The Iroha (いろは) is a Japanese poem. Originally the poem was attributed to Kūkai, the founder of Shingon Buddhism, but more modern research has found the date of composition to be later in the Heian period (794–1179).[1] The first record of its existence dates from 1079. It is famous because it is a perfect pangram, containing each character of the Japanese syllabary exactly once. Because of this, it is also used as an ordering for the syllabary, in the same way as the A, B, C, D... sequence of the Latin alphabet.
Iroha | |
---|---|
Original title | いろは |
Country | Japan |
Language | Japanese |
Text
editThe first appearance of the Iroha, in Konkōmyōsaishōōkyō Ongi (
以呂波 耳 本部 止
千利奴流乎和加
餘多 連 曽 津 祢那
良 牟有為 能 於久
耶万計 不 己 衣 天
阿佐 伎喩女 美之
恵 比毛 勢 須
Structurally, however, the poem follows the standard 7–5 pattern of Japanese poetry (with one hypometric line), and in modern times it is generally written that way, in contexts where line breaks are used. The text of the poem in hiragana (with archaic ゐ and ゑ but without voiced consonant marks) is:
Archaic | Modern | Ordering (see usage) | Translation | ||
---|---|---|---|---|---|
hiragana | transliteration | kanji and hiragana | pronunciation | numbers | |
いろはにほへと | Iro fa nifofeto | Iro wa nioedo | 1–7 | Even the blossoming flowers [Colors are fragrant, but they] | |
ちりぬるを | Tirinuru wo | Chirinuru o | 8–12 | Will eventually scatter | |
わかよたれそ | Wa ka yo tare so | Wa ga yo tare zo | 13–18 | Who in our world | |
つねならむ | Tune naramu | Tsune naran | 19–23 | Shall always be? (= つねなろう) | |
うゐのおくやま | Uwi no okuyama | Ui no okuyama | 24–30 | The deep mountains of karma— | |
けふこえて | Kefu koyete | Kyō koete | 31–35 | We cross them today | |
あさきゆめみし | Asaki yume misi | Asaki yume miji | 36–42 | And we shall not have superficial dreams | |
ゑひもせす | Wefi mo sesu | Ei mo sezu¹ Yoi mo sezu |
43–47 | Nor be deluded. |
Note that:
- Archaic, obsolete, and historical hiragana uses ゐ (historic Japanese wi, modern i) and ゑ (historic Japanese we, modern e), which are now only used in proper names and certain Okinawan orthographies. Modern writing uses voiced consonant marks (with dakuten). This is used as an indicator of sound changes in the spoken Japanese language in the Heian era.
- The consonant /h/ in Japanese (a voiceless glottal fricative) was historically pronounced as /ɸ/ (a voiceless bilabial fricative) before the occurrence of the so-called hagyō tenko (“'H'-row (kana) sound shift”, ハ
行 転 呼 ). Due to phonological changes over history, the pangram poem no longer matches today's pronunciation of modern kana. - The mora e (spelt え &
衣 ) and ye had merged into /je/ in the 10th century,[2] slightly before the poem was written down in 1079. - Note 1: The verb form
酔 い ("being intoxicated; intoxication") may be read in modern kana pronunciation as either ei, the archaic pronunciation based on the original kana spelling ゑひ (wefi in Classical Japanese), or as yoi, the modern reading after sound changes caused the base verb form eu to shift to you. The difference in reading depends on the intention of the rendering: keeping closer to the original, or keeping closer to modern usage.
An English translation by Professor Ryuichi Abe[3] reads as:
Although its scent still lingers on
the form of a flower has scattered away
For whom will the glory
of this world remain unchanged?
Arriving today at the yonder side
of the deep mountains of evanescent existence
We shall never allow ourselves to drift away
intoxicated, in the world of shallow dreams.
Komatsu Hideo has revealed that the last mora of each line of the Man'yō-gana original (
Usage
editThe Iroha contains every kana only once, with the exception of ん (-n), which was not distinguished from む mu in writing until the early 20th century (see Japanese script reform). For this reason, the poem was frequently used as an ordering of the kana until the Meiji era reforms in the 19th century. Around 1890, with the publication of the Wakun no Shiori (
Even after widespread use of gojūon in education and dictionaries, the Iroha sequence was commonly used as a system of showing order, similarly to a, b, c... in English. For example, Imperial Japanese Navy submarines during the Second World War had official designations beginning with I (displacement 1,000 tonnes or more), Ro (500 to 999 tonnes), and Ha (less than 500 tonnes). Also, Japanese tanks had official designations partly using Iroha ordering, such as Chi-ha (ha meaning the third model). Other examples include subsection ordering in documents, seat numbering in theaters, and showing go moves in diagrams (kifu).
Current uses
editThe Iroha sequence is still used today in many areas with long traditions. Most notably, Japanese laws and regulations officially use Iroha for lower-level subsection ordering purposes, for example
In music, the notes of an octave are named i ro ha ni ho he to, written in katakana.
English | A | B | C | D | E | F | G |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Japanese | イ (i) | ロ (ro) | ハ (ha) | ニ (ni) | ホ (ho) | ヘ (he) | ト (to) |
Iroha is also used in numbering the classes of the conventional train cars of Japanese National Railways (now known as JR). I is first class (no longer used), Ro is second class (now "Green car") and Ha is third class (standard carriages).
Some Japanese expressions are only understandable when one has knowledge of the Iroha. The word iroha (イロハ, often in katakana) itself can mean "the basics" in Japanese, comparable to the term "the ABCs" in English. Similarly, Iroha no i (イロハのイ) means "the most basic element of all". I no ichiban (いの
Iroha karuta, a traditional card game, is still sold as an educational toy.
Irohazaka (いろは
Origin
editAuthorship is traditionally ascribed to the Heian era Japanese Buddhist priest and scholar Kūkai (
It is said[by whom?] that the Iroha is a transformation of these verses in the Nirvana Sutra:
諸行無常
是 生滅 法
生滅 滅 已
寂滅 為 楽
which translates into
All acts are impermanent
That's the law of creation and destruction.
When all creation and destruction are extinguished
That ultimate stillness (nirvana) is true bliss.
The above in Japanese is read
Shogyō mujō
Zeshō meppō
Shōmetsu metsui
Jakumetsu iraku
See also
edit- Ametsuchi no Uta (an earlier pangram)
- Japanese literature
Other languages
edit- Abecedarius
- Alphabet song
- Shiva Sutra, Sanskrit poem with similar function
- Hanacaraka, the traditional arrangement of the letters of the Javanese alphabet
- The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog, commonly used English phrase with every letter in the Latin alphabet
- Thousand Character Classic, Chinese poem with similar function, especially used in Korea
Notes
edit- ^ Abe (1999), pp. 392, 398
- ^ Frellesvig, Bjarke (1995). A Case Study in Diachronic Phonology: The Japanese Onbin Sound Changes. Aarhus University Press. p. 73
- ^ a b Abe (1999), p. 398
- ^ Abe (1999), p. 392
References
edit- Abe, Ryuichi (1999). The Weaving of Mantra: Kûkai and the Construction of Esoteric Buddhist Discourse. Columbia University Press. ISBN 0-231-11286-6.