How many characters are there in Kanji? How many characters are there in Japanese? How many vowels are there in the Japanese alphabet?
First British tank Mark I
By the end of 1916, artillery and machine guns dominated the battlefields. The artillery forced the opposing sides to dig in deeper, and machine-gun bursts began to mow down the enemy infantry that had risen to attack. The war turned into a positional war and trench lines stretched for many kilometers along the front. There seemed to be no way out of this situation, but on September 15, 1916, after six months of preparation, the Anglo-French army launched an offensive in northern France. This offensive went down in history as the “Battle of the Somme”. This battle is significant only because it was possible to throw back German troops several kilometers, but also because for the first time British tanks took part in the battle.
NThe Allied offensive on the Somme River began on September 15, 1916, after a massive and lengthy artillery preparation, as a result of which it was planned to destroy engineering defensive structures Germans. British soldiers were even told that all they had to do was walk towards the German defenses and capture their positions. But despite this, the offensive stalled: the German positions were practically not damaged by artillery strikes, and their army in defense still remained combat-ready. The Entente army was bleeding, trying to break through the German positions, but all efforts were wasted completely in vain. Then the newly appointed British commander-in-chief, General Douglas Haig, decided to use new weapons - tanks, which had just been delivered to the front. The old military man had great doubts about the new product, but the situation at the front obliged himthrow your last trump cards into battle.
Haig was convinced that he had chosen the wrong time to attack. The autumn rains have soaked the ground quite a bit, and the tanks need solid ground. Finally, and this is the most important thing, there are still too few tanks, only a few dozen. But there was no other way out.
The first British tank to see its baptism of fire at the Battle of the Somme was the Mark I heavy tank, which was armed with two rifled 57 mm Six Pounder Single Tube guns and two 7.7 mm air-cooled Hotchkiss M1909 machine guns. barrel, located behind the guns in sponsons, as well as one such machine gun was located in the frontal part of the tank and served by the commander, and in some cases another machine gun was installed in the rear of the tank. The crew of this tank consisted of 8 people.
49 Mark I tanks were ordered to move to the forward positions. It was a dark night. The steel masses crawled like turtles in the direction where the flares were constantly lighting up in the sky. After 3 hours of march, only 32 vehicles arrived at the places indicated for concentration: 17 tanks got stuck on the road or stopped due to various problems.
Having turned off the engines, the tankers fiddled around with their steel horses. They poured oil into engines, water into radiators, checked brakes and weapons, and filled tanks with gasoline. An hour and a half before dawn, the crews started the engines again, and the vehicles crawled toward the enemy...
British tank Mark I after the Somme River offensive, 25 September 1916.
At dawn the German trenches appeared. The soldiers sitting in them were amazed at the sight of the strange machines. However, the vaunted German discipline prevailed, and they opened fire with rifles and machine guns. But the bullets did not cause any harm to the tanks, bouncing off the armored walls like peas. Coming closer, the tanks themselves opened fire from their cannons and machine guns. The hail of shells and bullets fired from short distances made the Germans feel hot. But they did not flinch, hoping that the clumsy vehicles would get stuck in the multi-row wire fence installed in front of the trenches. However, the wire did not pose any obstacle to the tanks. They easily crushed it with their steel caterpillars, like grass, or tore it like a cobweb. Here German soldiers real horror seized me. Many of them began to jump out of the trenches and rush to run. Others raised their hands in surrender. Following the tanks, hiding behind their armor, came the British infantry.
The Germans did not have vehicles similar to tanks, and that is why the effect of the first massive combat use of tanks exceeded all expectations.
Japanese writing combines three systems for graphic communication. To study them for the uninitiated is an art. To begin with, it is good to know the basics, or the alphabet.
The Japanese use two syllabaries created by their ancestors: hiragana and katakana, as well as kanji, which consists of Chinese characters.
Hiragana and katakana contain 47 characters. These systems are known for the fact that behind one character there is hidden not just one sound, but a whole syllable: for example, when we have 4 letters in the word “snow”, in Japanese graphics there will be 2. This system is also called syllabic writing.
How many vowels are there in the Japanese alphabet?
There are no separate vowels in Japanese. The Japanese usually use open syllables with 5 vowel sounds. Romanized, they look like this:
- A – similar to Russian [a], which stands between two consonants.
- I – [and], before it all consonants become soft.
