From: ecovingt@sdcc13.ucsd.edu (Maiko Covington)
Newsgroups: sci.lang.japan
Subject: Re: what happen with 'wo'?
Date: 13 Aug 92 17:08:40 GMT
Organization: Under Construction, San Diego (UCSD)

As many other posters have mentioned, in present day Japanese the
kana "wo" is pronounced the same as the kana "o", and is used only
as a particle - the "between words wo" as in "Hon WO yomu".
	However... it wasn't always like this. In fact, if you look
at a kana chart, you may see 2 extra kana you don't recognize. These
would be in the "wa" column (the same place you find "wo"), in the
spots that would be reserved for "wi" and "we". (I'm sorry that I
can't draw these out for you here, but my ASCII art skills aren't
that good. ^_^). Apparently, a very long time ago these kana "wi"
"we" and "wo" were pronounced differently from "i" "e" and "o".
Therefore, words containing those sounds were spelled with those
kana. Later, the pronunciations came to be very similar or even
identical, but the spelling rules were not changed. This resulted in
a situation where you cannot know how to write something in kana
just because you know how to pronounce it.
	Actually, the 3 extra kana were not the only confusing
thing. I'm sure you have learned in your Japanese class that the
particle that sounds like "wa" in "Watashi WA" is really written
with the kana "ha", and similarly that the particle that sounds like
"e" in "Gakkou E iku" is really written with the kana "he". Well,
before, some sounds of "wa" and "e" in the middle of words were
written with the kana for "ha" and "he", too. So once again, the
only way to know how to write something in kana was to memorize the
spelling, rather like in English. Other strange spellings included
that "kou" could be written "kau", "syou" could be written "seu",
etc. So... the sentence written today as "Gakkou he ikimasyou" would
have been:     Gakukau he ikimaseu.
	There were many more strange spelling rules, and the main
thing which made them so cumbersome is that they varied case by case
- some words used the spelling "ou", some used "au" for the same
sound. You had to memorize how to spell everything. What a pain.
	SO! At the end of World War 2, the government reformed
Japanese kana spelling (at the same time they simplified some of the
kanji and made a list of about 2000 common use kanji). The spellings
were standardized to the way they are today - which is, everything
is written exactly the way it sounds, and most importantly there is
ONE kana transcription for EACH sound - no ambiguity. However, they
did leave 3 exceptions:
	(1) The particles that sound like "wa" "e" and "o" are still
	    written "ha" "he" and "wo" respectively.
 	(2) A few words with a long "o" sound make the long "o"
	    sound by the kana "oo" instead of "ou" like usual. Some
	    examples are "ookii", "ooi", and "tooi".
	(3) A few words use the kana "du" (tsu with two dots) and
	    "di" (chi with two dots) instead of "zu" and "ji",
	    although they sound the same. These words are rarer.
The 2 extra kana "wi" and "we" I mentioned earlier are no longer
used at all in modern Japanese.
	However, when we enter junior high school, we have to start
learning how to read ancient Japanese poems and such that are
written in the old spelling style. We just have to know how to read
them though, not write them, so it isn't too bad.
	If you would like to learn more about the old spellings, you
may ask for information about "kyuu kanadukai" (that's one spelling
exception itself - sounds like "-zukai" pretty much), or "old kana
usage", or about "rekishi-teki kanadukai" (historical kana usage).
To see examples of it, just look in books published before the end
of World War 2. They will be written in modern Japanese, but with
the old spelling. Old children's magazines can be especially fun to
look at.

	Hope this was of interest.

	Maiko Covington		ecovingt@sdcc13.ucsd.edu
Newsgroups: sci.lang.japan