How do you write the sound "wu"?


As in "Wu Tang" or something similar. Would it be something like `ウゥ`? I know
that "wool" is written as `ウール`, but 1) the "woo" sound is pronounced slightly
differently than "wu", and 2) `ウール` doesn't give you the "pushed" sound of the
'w'.

And not just at the beginning of a word. Specifically, I was watching [this
video](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U_byHZtJLnQ&feature=share&list=PL50E2211EBC39DC15)
of a guy who goes by the name of "Swoozie", visiting Tokyo. How would he (or
others) write that name?




ウータン・クラン

[http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/ウータン・クラン](http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E3%82%A6%E3%83%BC%E3%82%BF%E3%83%B3%E3%83%BB%E3%82%AF%E3%83%A9%E3%83%B3)

かな？

As per Mr.Ito, "In loanwords, the former is usually transcribed as ウ and the
latter ウー, as you know. "




Dono has a point in his comment where he mentions that even if there were a
way to transcribe it, the sound [wu] does not exist in Japanese.

Let me first explain _why_ it doesn't exist.

The Japanese phoneme /w/ as in /wa/,/wi/,/we/ and /wo/ (transcribed as ワ,ウィ,ウェ
and ウォ) is not the same as the phoneme /w/ in English. /w/ in Japanese is the
approximant (which is more or less like a non-syllabic vowel) corresponding to
the vowel /u/, which in Japanese is pronounced with _relaxed lips_ , whereas
/w/ in English is pronounced with _rounded_ lips. /wu/ is possible in English,
since when going from the /w/ to the /u/, the lips lose some of the rounding.
However, in Japanese, /wu/ doesn't make sense, since /w/ and /u/ are
pronounced in the same way. Hence /wu/ = /u/ -> ウ.

Many non-native Japanese speakers are unaware of this lack of rounding on the
Japanese /w/ (and maybe /u/ as well), just as many native Japanese speakers
are unaware of the rounding in English.

Back to Dono's point. Japanese _does_ have a way to transcribe /v/, namely
with ヴ, although I would argue that /v/ doesn't exist in Japanese (or at
least, it's usually realized the same way /b/ is). I think one reason that /v/
has a transcription whereas (English) /w/ doesn't could be that the concept of
your upper teeth touching your lower lip is fairly easy to understand, even if
that sound is not in your phonetic inventory. But the whole thing about
rounding, that's a bit more complicated. Also, _Japanese_ /w/ works as a good
approximation of _English_ /w/ except for the specific case of /wu/.

