THE NIGORI. 21
easy to double, into what seems to their ears to be the nearest approach to hh, viz. pp ; thus : yappari, ioryahari, "also." yoppodo, ,, yohodo, " a lot," " very."
H 31. The law regulating the use of the nigori is by no means an absolute one, euphony and sometimes the varying caprice of individuals, deciding in each case whether the change shall or shall not take place. Thus d, " great," and saka, " a hill," compounded to form the name of a large town in Central Japan, may be pro- nounced either Ozaka or Osaka (never Osdrkur, as Englishmen are apt to say). F and h, however, always change either into b or into p, if the first member of the compound ends in a nasal consonant. Thus it would be inadmissible to say juinfil for jumpii. It is considered harsh to have many nigori' > Q& letters in one word. Hence kaza-kaini, " windward," never kaza-gaini ; and similarly in innumerable like instances.
IT 32. As shown by the examples ofjum-pu and tern-pen, n
changes to m before a labial. To give another instance :
tem-mon-gaku " astronomy ; " from ten, " heaven ; " mon,
11 markings or letters " (not used alone) ; and gaku,
11 science."
H 33. Less important than the nigori affecting initial con- sonants, is a change which affects the final vowels in certain native Japanese words of one syllable and two syllables. In this class of words, e final changes to a when the word is used as the first member of a com- pound,* thus :
- Strictly speaking, it is a which is weakened into e, a study of the
old language showing that the forms in a are really the original ones. We state the rule as in the text simply for practical convenience.
