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I was speaking with a friend of mine about Japanese, and we come up with a doubt I found no clear answer to: as far as I know, morae are relevant in everyday Japanese, and (at least on theory) each kana should take the same time to be pronounced (small っ included).

On the other end, he (with a C2 in Japanese, and having worked in Japanese translation) was saying that morae are something used to calculate rhythm in classical poetry, but they are not relevant in the phonetics of spoken language, and that when learning the language it's ok to think in syllables.

While I can understand why it's ok to think in syllables, if nothing else because it's easier to understand for people native in languages without mora but with syllable, this conflicts with my knowledge that morae do have relevance in today spoken language as well; I found that morae and syllables are different and counted as such (here and here), and the second answer does state that mora is "a rhythmic unit [used to count] in Japanese poetry", but I didn't find anything about its relevance in today speech, so I was wondering: are morae a concept relevant to the phonetics of spoken language, or something just used for rhythm in classical poetry?

Mauro
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    I’m not sure I understand what you mean by *thinking* in syllables. Would you *think* in syllables and still be able to explain the difference in pronunciation between おばさん and おばあさん? Would it be explained as a difference in the length of corresponding syllables? – aguijonazo Oct 09 '21 at 14:26
  • Yes, cases like ばあ are often explained as "a long A", which could be see as a single syllable. A word like とっぱ, if I'm understanding morae, has three: と-っ-ぱ; an Italian speaker would see it as having two syllables, though: top-pa. てんい has three morae, but it could be seen as two syllables: te-ni, basically seeing てに and てんい as two different writings of the same pronunciation. At least as seen by foreigners, I don't think morae and syllables always coincide. – Mauro Oct 09 '21 at 15:58
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    てに and てんい have totally different pronunciations, but てんい can also be seen as having two syllables with the first ending with a nasalized vowel like *tem* in Portuguese. What I don't understand is what would convince you that morae are *a concept relevant to the phonetics of spoken language*. Some phonetic phenomena that can be explained only with the concept of mora? – aguijonazo Oct 09 '21 at 16:35
  • Sorry, maybe I wasn't clear: I **am** convinced it's useful in modern spoken Japanese, but since my friend said the opposite and he is more versed than me in Japanese I was wondering if I got it wrong, so I was wondering which is true: examples that can be explained only by morae would be great, and I think っ could be one (since it is a mora, but it's not a syllable), but mainly I was wondering if morae are a concept relevant to phonetics of today spoken Japanese; or something used to calculate rhythm in classical poetry, but not relevant in the phonetics of spoken language, as my friend said. – Mauro Oct 09 '21 at 16:47
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    I guess what I don't understand is what you mean by *relevant*, or what you think makes them relevant. In other words, what kind of answer are you looking for? – aguijonazo Oct 09 '21 at 16:55
  • I am under the impression that the idea of mora is useful not just in considering classical poetry metric, but also in understanding how Japanese is pronounced in everyday life. Maybe it could help to think to my doubt as, in Japanese schools, is the concept of mora taught as a classical poetry device, or as something linked to everyday language/pronounciation? Is mora useful to someone who is studying modern Japanese, but has no interest in classical poetry? – Mauro Oct 09 '21 at 17:20
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    What about the pitch accent of おおきい? I guess thinking "long syllables" (or [heavy syllables](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syllable_weight) ?) is kind of thinking morae. Another thing is that Haiku or Waka is not necessarily classical, and the counting of 'sounds' are done in morae. Very practically, neither mora nor syllable is taught (in any substantial way) in Japanese school. – sundowner Oct 10 '21 at 04:20
  • At least in books, in my experience pitch accent is briefly mentioned and then ignored, like *Genki* has four lines and three examples under *Japanese writing system*, then all words are given without any indication about it. I'm not sure about heavy syllables, but according to Wikipedia they contains two morae, so it seems to me thinking in syllables kinda hides the idea of mora; for a long time I had no idea that Japanese had morae, nor that っ is one and takes the same lenght as other kanas while speaking. Is it true that in everyday Japanese each mora should in theory have the same lenght? – Mauro Oct 10 '21 at 08:03
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    Maybe [this Linguistics.SE question](https://linguistics.stackexchange.com/questions/2148/what-is-a-mora) helps. Also, afaik, accentuations of classical Greek (which has pitch accents) are explained with morae. I guess morae are generally more handy for explaining some aspects of pronunciation of Japanese (like おばあさん/おおきい mentioned above), but these are not part of the language covered in textbooks (just as syllables are not covered in depth in English-teaching in Japan.) – sundowner Oct 10 '21 at 08:33
  • Thanks, that helps. So if I'm understanding all of this, morae are relevant in spoken Japanese, because they set the timing of the language (meaning that, from that answer, "Each mora takes about the same length of time to say"), but they are not formally taught, they are assimilated through use (as many aspects of any language). But for a native speaker of a language without morae it's something handy, since just by thinking in syllables could lead to some misconception in timing (like not knowing that っ is as long as other kana, or that あ and な take the same time). Does this sound right? – Mauro Oct 10 '21 at 09:22
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    I think so, though I'm no expert. Possibly you can get an answer in Linguistics.SE - you may need to elaborate what exactly you want to ask. – sundowner Oct 10 '21 at 11:33

