Japanese pitch accent (高低アクセント, kōtei akusento?) is a feature of the Japanese language which distinguishes words in most Japanese dialects, though the nature and location of the accent for a given word may vary between dialects. For instance, in standard Tokyo Japanese the word for "now" is, with the accent on the first mora (or equivalently, with a downstep in pitch between the first and second morae), but in the Kansai dialect it is . A final or is often devoiced to or after a downstep and an unvoiced consonant.
Read more about Japanese Pitch Accent: Correct Pitch Accent, Examples of Words Which Differ Only in Pitch, Other Dialects, Correspondences Between Dialects
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“In fact, the whole of Japan is a pure invention. There is no such country, there are no such people.... The Japanese people are ... simply a mode of style, an exquisite fancy of art.”
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)
“I saw the Arab map.
It resembled a mare shuffling on,
dragging its history like saddlebags,
nearing its tomb and the pitch of hell.”
—Adonis [Ali Ahmed Said] (b. 1930)
“I lost my ridiculous accent without acquiring another”
—John Ashbery (b. 1927)