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?

[@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 (???)

[@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!

[@metalema6]

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

[@Duda286]

Omg how can you have just 4k subs... I know you reminded people to subscribe at the very end of the video, but, I'd suggest you say it earlier, such as at the very beginning or in the middle of the video, something very short like "if you wanna see more of this kind of content about japan dont forget to subscribe!", just so you remind viewers when they're actually paying close attention. Your content, at least, judging by this video is pure gold so, i was shocked to see that, besides 83k views, not many people subscribed.

[@SH-UK030]

11:25 That seems to be Japanese mythology written in Kanbun form In the past, it was customary to write formal texts in 漢文.

[@Bread-je6dc]

Surprisingly I did know this because I accidentally stumbled across the Wikipedia page lol

[@morisoba2550]

Japanese here. I have never seen Katakana how to pronounce Wi Wu We Wo Vu in Katakana.

[@Emerald_the_Umbreon]

About the “ゔ “, I’ve see this once in a song title. It’s “ヴァンパイア”

[@RealTragoe2]

Awesome video! Earned a sub.

[@hermesecho6193]

I once saw a japanese person with the name Bien, written びゑん

[@1337174m1]

My full name has a ton of these small Katakana, because my last name is mostly vowels, and my first name has a lot of letters not in Japanese lol.

[@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

[@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

[@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.

[@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

[@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.

[@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😭😭😭

[@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。

[@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

[@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.

[@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

[@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.

[@ranaxkawaii]

THE CIRNO PLUSH

[@OmegaTaishu]

Strongest plush

[@FreeBirdJPYT]

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[@Zorgot.]

@@FreeBirdJPYT gotta bring back ascii art

[@ranaxkawaii]

@@OmegaTaishu REALEST

[@ranaxkawaii]

@@FreeBirdJPYT OH MY GOD REAL LIVE STATEMENT

[@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

[@TomasGradin]

1:30 it says "obosete" 🤔

[@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

[@EitoDesu_]

i got jumpscared by the thumbnail

[@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.

[@Japanalysis]

love the thumbnail concept

[@FreeBirdJPYT]

I wanted something that was just slightly off

[@duyguncihangurman9895]

@@FreeBirdJPYT Why was it here

[@mskiptr]

Goryakugana are just ligatures; change my mind

[@KabalFromMK9]

It is indeed a ligature, you can't have your mind changed on that lmao, that's like saying "3+3=6, change my mind"

[@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?

[@iusearchbtw69]

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

[@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.

[@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 :)

[@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.

[@SquareFoil31362]

They added shiny kana to Japanese 💀

[@JPLee-zs3wk]

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

[@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！

[@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.

[@gunngg908]

hentaigana looks like ai trying to generate hiragana

[@kaboooooomyay]

lmao

[@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/

[@XiaosChannel]

overall great video! glad that i helped :)

[@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

[@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

[@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.

[@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.

[@walkingsophie]

hey your pronunciation of ふ was incorrect, it's a bilabial fricative, not a labiodental fricative.

[@dovahfruit9503]

was just about to comment this lol, its a really easy mistake to make even if you observe speakers tbh. i had to be told outright about this differentiation and only then did i realise it was the case.

[@jasondeutschbein8102]

I'm not familiar with the vocabulary you're using, but from the etymology I'd guess you're saying you're making a huu sound where your lips lightly touch but you don't let your teeth touch your lips like making the Fuu sound?

[@KabalFromMK9]

​@@jasondeutschbein8102 bilabial → bi - two, labial - lips; fricative → a sound made by forcing air through a narrow space labiodental → labio - lip, dental - teeth

[@dovahfruit9503]

@@jasondeutschbein8102 Its kanguage based on the International Phonetic Alphabet. The best explanation I usually hear is imagine youre blowing out some candles. The more you close your lips together, the more of a "f" sound you get.

[@Bobbias]

​@@jasondeutschbein8102in standard English, the f sound is made by touching the top teeth to the bottom lip and blowing air through that constriction. That is labiodental articulation. In Japanese the sound we commonly write with f is similar, but uses both lips instead, leaving a small opening between the lips rather than forcing air between the teeth. They can sound quite similar at times, so it's an easy detail to miss, or to simply forget in the moment.

[@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.

[@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.

[@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.

[@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.

[@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.

[@FrozenGale]

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

[@markshen3280]

What is used more often these days in modern-trend 2024 Japan 🇯🇵, in typical Japanese classrooms ?

[@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

[@stevenglowacki8576]

I'm surprised that you didn't mention anything about "wo". In my study of Japanese in the past, I recall that this syllable isn't used in any words, but is used as the direct object particle but pronounced "o". I eventually did some study of Japanese personal names and while I don't remember the details, there was one name in which one pronunciation had the "wo" kana, and I was somewhat confused as to how it should be pronounced. Not that it will ever matter for me, but it's a memory from learning that's stuck.

[@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?

[@Foas]

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

[@spaceboi0713]

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

[@JSerrato289]

that thumbnail is cursed

[@SirusStarTV]

I always use get-youtube-thumbnail when the comment mentions something about thumbnail that i didn't spot before clicking on it

[@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.

[@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.

[@user-hv7ly6sf8p]

「や行え」の発音は古代には確かに存在した一方で、「や行い」「わ行う」は実際にそうした発音が過去にあったのかは疑わしく、近世から近代になって観念的に作り出された仮名であるという点が異なります。 小さい「ゎ」も、現代ではめったに使われない仮名ですね。もともとは「くゎ」として字音仮名遣いで用いられていましたが、今では「シークヮーサー」だけだと思います。 あとはunicodeに含まれているものだとアイヌ語仮名もありますね。

[@equi_nokusu]

Great video! As a native Japanese soaker, I'd like to point out that 50% of Japanese may not know the topics explained in this vid. This video would be very informative and educational to native speakers.

