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I am currently reading a manga for studying Japanese and encountered something strange. A girl exclaims「な゛?!」

The situation is that she has just had water squirted up her nose, so I am guessing it's a kind of 'gnya' sound?

So my question is, is this a real Japanese language thing, or is it just the artist taking liberties with the language for comic effect?

Cheers

taylor
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DaleyPaley
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    perhaps you could attach a small picture? – Flaw May 16 '13 at 04:48
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    You might want to check out this old (2002) thread about this sort of thing: http://q.hatena.ne.jp/1040004428#a7692 Interesting thread :) – summea May 16 '13 at 04:53
  • @Flaw Just to be careful, are there any guidelines about "[fair use](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_use)" (for anything copyright-related) on SE? – summea May 16 '13 at 06:12
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    @summea I don't know about that. But I really doubt part of an image of a comic frame will affect their profits. I guess it's fair use for educational purposes. We can remove the image on request anyway. – Flaw May 16 '13 at 07:00
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    i think it just means the voice is strained. – Axe May 16 '13 at 11:27
  • Related question: http://japanese.stackexchange.com/questions/15270/why-are-points-used-where-furigana-would-be-normally – Andrew Grimm Oct 13 '15 at 01:29

2 Answers2

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We sometimes write 「な!?」,「なっ!?」 or 「なっ・・・!?」 (These three will be pronounced the same way) to mean 「なにっ！？」 or 「何！？」. Probably it's like "Wha...!?" or "What the...!?"

We also sometimes write 「え゛っ！」 in place of 「えっ！」 to add emphasis, but the 「゛」 ([濁点]{だくてん}) won't change/affect the pronunciation, so it'd be impossible to pronounce 「な゛」 or 「え゛」 correctly (I don't know what would be "correct" here though).

However, if I were a voice actress and had to read them, I'd probably read them as...

「え゛っ！」 instead of 「えっ！」

(So... maybe you'd call it a "thick/gruff/husky(?) voice"?? Or, is this what you'd call "strained", as in @ogicu8abruok's comment?)

Chocolate
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    ナ行の音は鼻音で既に有声です。つまり、声帯の振動を伴った音なので、濁点をつけても更に濁らせたりする事は不可能です。 – Dono May 16 '13 at 08:24
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    So writing え゛っ(with the extra ゛) as opposed to えっ denotes added surprise without denoting an actual change in sound? (by the way what are those dots called in Japanese and in English?) – yadokari May 16 '13 at 14:17
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    @yadokari Besides 濁点（だくてん）, they are sometimes called 濁り（にごり） or colloquially てんてん. In English, you can use Japanese terms like "dakuten" or call them "voicing marks" or "voiced sound marks". –  May 16 '13 at 14:47
  • @Dono そ～ですよねえ。。。もうちょっと考えて書き直そう・・・（しかもまた日本語やし） –  May 16 '13 at 22:17
  • なるほど、よく分かった。ありがとう – DaleyPaley May 17 '13 at 00:17
  • @DaleyPaley え゛っ・・・そうですか？(゜o゜)゛　自分では良いと思わなかったので、ずいぶん書き直してしまいました。う゛む゛む゛・・・ –  May 17 '13 at 13:40
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I believe in this instance, the dots are used for emphasis. Since な is only a sound (or partial word), the net effect is basically just a louder exclamation. It's the difference between writing "What!?" and "What!?" in English (note the italics).

Stephan B
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