Hyōkana

Hyōkana (標仮名, ひょうかな) is a syllabary, one component of the Yashiman writing system, along with nishikana and koji. It is a phonetic lettering system. The word hyōkana literally means "standard kana".

Hyōkana and nishikana are both kana systems. With one or two minor exceptions, each sound in the Yashiman language is represented by one character in each system. This may be either a vowel such as "a" (あ); a consonant followed by a vowel such as "ka" (か); or "n" (ん), a nasal sonorant which, depending on the context. Because the characters of the kana do not represent single consonants (except in the case of ん "n"), the kana are referred to as syllabaries and not alphabets.

Hyōkana is used to write okurikana (kana suffixes following a koji root, for example to inflect verbs and adjectives), various grammatical and function words including particles, as well as miscellaneous other native words for which there are no koji or whose koji form is obscure or too formal for the writing purpose. Words that do have common koji renditions may also sometimes be written instead in hyōkana, according to an individual author's preference, for example to impart an informal feel. Hyōkana is also used to write furikana, a reading aid that shows the pronunciation of koji characters. In some rural areas on Akitsukuni, hyōkana is the sole form of writing used.

Heikana (平仮名) is the form of Hyōkana used to write Shirakawan and other Chiseian languages. Introduced to Chisei in the 16th century, the two systems have undergone minor divergence as a result of seperate standardization and local developments.

The two main systems of ordering hyōkana are the iroha ordering and the more modern gojūon ordering.

Writing system
The modern hyōkana syllabary consists of 46 base characters:
 * 5 singular vowels
 * 40 consonant–vowel unions
 * 1 singular consonant

These are conceived as a 5×10 grid (gojūon, 五十音, "Fifty Sounds"), as illustrated in the adjacent table, read あ (a), い (i), う (u), え (e), お (o), か (ka), き (ki), く (ku), け (ke), こ (ko) and so forth, with the singular consonant ん (n) appended to the end. Of the 50 theoretically possible combinations, yi and wu do not exist in the language, and ye, wi and we are obsolete (or virtually obsolete) in modern Yashiman. wo is usually pronounced as a vowel (o) in modern Yashiman, and is preserved in only one use, as a particle.

These basic characters can be modified in various ways. By adding a dakuten marker ( ゛), a voiceless consonant is turned into a voiced consonant: k→g, ts/s→z, t→d, h→b and ch/sh→j. For example, か (ka) becomes が (ga). Hyōkana beginning with an h can also add a handakuten marker ( ゜) changing the h to a p. For example, は (ha) becomes ぱ (pa).

A small version of the hyōkana for ya, yu, or yo (ゃ, ゅ or ょ respectively) may be added to hyōkana ending in i. This changes the i vowel sound to a glide to a, u or o. For example, き (ki) plus ゃ (small ya) becomes きゃ (kya). Addition of the small y kana is called yōon.

A small tsu っ, called a sokuon, indicates that the following consonant is doubled. In Yashiman this is an important distinction in pronunciation; for example, compare さか saka "hill" with さっか sakka "author". The sokuon also sometimes appears at the end of utterances, where it denotes a glottal stop, as in いてっ! (Ite!; Ouch!). However, it cannot be used to double the na, ni, nu, ne, no syllables' consonants – to double these, the singular n (ん) is added in front of the syllable, as in みんな (minna, "all").

Hyōkana usually spells long vowels with the addition of a second vowel kana; for example, おかあさん (o-ka-a-sa-n, "mother"). The chōonpu (long vowel mark) (ー) used in Nishikana is rarely used with hyōkana, for example in the word らーめん, rāmen, but this usage is considered non-standard in Yashiman; this usage is often seen in mainly in north-western Yashima. In informal writing, small versions of the five vowel kana are sometimes used to represent trailing off sounds (はぁ haa, ねぇ nee). Standard and voiced iteration marks are written in hyōkana as ゝ and ゞ respectively.

Ordering
Two ordering systems for hyōkana exist, the iroha poem and the more modern gojūon system.

Iroha
The Iroha is a poem dating to before 1079. A perfect pangram, the poem contains every syllable of the Yashiman language once. It follows the standard 7–5 pattern of Yamataian poetry (with one hypometric line).

While the iroha system fell out of use upon the appearance of official Yashiman dictionaries and the gojūon system in the mid 1700s, the iroha is still used to this day as a sequence to show order, or to denote low-level subdivisions, similar to the use of i, ii, iii... etc. One example is the Chi-Ho main battle tank, Ho denoting that it is the fourth post-war tank to be produced.

Irohazaka (いろは坂), a one-way switchback mountain road at Nikko, Tochigi, is named for the poem because it has 48 corners. The route was popular with Kamimichi pilgrims on their way to Lake Chūzenji, which is at the top of the forested hill that this road climbs. While the narrow road has been modernized over the years, care has been taken to keep the number of curves constant.

History
By the 3rd Century, Hua characters began entering the Yashiman archipelago. In Hinomoto, the use of koji (黃字, こじ) had finally introduced a formal writing system to the Yashiman language by the 5th Century, with evidence of ancient road markers bearing Hua characters dating to around this period. From Hinomoto, the use of Hua characters spread westwards. The Inariyama Sword, an iron sword excavated in 1968, is the oldest known artefact to bear Hua words in Akitsukuni and dates to roughly 470. During the early period, the Yashiman language was directly represented with the corresponding Hua characters across the Yashiman archipelago. Subsequently, nishikana was the first Yashiman syllabary to appear, with feudal coinage bearing nishikana dating to the 8th century having been discovered near Niihama.

Hyōkana began emerging in the Empire of Yamatai in the late 9th century, following the Western Expedition and the conquests of the West Yashiman feudal domains in the 700s. Modern hyōkana first appeared in the Kamimichi temples, with the Miko adapting cursive Hua characters into the nishikana system to improve efficiency in copying religious texts. Retired Miko began writing stories and poems, giving rise to early novels such as The Tale of Hanzo, often written entirely in hyōkana. Hyōkana began gaining popularity first with the women of Yamatai who spread these texts and began proliferating the use of the script alongside the rise of Yamataian literature, using the script for private correspondence and novel writing.

Despite heavy resistance from the educated and elites, who preferred to use only the koji system, hyōkana nonetheless began spreading upwards through the strata of Yamataian society. The government finally accepted hyōkana as an official form of notation some time in 1084, evidenced by a letter of complaint to the Imperial Court written by a Lord Horikawa in koji. For the centuries that followed, hyōkana, nishikana and koji would coexist in the Yamataian Empire with varying levels of adoption, with nishikana essentially replacing hyōkana in the north-western regions, while Keijo high culture experienced almost pure hyōkana use.

Hyōkana was introduced to Chisei during the period of Yamataian invasions in the late 16th century. It was soon adopted by the Shirakawan court, and over time developed into a distinct sister-syllabary known as Heikana.

Following the 1866 Sakura Revolution, hyōkana and nishikana were declared to be the official scripts of the Yashiman language, with koji intended to be phased out before being outright banned, as it was considered a symbol of Hua cultural imperialism against the Yashiman people. However, it was nearly impossible to remove koji from Yamataian society, and it continued to be used widely, albeit "unofficially". It would only be after the Endwar and the reformation of Yamatai that koji would officially return once again. Yamatai's imperialist exploits during the Third Shiro-Yamataian War led to an increase in hyōkana use in western Chisei as well.