- U is the middle sound between [u] and [s]. The lips do not stretch out, as when pronouncing a similar Russian sound. The lips are slightly rounded and the tongue moves back.
- E – always clear [e]. The consonants preceding it remain hard.
- O – always clear[o]. In an unstressed position it does not transform into [a]. The lips become slightly rounder, but do not extend forward.
Japanese has semivowels: [y] and [w].
Diphthongs are also used in Japanese writing:
- ai [ai];
- oi [oh];
- ui [ui];
- ei [hey], today is often replaced by a long [e].
All of them are falling: the first vowel sounds clearer than the second.
Instead of forceful stress, the Japanese use toning for vowels and syllables. There are three types of toning:
- flat;
- rising;
- decreasing.
How many consonants are there in the Japanese alphabet?
There are no separate consonant letters other than ん (H) in Japanese. The remaining characters are syllables ending in a vowel. However, there are analogues of sounds:
- [dz] - the sound is interesting because it is pronounced almost the same as [z], but at the same time the ligaments are tensed. The sound [z] itself also occurs in speech, but always in the middle of a word;
- [f] - differs from Russian pronunciation in that it makes a sound more like blowing out a candle; the lips do not stretch out, but lower lip rises slightly above the top;
- and the above named [n].
When one of the consonants K, S, T, C, P, N, M, CH needs to be doubled, a special symbol is used - sokuon. Such doubling of a consonant is not accidental; thanks to this, the meaning of the word itself changes.
Japanese allows consonants to be long and short. The long ones will be:
- The long consonants themselves. They appeared as a semantically distinctive feature of speech and writing.
- Double consonants. When in some words there was a reduction of [u] and [i] between two voiceless consonants, the consonants that were once separated by a vowel became double, as in the word KOKKI (originally: KOKUKI) - the national flag.
- There are also emphatic long consonants, when a person voluntarily increases the pronunciation of a sound.
The peculiarity of the letter ん (N) is that before the consonant sounds [p], [p'], [b], [b'], [m], [m'], [n], [n'] expresses labiolabial nasal sound and almost transforms into [m]. This is also reflected in the letter, when the letter M appears in place of H. Both graphic notations are considered the norm.
How to understand the variety of Japanese alphabet systems?
In Japan, printed materials often use hiragana, katakana and kanji simultaneously, which gave rise to the concept of “mixed script”. Thus, newspaper headlines, thanks to this, can occupy several lines, although they contain only one sentence. To distinguish between symbol systems, you need to remember a few rules:
- Kanji is usually used to represent nouns, adjectives and verb stems. Its symbols are often used to represent morphemes in writing.
- Hiragana represents one syllable, or mora, with each character. Hiragana is used to convey vowel sounds, syllable combinations, and consonants. N. Hiragana conveys particles and suffixes in writing. It is also used to provide hints for learning hieroglyphs. Hiragana is also called “women’s writing” because Japanese women, who had long been confined to home education, kept notes with its help. Today, Harigana is used for preschool reading texts.
- Katakana, which was created by Buddhist monks, expresses the same sounds as harigana. The signs of this alphabet are used today for symbols taken from other cultures, foreign names, scientific and technical terminology.
- Travelers will not have to understand the intricacies of Japanese alphabet. For tourists, they created a special writing style - romaji. It also has its own groups, but the most important thing is that it allows you to write Japanese texts in Latin letters. Romaji is used in tourist brochures, on landmark signs, and anywhere a visitor to the country might find themselves.
- Traditionally, the Japanese write vertically, but already in 1959 state level The principle of horizontal writing was adopted.
Video on the topic
I am not a professional in the Japanese language, and therefore I ask you to consider my answer as a specialist in national education; it is quite possible that there may be some errors, which of course I would like to know about for self-education. So, I’ll start with what the so-called is:
Japanese alphabet.
It does not consist, like Russian, of a certain number of letters, which in turn form words on paper and are sometimes written differently from how they are pronounced. But in Japan, the alphabet consists of several sets of hieroglyphs, as well as other characters that are used in writing. Never confuse the systems of the Russian alphabet and the Japanese alphabet, they are different in principle, this is a system of hieroglyphs!
In general, in Japan they use several systems for translating spoken language into writing, these are:
- Hiragana (a system created in Japan);
- Katakana (a system created in Japan);
- Kanji (hieroglyphs borrowed from Chinese writing);
- Romaji 9 Latin alphabet Japanese version hieroglyphs);
- Arabic numerals.
