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As explained in [this
question](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/questions/2615/what-does-the-use-
of-a-dash-instead-of-a-character-to-extend-a-sound-mean), a dash character is
used in katakana as an extension of a sound.

First, what exactly is this character called? A "nobasu mark"?

Anyway, I saw this sign in Shibuya the other day:

![keitai advertisement](https://i.stack.imgur.com/SvcCR.jpg)

It's not a remarkable advertisement. It simply says
`「ケータイ代{だい}に悩{なや}まない３年間{ねんかん}を。」`, which means something like "Get a three
year worry free mobile phone service plan." _(Very loose translation.)_

What struck me though is that in this case, they are using katakana for a word
for which there is kanji: `携帯{けいたい}`, and in that kanji, the first character
is read `けい`. Not `けえ`.

I always thought that the purpose of `ー` was to extend the _same_ sound from
the previous character. Or, in other words, use the same `段{だん}`, or "vowel
row", in the hiragana syllabry. So the `ー` in `ラーメン` represents `あ` because it
follows `ら`, both in the `あ段{だん}`.

Intuitively, of couse I recognize that `ケー` is probably more of a phonetic
representation than anything rule based.

So, more out of curiousity than anything else, is there any set of rules which
determine what exact sound a `ー` should be? I feel that as someone who has
gained a familiarity with Japanese, I just unquestioningly intuit the reading
for `ー` when I come across it, but if one were to try and explain it to
someone completely new to Japanese, how would you do it?
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question
readings katakana orthography
What are the rules determining the use of the dash in katakana?
けい denoting the sound けえ is the result of some historic process of evolution
within the Japanese language.

Katakana is used for phonetic spellings of foreign loanwords (among other
uses).

In this use, 携帯 is being re-framed as a foreign word to be spelled
phonetically (because it is cool or unusual or whatever: this is advertising
logic).

So ケイ would not be used, for the same reason it's not used in ケーキ (cake).

(But maybe in the next revision of the ad, they will try ケイ just for its
attention-getting effect!)

Anyway, since ケーキ is a loan-word, it wouldn't make sense to give it a spelling
which would try to make it look like it is actually an old Japanese word which
evolved to a modern "kee..." pronunciation, but retained a historic spelling!

If a word containing the sound "uff" is borrowed into English, should we spell
it "ough", like "tough"?

Changing the prefix and suffix of "suffix", we obtain "soughicks".
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answer
First of all, you are right about ー: it always extends the vowel that came
before it. (And the official name for it that I know is 長音符, ちょうおんぷ, "long
sound mark", like cypher said.)

> What struck me though is that in this case, they are using katakana for a
> word for which there is kanji: 携帯けいたい, and in that kanji, the first
> character is read けい. Not けえ.

This is actually an interesting issue. It is _written_ けい, but the majority of
"standard dialect" speakers in the majority of cases pronounce it as if it
were written けえ. This includes newscasters and so on -- even NHK's accent
dictionary recognizes けえ as the "standard" pronunciation of this sound.

You can test this by asking someone to say けいたい and then say ケースバイケース
naturally and at a regular speed. Unless they suspect something, most of them
will pronounce the first two morae of those two words the same. (When you
yourself say けいたい at normal speed, does your mouth move during the けい? If not,
you too are saying けえ.)

On the other hand, if you ask someone to pronounce the word けいたい mora by mora,
most people will say け, い, た, い, and some people speaking carefully or trying
to enunciate precisely might say けいたい rather than けーたい as well. I don't want
to get into an argument about exactly who says けいたい and when; when you view
standard-dialect speech patterns in the aggregate, it is widely agreed that
けーたい is the most common way the word comes out. I could dig up some references
for you if you like, but by necessity they would be to books about
linguistics.

(Sidenote: Interestingly, this rule does not apply to "native Japanese" words
like えい "ray [kind of fish]", which would not be pronounced ええ in the standard
dialect. My impression is that more recent loanwords like スペイン also tend to
retain the イ sound, and not turn out like スペーン. The /ei/ → /e:/ phenomenon is
basically restricted to words using Chinese morphemes.)

So the use of the spelling ケータイ is _sort of_ like "eye dialect" in English,
like writing "gonna (do something)" instead of "going to (do something)", or
"-in'" instead of "-ing". It's representing the actual sound rather than the
spelling. The basic effect is to make the copy feel more casual and friendly,
even slangy.

In this particular case... Well, first, I disagree with Kaz's argument that it
re-frames the word as a _foreign_ word, although there _might_ be an argument
that it is about non-native _pronunciation_ , given the context -- "oniisan"
and all that. But I'm not sure how likely that is; really I think they are
just trying to come off hip and relaxed (note that even if you spell it kanji,
"携帯代" is slang).
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answer