54171
I thought that syllables with an "お" sound get lengthened by an "う" rather
than another "お".

I've seen this question asked on
[hinative](https://hinative.com/ja/questions/15827), which mentions 遠い（とおい）,
大きい (おおきい), 多い (おおい), 通り (とおり/どおり) and others, but the answers haven't
received many upvotes, and aren't awfully long.
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2017-10-31T09:47:21.717
54169
2021-10-18T11:19:09.960
91
question
etymology orthography spelling
Why is こおり spelt with an お rather than an う?
Just as many other languages have, Japanese has gone through a number of both
major and minor phonetic changes. English is certainly no exception, either.
Why do English-speakers continue to spell words like " **knight** " and "
**daughter** " as such when they no longer pronounce those words the way they
are spelt?

Japanese has experienced the same problem of discrepancies between spellings
and pronunciations as it is a rather old language. So, what have we done to
amend them?

In 1946, our government announced a set of "rules" that basically said that
words should now be spelt the way that represented their current
pronunciations -- or at least as much as possible. The new rules are named
「現代仮名遣{げんだいかなづか} **い** 」("Modern kana orthography") as opposed to
「歴史的仮名遣{れきしてきかなづか} **ひ** 」("Historical kana orthography"). (Notice my cool use
of 「ひ」 at the end of the latter term. That is an example of phonetic change,
too.)

You can read (if you read Japanese) about the announcement of 現代仮名遣い in its
entirety here on the official website for our Agency for Cultural Affair.:

<http://www.bunka.go.jp/kokugo_nihongo/sisaku/joho/joho/kijun/naikaku/gendaikana/index.html>

Moving on to the specific example of 「こおり」 vs. 「こうり」 for 「氷」.

The original Japanese word for "ice" was 「こ **ほ** り」, or rather "ko + **ho** +
ri" when Japanese was only a spoken language. It was a 3-syllable word
containing 3 distinct consonants. It was **not** an almost-2-syllable word
with an elongated first syllable as it is today.

Now, let us consider the word 「高利{こうり}」("high interest rate"). It never was
「こほり」 to begin with. Thus, it is still spelt 「こうり」 in kana currently. As you
know, it is pronounced like 「こーり」.

(It might help to remember that there is no 「おお」 in Sino-loanwords written in
kana. There is only 「おう」 as there never occurred a ほ-to-お sound change in how
Sino-loanwords were pronounced in Japanese.)

Therefore, as a sort of reminder of the historical origins of the words, our
現代仮名遣い rules say that 「氷」 should be spelt 「こ **お** り」 in kana and 「高利」 as 「こ
**う** り」 even though both words are pronounced like 「こーり」 in present-day
Japanese.

Incidentally, 「氷{こおり}」 is specifically mentioned in the above-mentioned new
rules. Read #6 here:

<http://www.bunka.go.jp/kokugo_nihongo/sisaku/joho/joho/kijun/naikaku/gendaikana/honbun_dai2.html>

Mind you, 現代仮名遣い is not a perfect invention. For instance, as you know,
particles 「は」,「へ」 and 「を」 are still written as such even though they have long
been pronounced 「わ」,「え」 and 「お」, respectively. How words "look" is still
important, our government must have thought. At least in the case of 「こおり」,
even the first-graders know how to read and write it in kanji (「氷」);
therefore, we still managed to maintain the appearance of the word.

Fortunately or unfortunately, we did not have the English problem of possibly
having to re-spell "knight", "daughter", etc. so that the words are spelt
according to their current pronunciation while still keeping the good,
physical appeal of the words.
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2017-10-31T12:36:07.573
54171
2021-10-18T11:19:09.960
2021-10-18T11:19:09.960
54169
answer