ハ行転呼

ハ行転呼

Japanese

Kanji in this term
行	転	呼
ぎょう Grade: 2	てん Grade: 3	こ Grade: 6
goon	kan’on

Alternative spelling
ハ行轉呼 (kyūjitai)

Examples
川 (“river”) was spelled in kana as かは and formerly pronounced as kafa. Due to this sound change, the pronunciation became kawa, even though the kana spelling remained かは until revised to the modern かわ (kawa) in the spelling reforms of the 20th century.

Etymology

Compound of ハ行 (ha-gyō, “ha-row”) +‎ 転呼 (tenko, “pronunciation shift”, specific to how a kana character may take on an irregular pronunciation in certain contexts). So called for the way this particular pronunciation shift affected the set of morae in Japanese that began with the /f/ sound at that time, represented by the kana in the row starting with は or ハ (ha) in the modern pronunciation and ordering.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): [ha̠ɡʲo̞ː tẽ̞ŋko̞]

Noun

ハ行(ぎょう)転(てん)呼(こ) • (ha-gyō tenko) 

1. (linguistics) a specific historical consonantal shift of the Japanese language during the Heian Period, wherein many word-medial /f/ sounds changed to /w/ sounds
   • 1972, 秋永一枝, 古今和歌集声点本の研究: 硏究篇

     だが私は、『寂』や『昆』におけるハ行転呼の注記というものはもっと大まかなものであろうと考えている。

   • 1988, 奥村三雄, 奥村三雄教授退官記念国語学論叢

     平安末ければならないはずであるが、九条家本『法華経音』のフ入声が特立された時点で、すでにハ行転呼の現象によって、音であったかは直接関係がないとされた。

   • 1994, 小学館, 小学館古語大辞典

     ひひらく(ぐ)のように第二音節がハ行転呼を起こさない語形も考えられる。

Further reading

• Historical kana orthography in Wikipedia