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Taiwanese kana (タイ ヲァヌ ギイ カア ビェン; ; -based Writing System once used to write Holo Taiwanese , when Taiwan was Ruled by Japan . It functioned as a phonetic guide to Hanzi , much like Furigana in Japanese or Zhuyin Fuhao in Chinese .

The system was imposed by Japan at the time, and used in a few dictionaries, as well as textbooks. The Taiwanese-Japanese Dictionary (臺日大辭典), published in 1931-1932, is an example. It uses various signs and Diacritics to denote sounds that do not exist in Japanese. The system is chiefly based on the Amoy ( Xiamen ) dialect of Min Nan .

Through the system, the Office of the Governor-General Of Taiwan aimed to help Taiwanese People learn the Japanese language, as well as help Japanese People learn the Taiwanese language. Linguistically speaking, however, the Syllabary system was cumbersome fora language that has phonology far more complicated than Japanese. After Japanese administration ended, the system soon became obsolete. Now, only a few scholars, such as the ones who study aforementioned dictionary, learn Taiwanese kana.

Currently, Mojikyo is the only piece of Software / Encoding that fully supports the system. Unicode lacks some overlined kanas and tone signs.


BASIC RULES

Mapped sounds are mostly similar to Katakana in Japanese. Notable differences include:
  • POJ ''o·'' ( IPA /ɔ/) is オ, and ''o'' (/o/) is ヲ. Therefore, ヲ is never /wo/.

  • Final Nasals ''n/m/ng'' are ヌ/ム/ン respectively. ヌ/ム can also be used for ''nu/mu'' in initials.

  • Final consonants ''k/t/p'' are small ク/ツ/プ respectively, similar to the kana used in Ainu .

  • Final consonant ''h'' (/ʔ/) is written as a small kana after the preceding vowel. (e.g. カァ for ''kah'', カゥ for ''kauh''.)

  • Aspirated Consonants are written as kana with a dot under it. (e.g. ト̣ for ''tho''.)

  • There are five (ten if one counts aspirates) overlined kana to deal with ''t'' and ''ch''. チ sounds similar to ''ティ'' in modern Japanese katakana. ツ is similar to ''トゥ'', サ to ''ツァ'', セ to ''ツェ'', and ソ to ''ツォ''.

  • フ is not /ɸu/ as in Japanese, but /hu/.

  • When a Vowel is not followed by Another Vowel nor a Consonant , kana for the vowel is repeated. (e.g. カア for ''ka'', キイ for ''ki''.)

  • ヤ, ユ, ヨ, ワ, ヰ, or ヱ are not used.

  • There are two optional vowel kana for Choâⁿ-chiu ( Quánzhōu ) dialect. ウ for /ɨ/, オ for /ə/.



TONE SIGNS

There are different Tone signs for normal vowels and Nasal Vowels .

  • When a text is Written Vertically , those signs are written on the right side of letters. Taiwanese kana is known to be written vertically only, so it is unknown how to put the signs if it were written horizontally.

  • Initial consonants ''m/n/ng'' are always written with nasal vowel tone signs.



COMPARISON CHART WITH POJ


  • Some combinations don't exist in reality.

  • You always have to put tone signs.

  • 1: ''G'' always takes normal vowel tone signs, ''ng'' always takes nasal vowel tone signs.

  • 2: Some spellings are not clear. 仔(''á'') was sometimes written as ア rather than アア. 的(''ê'') was sometimes written as エ rather than エエ.



EXAMPLE

:（）
:シェヌ シイ コン、ハク シェン チァム チァム チ̣ア。

: Pe̍h-ōe-jī : Sian-siⁿ kóng, ha̍k-seng tiām-tiām thiaⁿ.
: Traditional Chinese : 先生講、學生恬恬聽。
:Translation: A teacher is speaking. Students are quietly listening to it.


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