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
Famous quotes containing the words japanese, pitch and/or accent:
“No human being can tell what the Russians are going to do next, and I think the Japanese actions will depend much on what Russia decides to do both in Europe and the Far East—especially in Europe.”
—Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945)
“I dream that I have brought
To such a pitch my thought
That coming time can say,
“He shadowed in a glass
What thing her body was.””
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)
“The accent of a man’s native country remains in his mind and his heart, as it does in his speech.”
—François, Duc De La Rochefoucauld (1613–1680)