1.1.10. What is the small kana "tsu" used for?
The small kana "tsu" is a hiragana or katakana "tsu" character reduced in size. Compare a full-sized hiragana "tsu" in たつと to the small one in たっと, or a full-sized katakana "tsu" in タツト to a small one in タット.
The small tsu is used to represent a doubled or "geminate" consonant, known as a sokuon (促音) in Japanese, represented in rōmaji by a double consonant such as the double t in hatto (ハット), "hat".
For example, "Pocky", a kind of snack, is written in kana as ポッキー, which is ポ "po", ッ (sokuon), キ "ki", ー (chōon) with the sokuon representing the doubling of the k consonant. This kana is romanized as pokkii. Matte, the te form of the verb matsu (see 2.1.6. How does the te form work?), is written as 待って, which is 待 (kanji), っ (sokuon), て "te", with the sokuon representing the doubling of the t consonant.
The small tsu is also used at the end of a sentence, to indicate a glottal stop (a sharp or cut-off articulation), which may indicate angry or surprised speech. See 7.2. What is that small tsu at the end of a sentence?
There are several methods to input a small tsu on a computer, such
as xtu, ltu, or ltsu. See
14.1. How is Japanese input on a computer?.
In the International Phonetic Alphabet, the sokuon sound is marked either with a colon-like mark or a doubled consonant. Here are pairs of words with and without this sound written in IPA:
| Romaji | IPA representation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| kite | kʲite | 来て, come |
| kitte | kʲitːe / kʲitte / kʲit̚te | 切手, postage stamp |
| asari | asaɾʲi | あさり, clam |
| assari | asːaɾʲi / assaɾʲi | あっさり, readily |
In historical kana usage (see 1.1.7. What is historical kana usage?), the sokuon sound was often represented by a full-sized tsu kana rather than a small one.
In all forms of romanization (see 1.3.4. What are the systems of romanization of Japanese?) the sokuon is represented by doubling the consonant which follows it. The only exception is the c in chi in the Hepburn system. For this, a preceding sokuon is represented by a "t". Thus the Japanese tea matcha (抹茶) is written in kana as まっちゃ but in Hepburn romanization as matcha. The Nippon-shiki (see 1.3.4.1. What is Nippon-shiki romanization?) and Kunrei-shiki systems both represent this as mattya, thus avoiding the problem.
sci.lang.japan FAQ / 1. Writing / 1.1. Hiragana and katakana
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