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| Old-fashioned spelling in cartoon "Norakuro" |
The changes were made in the 1940s (after sixty years of often heated debate) to bring the writing into line with the modern pronunciation.
Many kanji dictionaries, e.g. Morohashi, use the old readings for the on readings, and major Japanese dictionaries such as the Kōjien show the old readings as well as the modern.
:''This section uses Nihon-shiki romanization for clarification.'' In historical kana usage:
Most of the historical kana usage has been found to accurately represent the way words sounded during the Heian era. As the spoken language has continued to develop, some orthography looks odd to the modern eye. As these peculiarities follow fairly regular patterns, they are not difficult to learn. However, some of the historical kana usages are simply mistakes. For example, :或いは / 或ひは / 或ゐは ''aruiwa'' (or) should be 或いは, :用ゐる / 用ひる ''mochiiru'' (use) should be 用ゐる, and :つくえ / つくゑ ''tsukue''（desk, table）should be つくえ, according to the old pronunciations. Some forms of unusual kana usage are not, in fact, historical kana usage. For example, writing どじょう ''dojō'' (loach, a sardine-like fish), in the form どぜう ''dozeu'' , is not historical kana usage but a kind of slang writing originating in the Edo period.
Verbs for which the dictionary form now ends in u (う) used to end in fu (ふ). For example, kanau (叶う) was written 叶ふ This extended to conjugations of the verb, so 叶はず for kanawazu (叶わず), 叶ひつつ for kanaitsutsu (叶いつつ), 叶へば for kanaeba (叶えば), etc.
The mashō (ましょう) volitional/hortative verb ending was written maseu (ませう), and similarly deshō (でしょう) was deseu (でせう).
These are just a few words showing the old kana usage with kango (Sino-Japanese words). They can be seen in dictionaries like the Kōjien, where the entry for kōjō (荒城) (ruined castle) reads: :こう‐じょう【荒城】クワウジヤウ あれはてた城。 The old kana usage is the クワウジヤウ.
| Current Reading | Old Reading | Kanji | Example(s) | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| きょう | きゃう | 京 | 京都 | きゃうと |
| きやう | 饗 | 饗宴 | きやうえん | |
| 狂 | 狂歌 | きやうか | ||
| きょう | けう | 驕 | 轎輿 | けうよ |
| 教 | 教育 | けういく | ||
| きゅう | きう | 旧 | 旧悪 | きうあく |
| かん | くわん | 緩 | 緩慢 | くわんまん |
| ちょう | てう | 鳥 | 啄木鳥 | たくぼくてう |
| しょう | せう | 昭 | 昭然 | せうぜん |
| そう | さう | 装 | 正装 | せいさう |
| お | を | 悪 | 悪心 | をしん |
Native Japanese words were also written using the different kana prior to the reforms. For example,
| Current Reading | Old Reading | Example(s) |
| きょう | けふ | 今日 |
| たおる | たふる | 倒る |
| つかい | つかひ | 使ひ, 遣ひ |
| おとこ | をとこ | 男 |
A few centuries back, all cases of vowel + "u" (which "u" may have been written originally as う, being the end of a Sino-Japanese reading, or a pure Japanese う resulting from the loss of "k" in く, or else written ふ of which the intervocalic "h [p/f]" had ceased to be pronounced) assimilated to a single long vowel. If the preceding vowel was "u," obviously it was just a long "u." If it was an "i" (as in the きう of きうかなづかひ or as in the case of 言ふ) the result was a long "u" with a "y" in front.
The actual kana spelling remained rather random (although there were schools of orthography based on all kinds of weird ideas) until rekishiteki kanazukai (歴史的仮名使い) was recovered and given the nod during the period], and the spellings I'm using here became correct. Then about half a century ago a spelling reform resulted in things being written (with some strange exceptions) as pronounced, and きう became きゅう, いふ became いう (oops, there's an exception--we'd expect ゆう--due to its being a verb, I suppose).
The other changes involving う and ふ were their being pronounced "o" after an "e" or an "o." In the case of えう and えふ," the frontness of the first vowel left a trace, the initial "y" sound of the resulting よう.
In the case of what would be like "(-)あう/あふ" in rekishiteki kanadukai, both vowels changed to a lower "o" than the case of "(-)おう/おふ" and "(-)えう/えふ"--we know this only because the Portuguese distinguished them in romanization--but before long the two kinds of long "o" merged into one.
Another oddity is the word for "get seasick/drunk" (now 酔う/よう). Early in the history of Japanese it was pronounced "wepu" and thus spelled ゑふ. Then "w" ceased to be pronounced except when followed by the lowest vowel, "a," and the original "p" changed to "h" and people quit pronouncing it in the middle of most words (what true exceptions can you think of besides あひる and あふれる?). The remaining pronunciation "eu" then went through the assimilation-to-long-vowel bit, resulting in "yoo." And finally, in the dialects that ultimately preserved a "(-)u" at the end of verbs, we end up with the pronunciation "you" (not "yoo") for the spelling よう.