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Japanese kindergarteners cannot enjoy haiku yet, but I think most of them can count "the number of sounds" in a word based on the mora system. See my answer in this question: Do native speakers think of prolonged vowels as one long vowel, or two vowel sounds following each other?

The mora system is important not only with classical poetry but also with modern songs and wordplays (example). Articles like this have little to do with classical Japanese, but are based entirely on the mora system. They don't need to explain how to count morae because everyone understands it intuitively. Everyone thinks that the number of "sounds" in 東京, 大阪, 埼玉 and 神奈川 are all 4. On the other hand, I have never met a Japanese speaker who counts the number of "sounds" based on (English-style) syllables, and I still do not know how to do that properly.

Researches show that Japanese babies recognize morae even before they turn 1 year old: Do native speakers learn consonant and vowel length easily, or is it difficult?

naruto
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  • I was reading your reply in the first question you linked, and I was wondering: since «so-called "long vowels" are fundamentally two separate sounds in native speakers' minds», do words like お婆さん and 場合 sound different to native speakers? I'm asking because to my non-native ear they do sound different: I hear the first as /oba:san/ (https://forvo.com/word/%E3%81%8A%E5%A9%86%E3%81%95%E3%82%93/#ja), a single long A sound without pause, while the second as /baai/ (https://forvo.com/word/%E5%A0%B4%E5%90%88/#ja), with two distinct A sounds, like with a small pause between them. – Mauro Oct 10 '21 at 15:51
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    @Mauro They sound different to me because there's a difference in pitch accent (おばあさん【LHLLL】; ばあい【LHH】), but I think neither has a "pause". ばあ in 場合 and バーベキュー【LHHLLL】 sound identical to me. – naruto Oct 10 '21 at 15:58
  • Ok, thanks; I think in 場合 I'm hearing the pitch accent, since after listening to them some more times I'd say it's not a pause, but rather a "strengthening" (not sure what's the proper term), that I hear like two vowels. – Mauro Oct 10 '21 at 16:37
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    @Mauro - This [PDF document](https://researchmap.jp/shiraiwa-hiroyuki/misc/21522855/attachment_file.pdf) on how to count sounds in *syllabeme dialects* might interest you. – aguijonazo Oct 11 '21 at 15:26
  • Thanks, I'll check it; what's a "syllabeme dialect"? I tried googling it, but while I found several Japanese dialects which are syllabeme, I didn't found a definition of the term. – Mauro Oct 11 '21 at 15:41
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    @Mauro - [シラビーム方言](https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/シラビーム方言) – aguijonazo Oct 11 '21 at 16:04
  • I had no idea that existed, that's interesting; thanks! – Mauro Oct 11 '21 at 16:32