The phonology of Japanese has about 15 consonant phonemes, the cross-linguistically typical five-vowel system of /a, e, i, o, u/, and a relatively simple phonotactic distribution of phonemes allowing few consonant clusters. It is traditionally described as having a mora as the unit of timing, with each mora taking up about the same length of time, so that the disyllabic [ɲip.poɴ] ("Japan") may be analyzed as /niQpoN/ and dissected into four moras, /ni/, /Q/, /po/, and /N/.
Consonants[]
| Bilabial | Alveolar | Alveolo- palatal |
Palatal | Velar | Uvular | Glottal | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nasal | m | n | (ɲ) | (ŋ) | (ɴ) | ||
| Stop | p b | t d | k ɡ | ||||
| Affricate | (t͡s) (d͡z) | (t͡ɕ) (d͡ʑ) | |||||
| Fricative | (ɸ) | s z | (ɕ) (ʑ) | (ç) | h | ||
| Liquid | r | ||||||
| Semivowel | j | w | |||||
| Special moras | /N/, /Q/ | ||||||
Vowels[]
| Front | Central | Back | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Close | i | u | |
| Mid | e | o | |
| Open | a |