0

I would like to know why the topic marker wa is spelled は instead of わ。

Also, is this the only misspelled particle in Japanese (or anything resembling a particle or other figure of speech component), or are there also other instances?

Thanks.

Jack Maddington
  • 505
  • 1
  • 7
  • 15
  • 7
    This question has been asked a number of times here, check out these answers and see if you still have questions.:

    http://japanese.stackexchange.com/questions/379/why-are-the-particles-%E3%81%AF-ha%E2%87%92wa-%E3%81%B8-he%E2%87%92e-and-%E3%82%92-wo%E2%87%92o-not-spelled-phonet

    http://japanese.stackexchange.com/questions/348/why-is-%E3%81%AF-pronounced-as-%E3%82%8F-when-used-as-a-topic-particle

     – lfalin Oct 11 '16 at 22:24
  • That answers my question. – Jack Maddington Oct 12 '16 at 05:55

1 Answers1

1

That is a long story but to keep it short I would say that the language changed many times, and at some point the writing system for "ha/は","wo/を","he/へ" changed for "wa/わ", "o/お", "e/え", but just for the particles they kept the original writing system while still changing the way it is pronounced.

stack reader
  • 5,691
  • 14
  • 24