Re: Question about historical Japanese kana usage.

<delurk>

   I've been lurking for a while, but with no current active project,
haven't really had anything to contribute. I can field this one, though.

Steven Williams wrote:

> kana for 'ye'. 'Ye' as a syllable existed in Japanese,
> as in the obsolete names 'Yedo' (now 'Edo') and 'yen'
> (now 'en').
>
> How did the Japanese express the syllable 'ye'? Or did
> they at all?
   Actually, AFAIK, "ye" never did exist as a syllable, "yedo" was
always "edo" and "yen" was always "en".

   The "ye" bit in romanised texts is due to a misperception of the
sounds by foreigners who heard "e" as "ye" -- in actual conversation,
the transition from the preceding word to the word beginning with "e"
can make it sound, to non-Japanese ears, as though there is a "y" (is
that /j/ in CXS?) sound there.

<relurk>

Phil