In the Japanese language, the is a traditional system ordering kana by their component phonemes, roughly analogous to alphabetical order. The "fifty" in its name refers to the 5×10 grid in which the characters are displayed. Each kana, which may be a hiragana or katakana character, corresponds to one sound in Japanese. As depicted at the right using hiragana characters, the sequence begins with あ , い , う , え , お , then continues with か , き , く , け , こ , and so on and so forth for a total of ten rows of five columns. Although nominally containing 50 characters, the grid is not completely filled, and, further, there is an extra character added outside the grid at the end: with 5 gaps and 1 extra character, the current number of distinct kana in a syllabic chart in modern Japanese is therefore 46. Some of these gaps have always existed as gaps in sound: there was no yi or wu in Old Japanese, and ye disappeared in Early Middle Japanese, predating the kana; the kana for i, u and e double up for those phantom values. Also, with the spelling reforms after World War II, the kana for wi and we were replaced with i and e, the sounds they had developed into. The kana for syllabic n is not part of the grid, as it was introduced long after gojūon ordering was devised. The gojūon contains all the basic kana, but it does not include:
versions of kana with a dakuten such as が or だ, or kana with handakuten such as ぱ or ぷ,
smaller kana, such as the sokuon or in the yōon.
The gojūon order is the prevalent system for collating Japanese in Japan. For example, dictionaries are ordered using this method. Other systems used are the iroha ordering, and, for kanji, the radical ordering.
History
The gojūon arrangement is thought to have been influenced by both the Siddham script used for writing Sanskrit and the Chinese fanqie system. The monk Kūkai introduced the Siddhaṃ script to Japan in 806 on his return from China. Belonging to the Brahmic script, the Sanskrit ordering of letters was used for it. Buddhist monks who invented katakana chose to use the word order of Sanskrit and Siddham, since important Buddhist writings were written with those alphabets. In an unusual set of events, although it uses Sanskrit organization, it also uses the Chinese order of writing. , showing vowel ordering The order of consonants and vowels, and the grid layout, originates in Sanskrit shiksha, and Brāhmī script, as reflected throughout the Brahmic family of scripts. The Sanskrit was written left-to-right, with vowels changing in rows, not columns; writing the grid vertically follows Chinese writing convention.
Discrepancies
There are three ways in which the grid does not exactly accord with Sanskrit ordering of Modern Japanese; that is because the grid is based on Old Japanese, and some sounds have changed in the interim.
''s''/
What is now s/さ was previously pronounced, hence its location corresponding to Sanskrit ; in Sanskrit appears towards the end of the list.
''h''/
Kana starting with h, b and p are placed where p/b are in Sanskrit and the diacritics do not follow the usual pattern: p/b is the usual unvoiced/voiced pattern, and has different articulation. This is because was previously, and pronouncing as is recent. . In Old Japanese
''n''/
Syllable-final n was not present in Old Japanese, does not fit with other characters due to having no vowel, and thus is attached at the end of the grid, as in Sanskrit treatment of miscellaneous characters.
Examples
The earliest example of a gojūon-style layout dates from a manuscript known as Kujakukyō Ongi dated –1028. In contrast, the earliest example of the alternative iroha ordering is from the 1079 text Konkōmyō Saishōōkyō Ongi. Gojūon ordering was first used for a dictionary in the 1484 Onkochishinsho; following this use, gojūon and iroha were both used for a time, but today gojūon is more prevalent. Today the gojūon system forms the basis of input methods for Japanese mobile phones – each key corresponds to a column in the gojūon, while the number of presses determines the row. For example, the '2' button corresponds to the ka-column, and the button is pressed repeatedly to get the intended kana.
^ These kana are no longer in common use. They, and the three empty cells, are normally replaced with the plain vowel kana いうえ in the charts that Japanese use, but that has not been done here to avoid confusion.
The rows are referred to as, and the columns as. They are named for their first entry, thus the rows are あ段 い段 う段 え段 お段 while the columns are わ行 ら行 や行 ま行 は行 な行 た行 さ行 か行 あ行. These are sometimes written in katakana, such as ア行, and conspicuously used when referring to Japanese verb conjugation – for example, the verb is of type.
Ordering of variant kana
In the ordering based on the gojūon, smaller versions of kana are treated in the same way as full-size versions:
The sokuon, the small kana tsu, is ordered at the same position as the large tsu. When the words are otherwise identical, it goes after them. For example,
: まつ, まったく, まつば, まとう
Yōon sounds are ordered in the same positions as the full-sized sounds. When the words are otherwise identical, they collate after them. For example,
: きや, きゃ, きやく, きゃく, きゆ .
Voiced versions are classified under their unvoiced versions; If the words are otherwise identical, the voiced version is placed after the unvoiced; handakuten are placed after dakuten. For example, and
Mnemonics
In order to remember the gojūon, various mnemonics have been devised. For example, and and and also The first letters in these phrases give the ordering of the non-voiced initial sounds. For vowel ordering, the vowel sounds in the following English phrase may be used as a mnemonic: The vowel sounds in the English words approximate the Japanese vowels: a, i, u, e, o. One can also use to remember the order of the vowels.