The most common systems on which training is based are two systems: Hiragana and Katakana.
Hiragana
This system essentially includes only 5 vowels plus 3 curved vowels (Yeon)
Around them, when merging with other sounds, 41 more symbols are formed in addition to the 5 main vowels. Total basic - 46 characters. And the total base is 104 characters.
Katakana includes only 47 characters, which are considered basic:
Schools in Japan use similar educational posters for children.
One of the features of the historical development of Japan is its long isolation, which lasted until the middle of the 19th century. This has had a noticeable effect on the Japanese language: linguists are still not sure where it originates from. The theory of its relationship with the Altai group of languages is more popular; another version leans towards Austronesian languages, represented in particular in Southeast Asia and Oceania.
1. Japan is a small country, but very densely populated. Thanks to this, the Japanese language (“Nihongo”), according to data for 2009, is in 9th place in the world in terms of the number of people who consider it native - 125 million. Its immediate neighbors are: in 8th place - with 167 million original media, in 10th place - just over 100 million.
2. The mountainous landscape and island location of Japan in the past made communication between different regions countries. Because of this, more than two dozen dialects arose in the Japanese language. And the dialects of the southern Ryukyu Islands are generally distinguished into a separate Ryukyu language. The dialects are so different from each other that their speakers often would not understand each other - if not for the compulsory study of literary Japanese in all schools in the country.
3. The sound of the Japanese language can be very unusual for the Slavic ear. One of the reasons for this is that in Nihongo there are practically no separate consonant sounds; syllables are used instead. For example, one of the jokes in the style of “You are too keen on Japanese if...” reads: “... if you think for a long time about how many syllables are in the word “tractor”.” In fact, a Japanese person without special training will read this word as “torakuturu”. The only “pure” consonant is “n”.
At the same time, the Japanese in many cases “swallow” the vowel sounds “u”, “i”. For example, the word "moon" - 月 ("tsuki") - is usually pronounced "ts'ki".
4. In addition, there is no “l” sound in Japanese. In foreign words it is replaced with “r” - for example, “teresukopu” (telescope). This "r" is one of the most striking features Japanese accent. Which, by the way, is the second world war successfully used by the American Marines in the Pacific: a word like “lollapalooza” could not be pronounced correctly by any enemy spy, which made such words very convenient for use as passwords.
5. However, there are also difficulties in transmitting some Japanese sounds in other languages. For example, the sound of the syllable し is something between “si” and “shi”, じ - between “ji” and “ji”. As a result, linguists different countries use different rules transmission of Japanese words in writing. For example, the word 地震 (earthquake), according to Polivanov’s system adopted in Russian, will be written as “jisin”, and according to Hepburn’s English system - “jishin”. The situation is aggravated by the above-mentioned abundance of dialects: in different regions the pronunciation can be either very loud (“dzi”) or muffled (“ji”).
6. Many are sure that the Japanese, like the Chinese, use hieroglyphs to write. This is only partly true: along with hieroglyphic writing, there are two alphabets in the Japanese language - hiragana and katakana. However, characters (kanji) are still the main way of writing today. They came from China, and many retained their original meaning. Thanks to this, a Japanese and a Chinese, without knowing each other’s languages, are quite able to communicate with each other in writing - not without misunderstandings, of course, but still.
7. In the very big dictionary There are 50 thousand characters in the Japanese language. At the same time, the standard for a Japanese high school graduate is knowledge of about 2 thousand hieroglyphs; and in order to read a book or a daily socio-political newspaper without any difficulties, you need to remember about 2.5 - 3 thousand characters.
8. Hiragana and Katakana syllabaries (combined under general term"kana") play a supporting role. Hiragana is used in particular to write suffixes and Japanese words for which there is no character. It can also be used instead of hieroglyphs by those who do not know the language well - for example, children or foreigners. Katakana is used mainly for borrowed words. For example, the above-mentioned “tractor” came into Japanese from English and is written as トラクター (“torakuta”, from the English pronunciation).
9. By the way, about borrowing. In Japanese they are called “gairaigo”, and there are many such words, mostly from (although this is not limited to). For example, classmates may be called “kurasumeto”, from the English “classmate”, and one of the simplest types of housing is a specific studio apartment- denoted by the word “apato”, from “apartment”. From German language the word “baito” (from Arbeit, “work”) came, meaning part-time work (by the way, as in); There are many borrowings from the Germans in medical vocabulary. The word “tabaco” (tobacco) was given to the Japanese by the Portuguese, and “ikura”... yes, yes, it’s Russian “caviar”.
