Iroha

Template:Short description {{#invoke:other uses|otheruses}} Template:Italic title Template:Infobox poem The Template:Nihongo is a Japanese poem. Originally the poem was attributed to Kūkai, the founder of Shingon Buddhism, but more modern research has found the date of composition to be later in the Heian period (794–1179).<ref>Template:Harvp</ref> The first record of its existence dates from 1079. It is famous because it is a perfect pangram, containing each character of the Japanese syllabary exactly once. Because of this, it is also used as an ordering for the syllabary, in the same way as the A, B, C, D... sequence of the Latin alphabet.

TextEdit

The first appearance of the Iroha, in Template:Nihongo was in seven lines: six with seven morae each, and one with five. It was also written in man'yōgana.

<poem>
以呂波耳本部止千利奴流乎和加餘多連曽津祢那良牟有為能於久耶万計不己衣天阿佐伎喩女美之恵比毛勢須
</poem>

Structurally, however, the poem follows the standard 7–5 pattern of Japanese poetry (with one hypometric line), and in modern times it is generally written that way, in contexts where line breaks are used. The text of the poem in hiragana (with archaic {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} and {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} but without voiced consonant marks) is:

Archaic		Modern		Ordering (see usage)	Translation
hiragana	transliteration	kanji and hiragana	pronunciation	numbers
lang}}	Iro fa nifofeto	lang}}	Iro wa nioedo	1–7	Even the blossoming flowers [Colors are fragrant, but they]
lang}}	Tirinuru wo	lang}}	Chirinuru o	8–12	Will eventually scatter
lang}}	Wa ka yo tare so	lang}}	Wa ga yo dare zo	13–18	Who in our world
lang}}	Tune naramu	lang}}	Tsune naran	19–23	Shall always be? (= つねなろう)
lang}}	Uwi no okuyama	lang}}	Ui no okuyama	24–30	The deep mountains of karma—
lang}}	Kefu koyete	lang}}	Kyō koete	31–35	We cross them today
lang}}	Asaki yume misi	lang}}	Asaki yume miji	36–42	And we shall not have superficial dreams
lang}}	Wefi mo sesu	lang}}	Ei mo sezu¹ Yoi mo sezu	43–47	Nor be deluded.

Note that:

Archaic, obsolete, and historical hiragana uses {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} (historic Japanese wi, modern i) and {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} (historic Japanese we, modern e), which are now only used in proper names and certain Okinawan orthographies. Modern writing uses voiced consonant marks (with dakuten). This is used as an indicator of sound changes in the spoken Japanese language in the Heian era.
The consonant {{#invoke:IPA|main}} in Japanese (a voiceless glottal fricative) was historically pronounced as {{#invoke:IPA|main}} (a voiceless bilabial fricative) before the occurrence of the so-called hagyō tenko (“'H'-row (kana) sound shift”, Template:Linktext). Due to phonological changes over history, the pangram poem no longer matches today's pronunciation of modern kana.
The mora e (spelt {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} & {{#invoke:Lang|lang}}) and ye had merged into {{#invoke:IPA|main}} in the 10th century,<ref>Frellesvig, Bjarke (1995). A Case Study in Diachronic Phonology: The Japanese Onbin Sound Changes. Aarhus University Press. p. 73</ref> slightly before the poem was written down in 1079.
Note 1: The verb form {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} ("being intoxicated; intoxication") may be read in modern kana pronunciation as either ei, the archaic pronunciation based on the original kana spelling {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} (wefi in Classical Japanese), or as yoi, the modern reading after sound changes caused the base verb form eu to shift to you. The difference in reading depends on the intention of the rendering: keeping closer to the original, or keeping closer to modern usage.

An English translation by Professor Ryuichi Abe<ref name= "Abe_398" /> reads as:

Template:Quotation

Komatsu Hideo has revealed that the last mora of each line of the Man'yō-gana original ({{#invoke:Lang|lang}}), when put together, reveals a hidden sentence, toka [=toga] nakute shisu ({{#invoke:Lang|lang}}), which means "to die without wrong-doing". It is thought that this might be a eulogy in praise of Kūkai, further supporting the notion that the Iroha was written after Kūkai's death.<ref name= "Abe_398">Template:Harvp</ref>

UsageEdit

The Iroha contains every kana only once, with the exception of {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} (-n), which was not distinguished from {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} mu in writing until the early 20th century (see Japanese script reform). For this reason, the poem was frequently used as an ordering of the kana until the Meiji era reforms in the 19th century. Around 1890, with the publication of the Wakun no Shiori ({{#invoke:Lang|lang}}) and Genkai ({{#invoke:Lang|lang}}) dictionaries, the gojūon ({{#invoke:Lang|lang}}, literally "fifty sounds") ordering system, which is based on Sanskrit, became more common. It begins with a, i, u, e, o then ka, ki, ku... and so on for each kana used in Japanese. Although the earliest known copy of the gojūon predated the Iroha, gojūon was considered too scholarly and had not been widely used.

Even after widespread use of gojūon in education and dictionaries, the Iroha sequence was commonly used as a system of showing order, similarly to a, b, c... in English. For example, Imperial Japanese Navy submarines during the Second World War had official designations beginning with I (displacement 1,000 tonnes or more), Ro (500 to 999 tonnes), and Ha (less than 500 tonnes). Also, Japanese tanks had official designations partly using Iroha ordering, such as Chi-ha (ha meaning the third model). Other examples include subsection ordering in documents, seat numbering in theaters, and showing go moves in diagrams (kifu).

Current usesEdit

The Iroha sequence is still used today in many areas with long traditions. Most notably, Japanese laws and regulations officially use Iroha for lower-level subsection ordering purposes, for example {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} (Article 49, Section 2, Subsection 1-ro). In official translation to English, i, ro, ha... are replaced by a, b, c... as in 49(2)(i)(b).

In music, the notes of an octave are named i ro ha ni ho he to, written in katakana.

**Musical notes**
English	A	B	C	D	E	F	G
Japanese	lang}} (i)	lang}} (ro)	lang}} (ha)	lang}} (ni)	lang}} (ho)	lang}} (he)	lang}} (to)

Iroha is also used in numbering the classes of the conventional train cars of Japanese National Railways (now known as JR). I is first class (no longer used), Ro is second class (now "Green car") and Ha is third class (standard carriages).

Some Japanese expressions are only understandable when one has knowledge of the Iroha. The word iroha ({{#invoke:Lang|lang}}, often in katakana) itself can mean "the basics" in Japanese, comparable to the term "the ABCs" in English. Similarly, Iroha no i ({{#invoke:Lang|lang}}) means "the most basic element of all". I no ichiban ({{#invoke:Lang|lang}}, "number one of i") means "the very first".

Iroha karuta, a traditional card game, is still sold as an educational toy.

Irohazaka ({{#invoke:Lang|lang}}), a one-way switchback mountain road in Nikkō, Tochigi, is named for the poem because it has 48 corners. The route was popular with Buddhist 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.

OriginEdit

Authorship is traditionally ascribed to the Heian era Japanese Buddhist priest and scholar Kūkai ({{#invoke:Lang|lang}}) (774–835). However, this is unlikely as it is believed that in his time there were separate e sounds in the a and ya columns of the kana table. The {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} (e) above would have been pronounced ye, making the pangram incomplete.<ref>Template:Harvp</ref>

It is saidTemplate:By whom that the Iroha is a transformation of these verses in the Nirvana Sutra: