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Specifically when transcribing foreign words into katakana, it is often
implied that half of a letter is dropped in pronunciation.

Take for example メルボルン, the Japanese import of the Australian city name
Melbourne. The rōmaji for this is _Meruborun_. However, it is pronounced
_Merborn_. Therefore, the latter half of _ru_ is intuitively dropped in both
of its instances within the word.

Is there a symbol which denotes that only the first half of the preceding
character should be used? Or is the conversion between orthoëpy and lexicon
usually intuitive?
CC BY-SA 3.0
2016-08-25T03:39:42.050
38706
2020-05-08T06:49:40.007
2016-08-25T06:58:59.733
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question
pronunciation katakana loanwords pitch-accent
Omitting half of a letter in Japanese
Loanwords are pronounced exactly the way they are transcribed. Depending on
the circumstances of the transcription (which are often unknown), the
transcription is based on a mix of actual pronunciation, its alphabet
representation and the weather.

If "Melbourne" becomes メルボルン, then it will be pronounced exactly like
//meruboruɴ//, no matter whether it's far from or close to the original
pronunciation. (It could also have been メルボーン.)

The insertion of the extra vowels follows some loose rules: the default is
_u_. However since _t_ + _u_ becomes [[tsu]], after _t_ you usually use _o_
instead of _u_ , as in アート _āto_ "art". However this may be broken if _tsu_ is
perceived to be a similarly good fit, e.g. ピーナツ _pīnatsu_ "peanut" or "peanut
**s** ". Sometimes the choice is also just taken to be the same as the vowel
that follows it: for example in a syllable with two consonants and the vowel
_i_ , the default _u_ that would be "inserted" after the first consonant may
also become _i_ , to avoid the contrast _–u–i_ , as in キリスト _k **i** risuto_
"Christ".

There have been efforts to include phonemes from other languages, such as //va
vi vu ve vo//, transcribed as ヴァ ヴィ ヴ ヴェ ヴォ, but by many still pronounced [[ba
bi bu be bo]]. (For example, ヴィオラ vs. ビオラ. Also see [Do Japanese actually
pronounce the "v" sound?](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/q/24498/1628))

The introduction of スィ ([[si]] rather than [[ɕi]]) or ディ ([[di]] rather than
[[dʑi]]) has been successful. For example, older sources use エジンバラ _Ejinbara_
for Edinburgh, but エディンバラ _Edinbara_ now seems to be standard and most people
do pronounce ディ as [[di]].

Having to introduce extra vowels into loanwords, like _Mer **u** bor **u** n_
can lead to curious effects when actually pronounced. For example プロ from
"pro(fessional)" has pitch accent プロ【HL】, which sounds like the first vowel in
_p **u** ro_ (which shouldn't be there) is stressed.

So, unlike in English (or French), in Japanese everything that is written is
pronounced — sometimes even with a pitch accent that sounds like vowels which
weren't present in the original word are stressed.
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2016-08-25T06:58:31.397
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2020-05-08T06:49:40.007
2020-05-08T06:49:40.007
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38706
answer