{{short description|Japanese prosody}} {{Italic title|reason=:Category:Japanese words and phrases}} '''''On''''' (音; rarely ''onji'') are the phonetic units in Japanese poetry. In the Japanese language, the word means "sound". It includes the phonetic units counted in haiku, tanka, and other such poetic forms. Known as "morae" to English-speaking linguists, the modern Japanese term for the linguistic concept is either ''haku'' (拍) or ''mōra'' (モーラ).
'''Ji''' (字) is Japanese for "symbol" or "character". The concatenation of the two words ''on'' and ''ji'' into ''onji'' (音字) was used by Meiji era grammarians to mean "phonic character" and was translated into English by Nishi Amane in 1870 as "letter". Since then, the term "onji" has become obsolete in Japan, and only survives in foreign-language discussion of Japanese poetry. Gilbert and Yoneoka<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Gilbert |first1=Richard |last2=Yoneoka |first2=Judy |title=From 5-7-5 to 8-8-8: An Investigation of Japanese Haiku Metrics and Implications for English Haiku |journal=Language Issues: Journal of the Foreign Language Education Center |date=March 2000 |issue=1 |url=https://www.thehaikufoundation.org/omeka/files/original/88aab4b83e509917a283fb4a72646e85.pdf |access-date=4 June 2022}}</ref> call the use of the word ''"onji"'' "bizarre and mistaken". It was taken up after a 1978 letter to ''Frogpond: Journal of the Haiku Society of America'' decrying the then-current use of the word '''"jion"''', which itself appears to have arisen in error.<ref name="gilbert">Richard Gilbert, [http://www.ahapoetry.com/wildonji.htm Stalking the Wild Onji]</ref><ref>T. Kondo, "In support of onji rather than jion," ''Frogpond: Journal of the Haiku Society of America'', 1:4, 30-31 (1978)</ref>
Counting ''on'' in Japanese poetry is the same as counting characters when the text is transliterated into hiragana. In cases where a hiragana is represented by a pair of symbols each pair (or "digraph" e.g. "kyo" (きょ)) equates to a single ''on''. When viewed this way, the term "''ji''" ("character") is used in Japanese.<ref name="gilbert" />
In English-language discussions of Japanese poetry, the more familiar word "syllable" is sometimes used. Although the use of "syllable" is inaccurate, it sometimes happens that the syllable count and the ''on'' count match in Japanese-language haiku. The disjunction between syllables and ''on'' becomes clearer when counting sounds in English-language versions of Japanese poetic forms, such as haiku in English. An English syllable may contain one, two or three morae and, because English word sounds are not readily representable in hiragana, a single syllable may require many more ''ji'' to be transliterated into hiragana.
There is disagreement among linguists as to the definitions of "syllable" and "mora".<ref>Ellen Broselaw, ''Skeletal Positions and Moras'', in John A Goldsmith (ed.), ''The Handbook of Phonological Theory''. Wiley-Blackwell, 1996, {{ISBN|978-0-631-20126-7}}, p175ff</ref> In contrast, ''ji'' (and hence ''on'') is unambiguously defined by reference to hiragana.
==Examples== To illustrate the distinction between ''on'' and syllables, the first four of the following words each contain the same number of ''on'', but different numbers of syllables, and the fifth shows a variant of the fourth with one less ''on'' but the same number of syllables: {| class="wikitable" |- ! rōmaji !! ''on'' !! hiragana !! kanji !! syllables !! Comparison<ref>Peter Howell, John Van Borsel. ''Multilingual Aspects of Fluency Disorders. Volume 5 of Communication Disorders Across Languages''. Multilingual Matters, 2011. {{ISBN|978-1-84769-358-7}} p146</ref> |- | Nagasaki || ''na-ga-sa-ki'' || な.が.さ.き || 長崎 || na-ga-sa-ki || 4 ''on''; 4 syllables. |- | Ōsaka || ''o-o-sa-ka'' || お.お.さ.か || 大阪 || ō-sa-ka || 4 ''on''; 3 syllables. |- | Tōkyō || ''to-u-kyo-u'' || と.う.きょ.う || 東京 || tō-kyō || 4 ''on''; 2 syllables. |- | Nippon || ''ni-p-po-n'' || に.っ.ぽ.ん || 日本 || nip-pon || 4 ''on''; 2 syllables. |- | Nihon || ''ni-ho-n'' || に.ほ.ん || 日本 || ni-hon || 3 ''on''; 2 syllables |}
The examples show the various ways in which hiragana differ from syllables. In ''Nagasaki'' each hiragana character represents a single on, and hence the four hiragana are also four syllables. In ''Ōsaka'', the initial O is a long (doubled) vowel (denoted with a macron over the vowel in rōmaji), and hence counts as two ''on''. ''Tōkyō'' includes two long vowels, which contribute two ''on'' each in Japanese but only one syllable each, which does not distinguish long vowels from short. In ''Nippon'' the doubled "P" each is pronounced separately; the final "N" is also a separate hiragana, so the two English syllables translate to four ''on''.
==References== {{reflist}}
{{Japanese poetry}}
Category:Phonetics Category:Japanese poetry Category:Japanese literary terminology