Re: [tlug] katakana

[momoi@example.com (Katsuhiko Momoi)]

Brett Robson wrote:

>>Can anybody explain the need for 3 different katakana characters? What's
>>the purpose of having two smaller sized letters (narrow and half-width) ?
>>
>> http://www.unicode.org/charts/PDF/UFF00.pdf
>> http://www.unicode.org/charts/PDF/U30A0.pdf
>>
>>Example:
>> [NORMAL] ワ, HEX: 30EF, isWide:1
>> [HALF] ヮ, HEX: 30EE, isWide:1
>> [NARROW] ワ, HEX: FF9C, isWide:0
>>
>>    
>>
>
>
>The small (half) katakana are used to make sounds (most often) combining
>ya, yu, and yo to a sound xi, eg ki, gi, shi ... I can't think of
>anything that would use your example WA
>
>	eg キョ　KIyo=kyo
>
Hi,

Coming into this discussion a bit late but a comment below on the use of
the character \u30EE and others like it that are not as familiar as
small "ya", "yu", and "yo" characters.

They are often used in representing C + V type of syllables where "C" is
not a native Japanese consonant. The way to do this is to pick an
appropriate normal C+V syllable character such as "Ku" and then add
these "Half" characters after it. So for example,

Ku + "half" wa + ? (glottal stop) クヮッ

would be an instruction to elide the final vowel of the preceding
syllable and add the 2nd syllable to it. This would then represent a
sound like:

Kwatt or phonetically [qwa?] - like sound where "tt" or "?" indicates a
glottal stop.

"Kwatt" could represent an ideophone for widening one's eyes suddenly as
if in surprise or in quick anger. Cf. sound effects in comic books. This
process of elision is observed in familiar words such as Katakana for
English "Fan" which is written as:

Hu + "half" a + N ---> F + a + N ファン

again the "half a" representing an instruction to elide the preceding vowel.

- Kat

>
>The half width characters (narrow) are an old system, they only needed 7
>bits to represent each character. Still used on many cash registers,
>billing and corporate systems. In normal katakana ギ(GI) is one
>character, but in half width it is two キ゛ Because katakana are simple
>they can be printed smaller.
>
>
>Brett
>  
>
-- 
Katsuhiko Momoi <momoi@example.com>