I was wondering if anyone knows of a dictionary or, preferably, a database, that lists the number of morae in individual Japanese words. For example, I could look up 簡単 and see that it is 4 morae. My ultimate goal is to build a “mora calculator” for writing haiku. I am learning to code in python, and thought this could be an interesting project.
There are tools and databases that list the syllable counts of individual words in English, but I couldn’t find anything similar with Japanese morae. Any help is appreciated.
3 comments
Any particular reason you can’t just learn it yourself?
* Full-sized kana (including the standalone ん) are one mora apiece.
* A (small) ゃ, ゅ, or ょattached to kana representing an “i” vowel (e.g., きゃ, しゅ, ちょ) only count as one mora.
* Vowel lengtheners count as their own mora.
Did I miss anything?
This is just an interesting aside, because it *is* an interesting project and I don’t want to stop you, but traditionally, haikus are not beholden to 5-7-5 morae as much as they are to capturing certain feelings. Strict adherence to those numbers is more something that came about when the style came to English speaking countries.
any dictionary, period
look up word – look at pronunciation – remove small ゃゅょ characters (any small except っ) – count them
done