investigated. I'm Japanise.

[@FreeBirdJPYT]

@@jajathree9506 I appreciate the comment! I try to research thoroughly, so I’m glad that you found this video fun to watch.

[@pqlasmdhryeiw8]

Thank you for this videov it solves the mystery of why some Japanese songs would have "watashi nga" in them etc. It's Tokyo dialect. I should have guessed that. But now I know so thank you ❤

[@ju_thmz]

This is absolutely amazing! But, seriously, sometimes I complain about learning over than one writing system in japanese( even knowing 90% of hiragana) and now I'll never complain anymore lol. I think there's more in a language that we can actually see... I started to study japanese this year

[@myowncomputerstuff]

I feel like 10:30 just scratches the surface of the obscure kana to transliterate western V sounds with va (ヷ), vi (ヸ), ve (ヹ), and vo (ヺ).

[@mderooij7851]

How Can You Even Type Those?

[@spaceboi0713cm]

1:26 there is WHAT gana?! 2:11 the wii man

[@muhammadnasrullah7166]

Thanks for sharing this!

[@FreeBirdJPYT]

@@muhammadnasrullah7166 thank you so much for the Superthanks! You will get a shout out with my patrons in the next video!

[@E-A-Z-Y]

No, that was really interesting. When I’m trying to remember kana, I often look at the blank spots and wonder why they aren’t there. And also why certain kana don’t have particles. It was also very interesting to learn about old, unused kana.

[@AlmondShinShap]

I’m absolutely loving these videos mate, keep on going 🎉

[@jerichols]

I actually distinctly remembering learning about dakuten and handakuten when I first started self teaching Japanese quite a few years back! i used to use flash cards to study them and remember that not all of the syllables have the tenten or maru...

[@expensivecrayon]

I never really thought about the nga sound but as soon as you pointed it out I can’t not hear it anymore. “Watashi nga” will always catch my ear now

[@jgharston]

I was coding up a Japanese character driver back in the late 1980s, and was advised that instead of just coding to support pre-formed k* d* z* etc. I needed to code for " and ゜ as seperate modifiers that could be combined with *anything*. Just like in English just because there's no word spelled kqzj doesn't mean that you should be incapable of physically typing it.

[@lqr824]

hey I worked on the Chinese/Japanese/Korean input system in X11R6 in 1992, which today I think still ships with all Linux systems. I don't recall if we had a way to input those by themselves, but they were glyphs in JIS0201, which was basically ASCII in the lower 7 bits, but with hi bit set gave half-width katakana. The half-width kana were only available without diacritics, so the tenten and maru were additional characters. The JIS0208 full-width characters were in effect the screen size of two ASCII characters on a normal display, so wide enough they had their own tenten and maru. But I assume 0208 also had tenten and maru characters so that you could losslessly and trivially map at least katakana text from one to the other.

[@JPLee-zs3wk]

Japanese teachers never teach these things. Thank you very much for your informative video.

[@andreas1161]

That was fascinating! Except for the obsolete kana, I hadn't seen any of these before. Thanks for putting the effort in to make this video - great work!

[@Mask_Maker1]

I remember seeing some of these in attack on titan which has a lot of exotic names for japanese, using the 'イェ' for 'yeagar' and ヴィ for ervin (romanised as erwin).

[@hebneh]

I studied Japanese more than 50 years ago and my first teacher was an old man who included “we” and “wi” in my lessons, so I learned then. My next teacher used the term “chon chon” instead of “tenten”, so that’s what I use too.

[@iNsOmNiAcAnDrEw]

It's amazing to me that nobody knew to tell me that nga or nka was written with a maru on ka. I remember hearing someone say this and I think it was just an accent in a song where they meant to say ga but I still found it fascinating that people didn't know how to write what he sung phonetically. It was ironic to me because I was searching for the lyrics to the song by typing 'na' because I thought that was the correct romaji, instead the song lyrics showed 'ga' which makes more sense grammatically.

[@karkador]

i was womdering if that nasal sound had a name, but there are even characters for it?? very cool

[@viniciusnascimentomaeda6725]

Thanks for bringing this very interesting topic, by the way, nice haircut you got bro 😎

[@FreeBirdJPYT]

Thank you!!

[@77Catguy]

Fascinating--thanks much! I just want to add that the "ye" sound--one of three that you mentioned not having much at all to do with modern Japanese--must have had some relevance over the past century or so since so many Japanese-American personal or family names have been transliterated that way--for example "Sanaye" for "Sanae" or "Uyeda" for "Ueda." There are others as well that I don't recall at the moment. It would be interesting if you could comment on that. Anyway, thanks again for this clear-spoken, detailed explanation!

[@artur3667]

you could also add a note about らりるれろ with maru, as they are meant to represent the la li lu le lo sounds in japanese transcripts of Latin

[@goubi10]

awesome video! lots and lots of cool piece of knowledge that I've never knew about, although living in Japan and learning japanese passionately. great work!

[@Lucroq]

I always love when people go into intricate detail on the topics that fascinate them, and this one is a prime example

[@user-ld3hx7nr4d]

鼻濁音の表記を方言のみで使用していると言っていますが、正確には誤りです。アナウンサーや俳優、声優の養成所では発声のレッスンで必ず鼻濁音を教えられますよ。文頭以外のガ行は鼻濁音で発音するように訓練します。

[@KoyasuNoBara]

9:00 Oh my God, you just solved something I've wondered for almost two decades. In Sailor Moon, I could always _swear_ Usagi's mother called her "Usangi," but I couldn't figure out _why_ I was hearing an n. I thought I was imagining it. But no, her VA just uses Tokyo Dialect! Thank you so much!

[@dwalters98]

Actually used wi and we in a 3rd year japanese translation class. We had to pick older poems to translate to english (first very broken machine translation, then manually translating it, then finally localizing it.) The poem was written only a few years before the language reforms. Poem is "のちのおもひに" (afterthoughts) by Michizo Tachihara.

[@iamnothale]

One of the songs from my favorite artist, 蛍（Hotaru, Firefly）, has a word that’s written weirdly. 「彷徨う水鶏　群になり岨に飛ぶ」 岨 is written with the 山 part on top of 且, which is weird (to me, at least) considering the computer renders it as 山 to the left of 且.

[@森裕紀-s3o]

3:26 I am a Japanese. My granma's name is Toku(w)e, トクヱ（とくゑ）. She was born in 1919 and died in 2010 (91 years old). Actually, such old types of hiragana were used for some person's name at that time.

[@CrysolasChymera2117]

U have also found out ラ゚ with the /ra/ set of kanas, using the handakuten to specify that the syllable is not /r/ but /l/ which is not usually differentiated in standard Japanese. The unicode glyph is there but I have never seen it used apart from in Wikipedia.

[@grahamgrover1]

Nice video, my dude! There were a lot of entries I did not already know about and I've been studying language for a loooong time. Your final entry on Kanbun reminds me of the Taiwanese Bopomofo. They are not the same but they are interesting, too!

[@ahsen5105]

Very informative, thank you!

[@TheAnjelHarte]

Really interesting!! I’ve always wondered what the characters I would see in stylized contacts that were clearly not kanji but not any kana I recognized could be- very cool! If I ever have the chance to hand write letters in Japanese again I may be pretentious and annoying and use the より goryakugana to sign off 😂