Many borrowed ones were so modified that it is very difficult to recognize them. For example, the Japanese call a personal computer “pasokon” (distorted “perso-com”), and local truckers drive around in decorated trucks called “dekotora” (from “decorated truck”).
Decorators in their natural habitat.
Interestingly, gairaigo is often used in cases where the word has a native analogue: for example, a wife can be called “waifu”, in the same English manner.
10. Characteristic feature The Japanese national character is considered to be restraint. This is also noticeable in the language. For example, the traditional address of a husband and wife to each other is “anata”. This is the same word that means “you/you” when addressing a stranger; the fact that the address here is personal and means “dear/darling” is clear only from the context. The word “s’ki” can mean both love between a man and a woman, and the feeling from the series “I like kittens.” However, there are several more terms for love: “ai”, “aijo” means burning passion, “koi” is used only if the feeling is mutual, and even the tracing paper from English love - “slave” - is also found in speech.
11. Another feature of Japanese society, reflected in the language, is a strict social hierarchy. In Nihongo, there is a whole range of suffixes added to names depending on who the person is to the speaker; some of these suffixes are related to personal relationships, others to professions.
An example for clarity. A young Japanese man named Yamazaki Ryuji (the first word is a surname, the second is a given name) works as a teacher at a high school:
- Homeowner, bank clerk, etc. they will call him "Yamazaki-san".
- Students and colleagues - "Yamazaki-sensei" (sensei literally means "teacher", and in this case the word is used as a suffix).
- Friends and buddies - "Yamazaki-kun".
- A fellow student at the institute who entered a year later is “Yamazaki-senpai” (“senpai” means “senior”, is also used as a separate word).
- Close friend - by first name or last name, without a suffix.
- Favorite girl - "Ryuji-chan" (or even "Ryu-chan").
And these are just the most simple examples, there are a great many nuances.
12. It’s not easy to speak in Japanese not only about other people, but also about yourself and your loved one. Our “I” in Japanese corresponds to many different words, which also depend on the context of the situation and the personal characteristics of the speaker. The most neutral form - the literary "watashi" - is acceptable for any person, but if you lengthen it to "watakushi" ("watak'si") - and we get a purely female version, and a very mannered, aristocratic one. Purely masculine forms are “boku” and “ore”, with the first being only slightly familiar, and the second being considered boastful and used to emphasize one’s own “coolness”. There are other, rarer and more specific options.
13. Negation in Japanese is usually placed at the end of a sentence (in this way, by the way, it is similar to German). In fact, the speaker only needs to add the negation “nai” at the end of the tirade - and the whole meaning of what was said changes to the opposite.
14. The Japanese consider 4 to be the unluckiest number. Moreover, in Japan they fear it even more than in the West they fear the number 13. For example, in numbering floors, hospital wards, etc. they try to avoid not only the number 4 itself, but also combinations ending in four - 14, 24, etc. And on the 4th of every month, the number of deaths from cardiovascular diseases increases noticeably (however, there is no mysticism here - people are nervous about the “unlucky” day). A similar superstition arose due to the peculiarities of the language: the original reading Chinese character四, meaning the number "4", is very similar to the sound of the word "death".
However, in fairness it must be said that the fear of the four is characteristic not only of Japan, but also of other countries that use Chinese writing - in particular, China itself, as well as Korea. For example, the photo above was taken in Hong Kong.
15. There is no future tense for verbs in Japanese. At all. There is only the past and the non-past (present). That is, for example, the phrases “I’m going to the store” and “I’ll go to the store” will sound the same in Japanese. The specific meaning is inferred from context or specifications (“I’ll go to the store at three o’clock”).
By the way, they like to cite this fact as proof of the conservatism and traditionalism of Japanese society: they say, even in the language they did not provide for the future tense.
P.S. Not exactly a fact, more like a historical anecdote. After the end of World War II, the Americans decided to analyze all the factors of victory over the Japanese in the Pacific. And, among other things, they allegedly discovered that the average word length in English is 5 sounds, and in Japanese - 13. That is, roughly speaking, while the Japanese are still in command, the Americans are already shooting. This may, of course, be fiction. However, today's Japanese fighter pilots use English in radio communications.
