Konbanwa

[flunacy]

Good evening from Italy, everyone
I hope everyone is doing fine!

I would like to ask....
About the "konbanwa" word...
It is written こんばんは in hiragana, with はfinal,
but why is it pronounced with "wa" final?
Thank you for explaining it...

I've just started learning the language and I've lots of doubts!
Thank you for helping me!
Buona serata a tutti! Have a nice evening everyone!
flunacy

[masaegu]

Originally Posted by flunacy

Good evening from Italy, everyone
I hope everyone is doing fine!

I would like to ask....
About the "konbanwa" word...
It is written こんばんは in hiragana, with はfinal,
but why is it pronounced with "wa" final?
Thank you for explaining it...

I've just started learning the language and I've lots of doubts!
Thank you for helping me!
Buona serata a tutti! Have a nice evening everyone!
flunacy

This is a linguistic phenomenon that is seen in many languages in that pronunciation changes faster than spelling. The tendency is that pronunciation almost always gets simpler over time.

Take the English word "daughter" for example. The "gh" part was actually pronounced a long time ago. Even though it's completely silent today, the "gh" has remained in the spelling of the word.

The word "knight" would even be a better example. You only pronounce half of the letters today, namely the n, i and t.

The Japanese particle は　used to be pronounced "ha". The pronunciation changed to "wa" several hundred years ago yet the "spelling" has remained the same. The same goes for を. It had been pronounced "wo" until several hundred yeras ago but its pronunciation changed to "お" without a change in the writing.

Send me a big panino!

[kyo_9]

sublime explanation by masaegu..
I've also been trying to figure out the reason of it until now..
thanks a lot.. you make my day~

[oden]

こんばんは will be in Chinese characters to express 今晩は.
は is a conjunction, and the pronounce is "wa".
An object has been omitted.
こんばんは's literal translation is "This evening is".

[MMM]

は is usually pronounced "ha" but when it is used as a particle, it is "wa"

Therefore こんばんは is probably the shortened version of a sentence like 今晩は元気ですか。 Just like people say "Night" instead of "Good Night to You" these days.

[chryuop]

Originally Posted by masaegu

This is a linguistic phenomenon that is seen in many languages in that pronunciation changes faster than spelling. The tendency is that pronunciation almost always gets simpler over time.

Take the English word "daughter" for example. The "gh" part was actually pronounced a long time ago. Even though it's completely silent today, the "gh" has remained in the spelling of the word.

The word "knight" would even be a better example. You only pronounce half of the letters today, namely the n, i and t.

The Japanese particle は　used to be pronounced "ha". The pronunciation changed to "wa" several hundred years ago yet the "spelling" has remained the same. The same goes for を. It had been pronounced "wo" until several hundred yeras ago but its pronunciation changed to "お" without a change in the writing.

Send me a big panino!

Someone from this forum gave me a link to a Wikipedia page explaining the differences between old Japanese, medium old, modern and nowadays (or something like that...can't recall the way they were regrouped).
I am surely glad I am studying Japanese today, because the old Japanese was described much like Chinese. Many different pronunciations for vowels and consonants. I like it today with just 1 sound.

[flunacy]

Thank you for all your replies and for the precious explanation!
Good night everyone (and a big panino for masaegu (*_*)