Sokuon

Japanese writing

Kanji

Kana

• Hiragana
• Katakana
• Hentaigana
• Man'yōgana

Uses

• Furigana
• Okurigana

Rōmaji

The sokuon (促音^?) is a Japanese symbol consisting of a small hiragana or katakana tsu. In less academic language it is called chiisai tsu (小さいつ^?) or chiisana tsu (小さなつ^?), meaning "little tsu". Compare to a full-sized tsu:

The sokuon is used for various purposes. The main use is for showing a geminate consonant, which is represented in rōmaji by the "doubling" of the following consonant. In speaking a word involving the sokuon, the protocol is to motion the mouth into pronouncing the consonant which follows the sokuon and stopping, allowing a slight pause before carrying out the speech of the actual consonant.

Examples:

• Pocky, a Japanese snack food, is written in kana as ポッキー, which is

  ポ po

  ッ sokuon

  キ ki

  ー chōon, in romanized Japanese

  pokkii, with the sokuon representing the doubling of the k consonant.

• Matte, the te form of the verb matsu, is written as 待って, which is:

  待 ma (kanji)

  っ sokuon

  て te, with the sokuon representing the doubling of the t consonant.

The sokuon cannot appear at the beginning of a word, before a vowel kana (a, i, u, e, or o), or before kana that begin with the consonants n, m, r, w, or y. In addition, it does not appear before voiced consonants (g, z, d, or b), or before h, except in loanwords, or distorted speech, or dialects.

The sokuon is also used at the end of a sentence, to indicate a glottal stop (a sharp or cut-off articulation), which may indicate angry or surprised speech. In this case, it is usually romanized as t, although there is no standard way to do so.

In order to enter the sokuon using a computer or word-processor, there are several methods, such as xtu, ltu, ltsu, etc., although some word processors (for example Mac OS X's Kotoeri) will make one if a non-"n" consonant letter is typed twice.

In the International Phonetic Alphabet, the sokuon sound is marked either with a colon-like mark or a doubled consonant:

• kite (来て, come) - /kʲite/
• kitte (切手, postage stamp) - /kʲitːe/ or /kʲitte/
• asari (あさり) - /asaɺʲi/
• assari (あっさり) - /asːaɺʲi/ or /assaɺʲi/

Computer Input

In the Microsoft IME, a sokuon appears when you type a double consonant such as "ddo". A sokuon by itself can be input either by typing a doubled consonant such as kku (っく) and deleting the final character, or by typing "xtu".

See also

Look up 促音, っ, or ッ in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

• Japanese phonology gives a detailed description of the sound system of Japanese.

External links

• sokuon - sci.lang.japan Frequently Asked Questions