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The sokuon is a Japanese symbol in the form of a small hiragana or katakana tsu, as well as the various consonants represented by it. In less formal language, it is called chiisai tsu (小さいつ) or chiisana tsu (小さなつ), meaning "small tsu ". [1] It serves multiple purposes in Japanese writing.
Tsu (hiragana: つ, katakana: ツ) is one of the Japanese kana, each of which represents one mora. Both are phonemically /tɯ/ , reflected in the Nihon-shiki and Kunrei-shiki Romanization tu , although for phonological reasons , the actual pronunciation is [t͡sɯᵝ] ⓘ , reflected in the Hepburn romanization tsu .
For example, き (ki) plus ゃ (small ya) becomes きゃ (kya). Addition of the small y kana is called yōon. A small tsu っ, called a sokuon, indicates that the following consonant is geminated (doubled). In Japanese this is an important distinction in pronunciation; for example, compare さか, saka, "hill" with さっか, sakka, "author".
In Ainu texts, handakuten can be used with the katakana セ to make it a /t͡s/ sound, セ゚ ce [t͡se] (which is interchangeable with ツェ), and is used with small fu to represent a final p, ㇷ゚. In addition, handakuten can be combined with either katakana ツ or ト (tsu and to) to make a [tu̜] sound, ツ゚ or ト゚.
'Kana' is a compound of kari (仮, 'borrowed; assumed; false') and na (名, 'name'), which eventually collapsed into kanna and ultimately 'kana'. [3]Today it is generally assumed that 'kana' were considered "false" kanji due to their purely phonetic nature, as opposed to mana which were "true" kanji used for their meanings.
The sokuon, the small kana tsu, is ordered at the same position as the large tsu. When the words are otherwise identical, it goes after them. For example, まつ, まったく, まつば, まとう (matsu, mattaku, matsuba, matou) Yōon sounds are ordered in the same positions as the full-sized sounds.
There is no universally accepted style of romanization for the smaller versions of the vowels and y-row kana when used outside the normal combinations (きゃ, きょ, ファ etc.), nor for the sokuon or small tsu kana っ/ッ when it is not directly followed by a consonant. Although these are usually regarded as merely phonetic marks or ...
The "contracted sound" (拗音) is represented by the three small kana for ya (ゃ), yu (ゅ), yo (ょ). These do not represent a mora by themselves and attach to other kana; all the rest of the graphemes represent a mōra on their own. Most dialects of Japanese are pitch accent languages, and these pitch accents are also based on morae.