# hiragana - ha vs wa



## Vaultec

So according to this website:

Learning Hiragana - Yoshida Institute

It was brought to my attention that the strokes to write the character _ha_ and _wa_ are completely different, however, I just discovered that "hello" and "yes" uses the same character to write _ha_ and _wa.
_
For example,

こんにち*は* -hello

vs

*は*い - yes

Very confused about this matter. Would love to hear extra input about this and discuss why it happens.


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## DaylightDelight

は itself is pronounced [ha], and this is the case with most independent words.
It is pronounced [wa] only when it serves a certain grammatical role in a sentence.
こんにちは is pronounced [-wa] because it actually is part of a longer sentence (much dated and no longer in use).
As far as I can remember right off the top of my head, there is only one other such word (こんばんは=good evening).

So until you start studying sentences and grammars, it's quite safe to assume は is [ha].


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## ktdd

Well, は is pronounced 'wa' only when used as a particle. こんにちは（今日は） literally means "As for today...", the "how's everything going" part is omitted. This は in こんにちは is no different than the は in わたし は にほんじん ではありません。
The same goes with the particle へ. It's pronounced 'e' only when used as a particle, meaning 'towards'. It's 'he' in all other circumstances.
This irregularity has something to to with historical sound changes and the 1948 orthography reform. Kind of complicated...


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## Vaultec

DaylightDelight said:


> は itself is pronounced [ha], and this is the case with most independent words.
> It is pronounced [wa] only when it serves a certain grammatical role in a sentence.
> こんにちは is pronounced [-wa] because it actually is part of a longer sentence (much dated and no longer in use).
> As far as I can remember right off the top of my head, there is only one other such word (こんばんは=good evening).
> 
> So until you start studying sentences and grammars, it's quite safe to assume は is [ha].



I see, this is definitely much clearer. On another note, what is the difference between _ga_ and _ka_? On the same website I linked above, there is no stroke order or anything for _ga_ so how do we know how to write *arigatou *without knowing _ga_?


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## DaylightDelight

The character for /ga/ is listed in the second table on the same linked page.
It's basically か with two apostrophe-like dots at the right shoulder (が).
The list doesn't show you the stroke order but I don't think you need one


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## frequency

ktdd said:


> Well, は is pronounced 'wa' only when used as a particle. The same goes with the particle へ. It's pronounced 'e' only when used as a particle, meaning 'towards'. It's 'he' in all other circumstances.


Good. I think は is _ha_ when it is used as a part of a word, but こんにちは and こんばんは may be exceptions. No?


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## wind-sky-wind

Some people, especially young, often use "こんにちわ" and "こんばんわ."
Many people say it isn't good, but some accept it.
This is because the "は" in "こんにちは" doesn't sound the normal particle "は,"
though it is originally from "こんにちは、..."

Still, you should use "こんにちは," I think.


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## ktdd

=





frequency said:


> Good. I think は is _ha_ when it is used as a part of a word, but こんにちは and こんばんは may be exceptions. No?


They are exceptional because they are particles. See こんにちは - 語源由来辞典 and こんばんは - 語源由来辞典

The は-row (は、ひ、ふ、へ、ほ) of the kana table has undergone radical sound changes over the millennia.
They originally represented plosive sounds /pa pi pu pe po/ in Old Japanese, as evidenced by several factors.
First, the Chinese characters they are supposed to derive from, 波、比、不、部、保 are pronounced with (unaspirated) voiceless bilabial stop /p/ (Hanyu Pinyin "b") in Modern Chinese.
Second, there are discrepancies in the voiceless-voiced pairing (/k/ vs /g/, /s/ vs /z/, /t/ vs /d/, but /h/ vs /b/? Clearly the voiceless version of /b/ should be /p/), and within the row itself (ha hi fu he ho).
When Portuguese missionaries first visited Japan in the early 17th century, they transcribed the entire は-row as "fa fi fu fe fo". Pretty close, except that /f/ is voiceless labiodental fricative (produced between the lower lip and the upper teeth) while the Japanese sound /ɸ/ is voiceless bilabial fricative (produced between two lips). The present-day pronunciation of ふ [ɸu͍] is a relic from that period.
As an aside, I have read somewhere that the 半濁点(ﾟ) was an invention by the Portuguese missionaries to differentiate "pa pi pu pe po" from "fa fi fu fe fo", which at the time were written the same. And the Japanese people happily embraced this innovation and the extra row remains till today.
Lastly, the Japanese syllabary order 五十音順 is modeled on the Sanskrit alphabet. First the vowels /a, i, u, e, o/, then the consonants from the back to the front: /k, g/ (glottal) -> /ts, dz, t, d, n/ (dental) -> /p, b, m/ (labial) -> /y, r, w/ (semivowel and fluid). If the は-row was glottal as it is today, it should precede the さ-row.
A 9th century Japanese monk wrote that the Sanskrit "p" is more "labial" than Japanese. This is taken as evidence that the は-row, originally intended to represent the /p/ sound, was already pronounced differently as /ɸ/ shortly after the Old Japanese period.
And this lenition trend continued, from voiceless bilabial stop /p/ to voiceless bilabial fricative /ɸ/, to voiceless glottal fricative /h/, and finally at around the WWII, the /h/ sound got dropped entirely from all positions except word-initial. That is, は、ひ、ふ、へ、ほ were pronounced "ha hi fu he ho" at the beginning of a word (so はる【春】＝haru), and "wa i u e o" at the middle or the end of a word (うはさ【噂】＝uwasa; じふ【十】＝jiu＝＞jyū -- 十 is sap6 in Cantonese, at some point there must be a /p/ sound in Japanese too, otherwise the double consonant in 十杯 would be hard to explain). Japanese being an agglutinative language, the particle or postposition is perceived as an enclitic, i.e. a part of the preceding word. So the two particles は and へ become "wa" and "e".
After the WWII, Japanese government decided to reform the writing system, basically to simplify things up, and make the spelling reflect the actual pronunciation. Under the new system, all "wa i u e o" sounds are spelled as わ、い、う、え、お including in verb conjugations, for example, いふ=>いう, いはない=>いわない, いへば=>いえば. The only exception is made for particles, because they are so entrenched in the language, changing them would be too reckless. As a result, in わたしは、あなたを、がっこうへ, even though the particles are pronounced as "wa", "e", "o", they are still spelled as は、へ、を respectively.


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## frequency

wind-sky-wind said:


> This is because the "は" in "こんにちは" doesn't sound the normal particle "は,"
> though it is originally from "こんにちは、..."





ktdd said:


> They are exceptional because they are particles.



And they've become greeting statements.



ktdd said:


> The は-row (は、ひ、ふ、へ、ほ) of the kana table has undergone radical sound changes over the millennia.


Oof really. I was looking for any word that embeds は in it. We have the word 入れ歯, and I bet you ktdd know you call this one いれば, not いれは. You know, this way enables you to pronounce it more easily.


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## ktdd

frequency said:


> We have the word 入れ歯, and I bet you ktdd know you call this one いれば, not いれは. You know, this way enables you to pronounce it more easily.


You're overestimating my Japanese level... And... do I give you the impression that I'm so old I need false teeth? Hmmmmm...


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## frequency

ktdd said:


> do I give you the impression that I'm so old I need false teeth?


No, that's just the word that has come to my mind. lol  But I'm happy to know that you seem to have learned one new word!
As you have noticed, that word is not pronounced as いれわ. (歯・は is a noun, not a particle.)


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