Jōdai Tokushu Kanazukai

Jōdai Tokushu Kanazukai (上代特殊仮名遣, lit. Special kana orthography of the early era) is an archaic kana orthography system used to write Old Japanese during the Nara period. Its primary feature is to distinguish between two groups of syllables that later merged.

The existence and meaning of this system is a critical point of scholarly debate in the study of the history of the Japanese language.

Syllables

The following are the syllabic distinctions made in Old Japanese.

a	i		u	e		o
ka	ki₁	ki₂	ku	ke₁	ke₂	ko₁	ko₂
ga	gi₁	gi₂	gu	ge₁	ge₂	go₁	go₂
sa	si		su	se		so₁	so₂
za	zi		zu	ze		zo₁	zo₂
ta	ti		tu	te		to₁	to₂
da	di		du	de		do₁	do₂
na	ni		nu	ne		no₁	no₂
pa	pi₁	pi₂	pu	pe₁	pe₂	po
ba	bi₁	bi₂	bu	be₁	be₂	bo
ma	mi₁	mi₂	mu	me₁	me₂	mo₁	mo₂
ya			yu	ye		yo₁	yo₂
ra	ri		ru	re		ro₁	ro₂
wa	wi			we		wo

Those syllables marked in gray are known as jōdai tokushu kanazukai.

Transcription

The two groups merged by the 9th century. It predates the development of kana, and the phonetic difference is unclear. Therefore, an ad hoc transcription system is employed.

Syllables written with subscript 1 are known as type A (甲, kō) and those with subscript 2 as type B (乙, otsu) (these are the first two celestial stems, and are used for such numbering in Japanese).

There are several competing transcription systems. One popular system places a diaeresis above the vowel: ï, ë, ö. This typically represents i₂, e₂, and o₂, and assumes that unmarked i, e, and o are i₁, e₁, and o₁. It does not necessarily have anything to do with pronunciation. There are several problems with this system.

It implies a particular pronunciation, indirectly on the vowel.
It neglects to distinguish between words where the distinction is not clear, such as the /to/ in /toru/ as well as in /kaditori/.
It implies the unmarked Type A form is the pronunciation of syllables which do not distinguish Type A vs Type B, such as si or po. (These non-distinguishing syllables are sometimes known as Type C (丙 hei), to keep them separate from both Type A and Type B.)

Another system uses superscripts instead of subscripts.

The "Yale System" writes the type A vowels i₁, e₁, o₁ as yi, ye, wo, and writes i₂, e₂, o₂ as iy, ey, o̠. When vowels lack the Type A vs. Type B distinction they are given unmodified spellings (i e o). Consequently, the type C syllables are distinguishable from both A and B type without any presumption of which, if any, of the other types they shared pronunciations with. These spellings are despite their appearance not intended as reconstructions, but as abstract notations that represent Old Japanese spelling without any commitment to the pronunciation.

Meaning

There are many hypotheses to explain the distinction. However, it is not clear whether the distinction applied to the consonant, vowel, or something else. There is no general academic agreement.

Usage

A word is consistently, without exception, written with syllables from a specific group. For example, /kami₁/ "above" and /kami₂/ "god". While both words end in /mi/ in later Japanese, mi₁ cannot substitute for mi₂ or vice versa. This strict distinction exists for all of the syllables marked in gray.

This usage is also found in the verb morphology. The quadrigrade conjugation is as follows:

Verb class	Irrealis	Adverbial	Conclusive	Attributive	Realis	Imperative
Quadrigrade	-a	-i₁	-u	-u	-e₂	-e₁

The verb /sak-/ "bloom" has quadrigrade conjugation class. Thus, its conjugation is as follows:

Verb class	Irrealis	Adverbial	Conclusive	Attributive	Realis	Imperative
Verb	saka	saki₁	saku	saku	sake₂	sake₁

Before the jōdai tokushu kanazukai discovery, it was thought that quadrigrade realis and imperative shared the same form: -e. However, after the discovery, it became clear that realis was -e₂ while imperative was -e₁.

Also, jōdai tokushu kanazukai has a profound effect on etymology. It was once thought that /kami/ "above" and /kami/ "god" shared the same etymology, a god being an entity high above. However, after the discovery, it is known that "above" is /kami₁/ while "god" is /kami₂/. Thus, they are distinct words.

Man'yōgana chart

The following chart lists syllable and man'yōgana correspondences.

/a/	阿	安	婀	鞅	英	吾	足	嗚呼
/i/	伊	夷	怡	以	異	已	移	易	揖	因	印	壹	射	胆	五十	馬聲
/u/	汗	有	宇	于	羽	烏	紆	萬	雲	鬱	菟	鵜	卯	鸕	得
/e/	衣	愛	依	亞	哀	埃	榎	荏	得	可愛
/o/	意	於	隱	飫	淤	憶	應	邑	磤	乙
/ka/	加	可	賀	珂	迦	訶	箇	嘉	架	伽	歌	舸	軻	柯	介	甘	敢	甲	漢	干	葛	香	各	覺	髮	鹿	蚊	芳	歟
/ga/	奇	宜	何	我	賀	河	蛾	餓	峨	俄	鵝
/ki₁/	支	吉	岐	伎	棄	枳	企	耆	祇	祁	寸	杵	來
/ki₂/	歸	貴	紀	幾	奇	騎	綺	寄	記	基	機	己	既	氣	城	木	樹	黄
/gi₁/	藝	祇	岐	伎	儀	蟻	𡺸
/gi₂/	疑	宜	義	擬
/ku/	久	玖	口	句	群	苦	丘	九	鳩	倶	區	勾	矩	*	衢	窶	屨	君	訓	菊	來
/gu/	具	遇	求	隅	虞	愚	群
/ke₁/	祁	家	計	鶏	介	奚	谿	價	係	結	稽	啓	兼	監	險	異
/ke₂/	居	氣	希	擧	既	該	戒	階	開	愷	凱	慨	概	毛	食	飼	消	笥
/ge₁/	下	牙	雅	夏	霓
/ge₂/	義	宜	㝵	礙	皚
/ko₁/	古	故	高	庫	祜	姑	狐	枯	固	顧	子	兒	籠	小	粉
/ko₂/	己	許	巨	居	去	虚	忌	擧	*	拠	渠	金	今	近	乞	興	木
/go₁/	胡	呉	候	後	虞	吾	誤	悟	娯

Development

The distinction between /mo₁/ and /mo₂/ is only made in the oldest text: Kojiki. After that, they merged into /mo/.

In later texts, confusion between types A and B can be seen. Nearly all of the A/B distinctions had vanished by the Classical Japanese period. As seen in early Heian Period texts such as Kogo Shūi, the final syllables to be distinguished were /ko₁, go₁/ and /ko₂, go₂/.^{[citation needed]} After the merger, CV₁ and CV₂ became CV.

Bibliography

Omodaka, Hisataka (1967). Jidaibetsu Kokugo Daijiten: Jōdaihen (in Japanese). Sanseidō. ISBN 4-385-13237-2.
Ōno, Susumu. Kanazukai to Jōdaigo (in Japanese). Iwanami Shoten.