Argh! I can't find the answer anywhere :/ Tankas...

[Emoni]

Still working on my first Tanka, but ran into a horrible road block. This is my first Tanka and I want it to be as real and legit as possible (which it why I'm getting everything down to exact, and it of course will be completely in Japanese).

Here is the problem though, while the pattern is 5,7,5,7,7 I'm not sure what to count and what not to count sylable or sound wise. I've checked everywhere I can think of so far, and find no real answers or even any tanka's in Japanese.

For example. Let us say that I'm saying Anta Hitomi. Going by sound is this 4 sylables or 5? For the most part the few Haiku's which follow similar rules it seems to be 5. But what about words like Kyou? 2, 3, 4 maybe?:eek: :angryfire:

I really can't continue till I find out the exact answer to this question, and those from my college that would know the answer are away till Jan 22nd. Hoping to get this done before end of the month though.

Thanks to anyone who has the answer I've been looking for weeks for :wave:

[Keiichi]

I don't know. I checked some books and only found one example with kyou in it. It seems kyou is 1 syllable. I'm no pro at this stuff. ^^'

[Glenn]

Originally posted by Emoni
For example. Let us say that I'm saying Anta Hitomi. Going by sound is this 4 sylables or 5? For the most part the few Haiku's which follow similar rules it seems to be 5. But what about words like Kyou? 2, 3, 4 maybe?

あんたひとみ is six, and きょう is two. This page (http://www.sf.airnet.ne.jp/~ts/japanese/phoneme.html) explains the "syllable" structure in Japanese (scroll down to section 1.2.3).

[billiken]

What Glenn-san said, まったくその通りですね。さすが。

短歌, For example:
わすれじの ゆくすゑまでは かたければ けふをかぎりの いのちともがな

Modern Japanese translation:
わすれじの / ゆくすえまでは　/ かたければ　/ きょうをかぎりの　/ いのちともがな
wasurejino / yukusuemadeha / katakereba / kyouwokagirino / inochitomogana

In this case, 5-7-5-7-7

You could count the number of characters in hiragana.

"きょ kyo" is one character and also "う u" is one character.
"きょう kyou" is two syllables. ("きょ" + "う" = 2)

Small letters can not be counted in.
But, exception, small letter "っ" is generally taken into calculation.
Exmaple: "さっき sakki" is three syllables. ("さ" + "っ" + "き" = 3)