Editing Old Japanese (section)

===Accent===
Although modern [[Japanese dialects]] have [[pitch accent]] systems, they were usually not shown in {{tlit|ja|man'yōgana}}. However, in one part of the ''Nihon Shoki'', the Chinese characters appeared to have been chosen to represent a pitch pattern similar to that recorded in the ''[[Ruiju Myōgishō]]'', a dictionary that was compiled in the late 11th century. In that section, a low-pitch syllable was represented by a character with the [[Middle Chinese]] level tone, and a high pitch was represented by a character with one of the other three [[four tones (Middle Chinese)|Middle Chinese tones]].
(A similar division was used in the [[tone pattern]]s of Chinese poetry, which were emulated by Japanese poets in the late [[Asuka period]].)
Thus, it appears that the Old Japanese accent system was similar to that of Early Middle Japanese.{{sfn|Miyake|2003|pp=37–39}}