About ancient pronunciation on dictionaries


In large dictionaries like 広辞苑 or 大辞林, there are some entries tagged with
"ancient pronunciations" which are almost identical to the modern ones but
with a voiced consonant voiceless (or vice versa), e.g.

> さわ・ぐ 【騒ぐ】〔上代は「さわく」と清音。〕 _pronounced voicelessly as "sawaku" in the early
> era_

> しろ-がね 【銀】〔古くは「しろかね」とも。〕 _also "shirokane" in ancient times_

As I know, in most ancient texts, voiced syllables are written without any
voicing mark(濁点), so they are identical to the voiceless ones
orthographically. How do dictionary editors know that the syllables are with
voiceless consonants?




There are at least two ways that the difference between "voiceless" and
"voiced"¹ pronunciation can be ascertained.

First, through the 日葡辞書, the Japanese-Portuguese dictionary of 1603, which
uses Latin script to render Japanese. You can hardly argue for しろがね, when it
literally has the entry "Xirocane, _prata_ " but no *xirogane.

Furthermore, the Old Japanese man'yōgana, while definitely able to conflate
the voiceless-voiced pairs (and occasionally the voiced-nasal pairs), is
usually consistent in this regard. For example, in the usual orthohraphy of
the Man'yōshū , く is spelt with characters such as 久玖口群苦丘九鳩君(on)來國小(kun),
while ぐ by 具遇求隅群(on)來(kun). As we see, while there are two cases of
conflation, most are distinguished, and when we see, say, in 14.3349, written
fully phonetically, 布奈妣等佐和久 <punabîtö sawaku>, this 久 makes us sure we are
looking at a く and not a ぐ.

¹ Well, actually "fortis" and "lenis", as the distinction between the two did
not originally involve voicedness, but prenazalization, and in Tōhoku this
remains still.




There are at least two ways that the difference between "voiceless" and
"voiced"¹ pronunciation can be ascertained.

First, through the 日葡辞書, the Japanese-Portuguese dictionary of 1603, which
uses Latin script to render Japanese. You can hardly argue for しろがね, when it
literally has the entry "Xirocane, _prata_ " but no *xirogane.

Furthermore, the Old Japanese man'yōgana, while definitely able to conflate
the voiceless-voiced pairs (and occasionally the voiced-nasal pairs), is
usually consistent in this regard. For example, in the usual orthohraphy of
the Man'yōshū , く is spelt with characters such as 久玖口群苦丘九鳩君(on)來國小(kun),
while ぐ by 具遇求隅群(on)來(kun). As we see, while there are two cases of
conflation, most are distinguished, and when we see, say, in 14.3349, written
fully phonetically, 布奈妣等佐和久 <punabîtö sawaku>, this 久 makes us sure we are
looking at a く and not a ぐ.

¹ Well, actually "fortis" and "lenis", as the distinction between the two did
not originally involve voicedness, but prenazalization, and in Tōhoku this
remains still.

