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My Japanese textbook only lists じゅっぷん. Our Japanese sensei (a quite old woman) says じっぷん but notes that it's optionally じゅっぷん. Our TAs all say じゅっぷん.

I understand that Middle Chinese 十 was "jip" and the thing went through じふ->じう->じゆう->じゅう, but what about 十分?

Clearly じっぷん seems to be the etymologically correct pronunciation, but which one is the more modern-day official and widespread pronunciation (i.e. more commonly used and accepted), rather than simply historically correct?

Edit: How about １０分? Is the more common pronunciation of １０分 different?

ithisa
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    Kanji 十分 is two different words anyway, so the question is not very clear. If you mean ten minutes, you should write 10分. – user18597 Feb 14 '13 at 01:27
  • I'd say this is the etymology of じゅっぷん: /jufupun/ --(devoice+drop of u)--> */jufpun/ --(促音便 repair of CC sequence)--> /juppun/. Namely the devoice/drop and 音便 occurred before the /hV/->/wV/->/V/ shift. But this is only my own analysis. – Darius Jahandarie Feb 14 '13 at 06:26
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    じっぷん started as /jipupun/ （しふふん） in OJ. The /pup/ probably became /pp/ very early on. – ithisa Feb 14 '13 at 12:50
  • I always use 充分 to avoid confusion. – istrasci Feb 14 '13 at 15:22
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    こんな記事がありましたけど参考になりますか？http://detail.chiebukuro.yahoo.co.jp/qa/question_detail/q1020010555 –  Feb 14 '13 at 16:50
  • @EricDong That's interesting to me. I never knew ふ was pronounced as /pu/ at all. I thought it only underwent the h->w->Ø row phonetic changes. (Like what happened with -う verbs.) If I were to believe anything, it would be that the /ff/ germination in /juffun/ is not easy to pronounce so it changed to /pp/ to allow it. Is there a good document on this sort of thing? – Darius Jahandarie Feb 14 '13 at 19:41
  • In OJ はひふへほ was pa pi pu pe po.

    The process was p->f->w/h->Ø

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Japanese is pretty nice.

     – ithisa Feb 14 '13 at 19:47
  • in fact, Middle Chinese 十 was /ɕip/, as in the reconstruction made by Polyhedron. – Mike Manilone Feb 14 '13 at 20:38

1 Answers1

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I guess we can put it to a vote.

Technically, じっぷん seems to be the correct choice. Posts on this page say that in a 漢和辞典 じっ is listed as a reading of 十, but じゅっ isn't. Moreover, the page claims that about half of the TV announcers (for baseball) do take care to pronounce it じっ.

I don't have a TV, so I don't have an opinion on that, but in daily life, I think I hear じゅっぷん almost exclusively.

Earthliŋ
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  • "Technically, じっぷん seems to be the correct choice" - what? It's a human language not a computer program. The word "technically" is ridiculous. – user18597 Feb 14 '13 at 01:28
  • Technically in the sense of going by dictionary definitions. You may reword my answer, if you feel compelled to do so. – Earthliŋ Feb 14 '13 at 01:35
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    @user18597: The word "technically" is being used correctly here. It does not reflect on the Japanese language, it reflects on the OP's perception of what appears to be correct according to reference-able sources. So let's be chill and focus on the Japanese instead of the English. – Questioner Feb 14 '13 at 01:42
  • Since when did language correctness depend upon people from a community website voting it that way? – istrasci Feb 14 '13 at 15:19
  • Correctness is in perception, and perception translates to votes... – Zhen Lin Feb 14 '13 at 17:28
  • I've read that じゅ is naturally pronounced as じ in this context, not just for the word 十分. This kind of fluctuation/disagreement is natural. – Nate Glenn Feb 20 '13 at 17:50