Furigana

is a Japanese reading aid consisting of smaller kana (syllabic characters) printed either above or next to kanji (logographic characters) or other characters to indicate their pronunciation. It is one type of ruby text. Furigana is also known as and in Japanese. In modern Japanese, it is usually used to gloss rare kanji, to clarify rare, nonstandard or ambiguous kanji readings, or in children's or learners' materials. Before the post-World War II script reforms, it was more widespread.

Furigana is most often written in hiragana, though in certain cases it may be written in katakana, Roman alphabet letters or in other, simpler kanji. In vertical text, tategaki, the furigana is placed to the right of the line of text; in horizontal text, yokogaki, it is placed above the line of text, as illustrated below.

These examples spell the word , which is made up of three kanji characters: (, written in hiragana as ), (, written in hiragana as ) and (, written in hiragana as ).

Appearance

Furigana may be added by character, in which case the furigana character(s) that correspond to a kanji are centered over that kanji; or by word or phrase, in which case the entire furigana text is centered over several kanji characters, even if the kanji do not represent equal shares of the kana needed to write them. The latter method is more common, especially since some words in Japanese have unique pronunciations () that are not related to readings of any of the characters the word is written with.

Furigana fonts are generally sized so that two kana characters fit naturally over one kanji; when more kana are required, this is resolved either by adjusting the furigana by using a condensed font (narrowing the kana), or by adjusting the kanji by intercharacter spacing (adding spaces around the kanji). In case an isolated kanji character has a long reading—for example (where reads , )—the furigana may instead spill over into the space next to the neighboring kana characters, without condensing or changing spacing. Three-kana readings are not uncommon, particularly due to yōon with a long vowel, such as ; five kana are required for and six for , the longest of any character in the Joyo kanji. Very long readings also occur for certain kanji or symbols which have a gairaigo (loan word) reading; the word "centimeter" is generally written as "cm" (with two half-width characters, so occupying one space) and has the seven-kana reading () (it can also be written as the kanji , though this is very rare); another common example is "%" (the percent sign), which has the five kana reading (). These cause severe spacing problems due to length and these words being used as units (hence closely associated with the preceding figure).

When it is necessary to distinguish between native Japanese kun'yomi pronunciations and Chinese-derived on'yomi pronunciations, for example in kanji dictionaries, the kun'yomi pronunciations are written in hiragana, and the on'yomi pronunciations are written in katakana. However, this distinction is really only important in dictionaries and other reference works. In ordinary prose, the script chosen will usually be hiragana. The one general exception to this is modern Chinese place names, personal names, and (occasionally) food names—these will often be written with kanji, and katakana used for the furigana; in more casual writing these are simply written in katakana, as borrowed words. Occasionally this style is also used for loanwords from other languages (especially English). For example, the kanji (literally "one horn beast") might be glossed with katakana , , to show the pronunciation of the loanword "unicorn", which is unrelated to the normal reading of the kanji. Generally, though, such loanwords are just written in straight katakana.

The distinction between regular kana and the smaller character forms (yōon and sokuon), which are used in regular orthography to mark such things as gemination and palatalization, is often not made in furigana: for example, the usual hiragana spelling of the word () is , but in furigana it might be written . This was especially common in old-fashioned movable type printing when smaller fonts were not available. Nowadays, with computer-based printing systems, this occurs less frequently.

Alignment rules in word processing or typesetting

Various word processing or typesetting software programs, such as Microsoft Word, Adobe InDesign, Adobe InCopy, etc. have features for adding ruby text, especially Japanese furigana. Among formatting features are different rules for aligning the kana over or to the right of the base text, usually either when the base text string is longer than the furigana string or vice versa. Extra spaces may be needed depending on the size of the shorter string (either the ruby string or the base string) relatively to the longer one.

Centered, left/top or right/bottom: No spaces are added in between the characters. The shorter string is aligned to the center ( ), the left/top ( )

Names

Japanese names are usually written in kanji. Because there are many possible readings for kanji names, including special name-only readings called nanori, furigana are often used to give the readings of names. On Japanese official forms, where the name is to be written, there is always an adjacent column for the name to be written in furigana.

Furigana may also be used for foreign names written in kanji. Chinese and Korean names are the most common examples: Chinese names are usually pronounced with Japanese readings and the pronunciation written in hiragana, while Korean names are usually pronounced with Korean readings and the pronunciation written in katakana.

Language learning

Kanji and kanji compounds are often presented with furigana in Japanese-language textbooks for non-native speakers.

Furigana are also often used in foreign-language textbooks for Japanese learners to indicate pronunciation. The words are written in the original foreign script, such as hangul for Korean, and furigana is used to indicate the pronunciation. According to Ministry of Education guidelines, and the opinions of educators, the use of Japanese furigana should be avoided in English teaching due to the differences in pronunciation between English and Japanese. For instance, the word "birthdate" might be glossed in furigana as (), which corresponds to an imperfect pronunciation.

Other effects

Furigana unrelated to the kanji they are assigned to are often used to convey certain effects, rather than to denote a phonetic guide, especially in manga, anime, video games, and tabletop games.

This usage is known as (see also Kanji special readings). The specific effects vary.

It may be used to visually reinforce complex ideas without having to use long expressions. For example, the word "nightmare" may be annotated with "truth" (i.e. ) rather than its true reading, to convey the meaning of "nightmarish truth".

Some authors may even use furigana that means the opposite of what the base text does to reinforce the complicated relationship between characters. For example, "close friend" may be annotated with "rival", to mean "a rival who is also friend".

Another use is to indicate the meanings of ambiguous or foreign words. For example, the word (, "here") may be annotated with a more specific description like "hospital" (i.e. ) to mean "here (at this hospital)". Or in a work of science fiction, an astronaut may use the word "my hometown", when referring to planet Earth; to clarify that for the reader, may be written over the word "Earth". A similar technique is used in Japanese subtitles on foreign films to associate the written Japanese with the sounds actually being spoken by the actors, or in a translation of a work of fiction to preserve the original sound of a proper name in furigana while indicating its meaning with kanji. For example, "Firebolt" in the Harry Potter series is written , composed of the kanji "flame thunderbolt" and the furigana .

Some manga combine the rendition of a foreign word (especially an obscure one) in furigana as the intended reading of a term, with more familiar kanji as the meaning. For example, "station" may be annotated with (the rendition of the English "station") to convey a foreign, exotic feel. This is sometimes done conversely, for example, by annotating an exotic term like "kiss" with a more common synonym like .

Some writers use furigana to represent slang pronunciations, particularly those that would be difficult to understand without the kanji to provide their meaning. Others use it simply to shrink kana spellings that are too long, thanks to the small type of furigana. For example, "Interpol" may be shortened to .

In karaoke it is common for furigana to be placed on the song lyrics. The song lyrics are often written in kanji pronounced quite differently from the furigana. The furigana version is used for pronunciation.

Notes

References

Citations

Sources

Mangajin's Basic Japanese Through Comics [Part I] New York: Weatherhill, 1998: 48–49
J Paul Warnick, Review of Nihon o Hanasoo in The Journal of the Association of Teachers of Japanese, Vol. 32, No. 2 (Oct., 1998), pp. 80–83.

External links

Furigana Generator: Tool that automatically adds hiragana above kanji characters in a given Japanese text.

Appearance

Alignment rules in word processing or typesetting

Names

Language learning

Other effects

Other Japanese reading aids

Okurigana

Kunten

Furikanji

See also

Notes

References

Citations

Sources

External links