[@UnknownZYX_4085]

I've never known these except for ヴ!

[@AylienYu]

Cirno plushie makes the video even better

[@FreeBirdJPYT]

ᗜˬᗜ

[@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.

[@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?

[@RoboBoddicker]

あ゛I know this well from my....personal hentai-gana studies 😏

[@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

[@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.

[@RogerCollectz]

5:37 I always hear and see this in Wikipedia and never really understood what it actually entails. Uni code. Now what is that exactly?

[@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.

[@NinaFelwitch]

I wondered where wi, wu and we went. All my kana charts only have wa and wo.

[@crate6074]

Touhou mentioned, used to love the game but everywhere i go i hear Yukkurishitteitene

[@Demian_Garcia]

Didn't mention 〆, literally unwatchable /s

[@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

[@graxxor]

If one lived in Southern Hyogo, Kobe or Osaka for any length of time attended it (or knew someone who did) then one might know that Nishinomiya's 関西学院大学 Is not pronounced かんさいがくいんだいがく (Kansai Gakuin Daigaku) but is instead kanaized as くゎんせいがくゐんだいがく　(Kwansei Gakuin Daigaku) often simplified to just かんせいがくいんだいがく Kansei Gakuin Daigaku by younger graduates.

[@FreeBirdJPYT]

There’s also a university in Nagasaki called Kwassui Women’s University. Not sure why it’s called that but the kanji is 活水女子大学 which literally is かっすい but it’s pronounced くわっすい

[@FreeBirdJPYT]

くゎっすい

[@graxxor]

@@FreeBirdJPYT yes. Some old Japanese characters kept closer to their original Chinese pronunciation.

[@SodaScarletMachine]

The nga sound for が throws me off so much when listening to Japanese

[@Nikita13337]

7:44 I can see you doing the wrong F there. You have to do a whistle shape for Japanese ふ/フ and blow the sound out. Touching upper teeth with bottom lip is for the English F.

[@sirati9770]

the point its bilabial. so no teeth involved at all. rather both lips are used. does not have to be a whistle shape, that rather dictated by the vowel and for fu the mouth should be rather flat

[@SpeedyGwen]

I just noticed that u said that ur not suposed to pronounce the G in singer... but I always did and I always heard people pronounce the G in singer...

[@livedandletdie]

Man'yogana and Ateji makes it even worse, because they make themselves noticed, Like America being 亜米利加 or Asia being 亜細亜 Rank Slender Rank is a weird way to write Asia, but yeah, Ateji is using Kanji as Kana replacement... This is also why America is Meikoku in Japanese, 米国 because of the Ateji of America where the Rank Rice Profit Increase... but let's be hilarious about it and say Follow Rice Profit Canada... Because of the Kanji meanings however their readings are A Me Ri Ka. And let's not start on Man'yogana these are the before Kana kanji use of kanji as phonetic writing... And this is the system Hiragana is derived from. And before anyone asks me anything, no I do not speak Japanese, I just like studying words, because there's hilarity in that. There's more hilarity in studying the words origins, such as alcohol being a word translated back and forth between several ancient languages with origins in Old Arabic, meaning Stibnite, which was used as Black pigmented Eye Make Up, and is very toxic, and acts similar to Arsenic poisoning.

[@KabalFromMK9]

Small correction, 米国 is read as Beikoku

[@SonnyDarvishzadeh]

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!

[@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

[@Ketsuafureskit]

How do you enter those characters on a romaji keyboard?

[@marcomartinez1843]

Thanks for introducing me to Bidakuon/ 鼻濁音 at 8:12. I can finally transliterate some Filipino words with the Ng letter to Japanese via Katakana.

[@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 🙏

[@SebastianSeanCrow]

7:25 I always called it Dakuten and Maru 😂

[@joaoarielaraujo5176]

I Just noticed a c(hiru)irno fumo

[@GustafUNL]

There's a character for a common word that literally just looks like a loop on an angle but I can't remember the word. Frustrating. it wasn't mentioned in this video. Edit: I FOUND IT. Here it is. 〆 (しめ) As in the word, 締める. I don't think 〆 technically counts as a kana, but it's still a cool rare character. There's also 乄 which I think does actually count as a kanji.

[@runningoutof_ink]

its used in shime saba which is pickled fish (? idk what to call it in english) i have never seen it used anywhere else but if u go to the grocery store and buy shime saba, itll always have that written on the package instead of in hiragana

[@GustafUNL]

@@runningoutof_ink Interesting.

[@GustafUNL]

@@runningoutof_ink I looked it up, is it written as 〆鯖, or 〆さば, or 〆サバ? Literally asking out of pure curiosity. Also it looks like the English translation is basically as you said, "Vinegared Mackerel" which is basically pickled fish.

[@runningoutof_ink]

@@GustafUNL usually 〆さば from what I can remember

[@GustafUNL]

@@runningoutof_ink Thank you.

[@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!

[@Hongsebaoshi]

その字一生見たことないw

[@Suwawako]

チルノのぬいぐるみは嬉しい！

[@hisokasgronsaksfileer3544]

Am I the only one that learned all Hiragana and katakana for fun?! LMAO cuz I wanted to learn Japanese but I got too lazy and just learned the 2 alphabets and moved on with Russian 😼😸

[@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.

[@jasperiscool]

2:44 When hearing about the whisky, I immediately grabbed my Nikka 17y to check. Nope, it’s just spelt ウィスキー.

[@im_a_chair.]

I found this image on wikipedia on the man'yougana origins of hiragana and katakana. that contains a (slightly cursive) kana for both yi and ye. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kana#/media/File:FlowRoot3824.svg

[@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!

[@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.