Talk:Japanese phonology

Voiced bilabial fricative [β̞] for the ⟨w⟩ kana?

@Nardog, you just updated the phonotactics tables to use ⟨β̞⟩ for /enwiki/w/. β̞ redirects to Voiced_bilabial_fricative#Approximant, and the sole example given for Japanese is a variant pronunciation of Kobe.

Is ⟨β̞⟩ really the correct IPA glyph for the /enwiki/w/ sound in Japanese? Or is the redirect incorrect, and this shouldn't point to Voiced_bilabial_fricative#Approximant? ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 19:19, 4 August 2022 (UTC)

As I mentioned in the summary, it's per Maekawa (2020). See also the Consonants section. Nardog (talk) 01:44, 5 August 2022 (UTC)

@Nardog: Hmm, ya, Maekawa's paper makes sense, thank you. The problem I see right now is that the page we have describing this symbol appears to define a different sound than what we get with Japanese わ (wa). The sequence awa in Japanese does not match the sequence ava in Spanish, but our content at Voiced_bilabial_fricative#Approximant combined with your edit here would suggest that these should have the same pronunciation.

With that in mind, I wonder about adopting Maekawa's other suggestion to use notation like [ɰʷ], adding the superscript "w" diacritic to mark labialization. This isn't too far from what we used to have, something like [ɰᵝ] with the diacritic to indicate bilabial articulation. That said, both of these are also problematic in that our article at Roundedness defines these instead as superscript "w" to mark protruded rounding and supercript "β" to mark compressed rounding.

Alternatively, with your expertise, could you update the content at Voiced_bilabial_fricative to better account for Japanese? ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 05:52, 5 August 2022 (UTC)

I already did. The allophone of /b/ is a fricative, not an approximant, according to the source cited there (Okada). Using ⟨ɰ⟩ for /enwiki/w/ is misleading because it's the symbol for the velar approximant. The value of ⟨β̞⟩ is quite clear; it's even used as an exemplar of the diacritic on the official IPA chart. Nardog (talk) 05:56, 5 August 2022 (UTC)

@Nardog: Thank you for moving the Kōbe example. Could you also add some Japanese examples of the approximant? Currently the table at Voiced_bilabial_fricative#Approximant has nothing for Japanese.

My sense is that the Spanish pronunciation of the ⟨v⟩ in lava is different from the Japanese ⟨w⟩ in awa, in that the Spanish strikes me as being more closed, where the lips are closer together, but I may be off-base. ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 16:59, 5 August 2022 (UTC)

Done. Spanish [β] varies between fricative and approximant, like other voiced continuants ([ð, ʝ, ɣ]). Nardog (talk) 19:54, 5 August 2022 (UTC)

Auxilliary む in spelling changes table

The table gives the modern spelling of む as ん, but it's my understanding that this is still a very literary/archaic spelling. I think the table should be updated to use う・よう instead. I'm not sure how best to include this, as the sound change also involves the 未然形 of the verb, so it's not just む > う, but あむ to おう (e.g. 行かむ > 行こう). Also む > よう for ichidan verbs (食べむ > 食べよう、見む > 見よう) Horse Battery (talk) 14:54, 12 November 2022 (UTC)

Some Japanese allophone of /ɡ/

Allophone of /ɡ/ have only ⟨[ɣ]⟩, but it's possible to have ⟨[ɠ]⟩? Sometimes, I can hear a bit voiced velar implosive. Juidzi (talk) 12:52, 14 February 2023 (UTC)