What are the pronunciation differences between speaking and singing Japanese?


I've noticed that some pronunciation is different in singing than in speaking.
For example, I often hear `を` pronounced as /wo/ rather than /o/.

What other pronunciation differences are there?




I'm not expert, but from the many Japanese songs I've heard it's mainly

  1. Pronouncing お as "oh" (i.e. slightly diphthongized) especially in songs where half the lyrics are English lol
  2. Pronouncing を as うぉ. This is probably due more to the fact that it is in the W-line, and old pronunciations stick better in slowly and carefully articulated things like poems and songs.
  3. A distinction between おう and おお, and separation of いい Again, this is probably due to conservative pronunciation. おう was always a genuine long vowel, while most instances of おお came from おを or おほ. This is most obvious in the word おおきい which is often pronounced おをきひ.
  4. Not discriminating between different allophones of ん, instead only "n" is used. This is usually because "n" fills a mora better, and Japanese _mora_ , not syllables, are usually matched with the notes.
  5. Again a mora issue, the っ is pronounced a bit differently. In speech 強がっても would be (tsu-yo-ga-*-te-mo) but in song it would be more like (tsu-yo-ga-att-te-mo), almost as if it were つよがっあっても .

That's all my limited experience has noticed.




I'm not expert, but from the many Japanese songs I've heard it's mainly

  1. Pronouncing お as "oh" (i.e. slightly diphthongized) especially in songs where half the lyrics are English lol
  2. Pronouncing を as うぉ. This is probably due more to the fact that it is in the W-line, and old pronunciations stick better in slowly and carefully articulated things like poems and songs.
  3. A distinction between おう and おお, and separation of いい Again, this is probably due to conservative pronunciation. おう was always a genuine long vowel, while most instances of おお came from おを or おほ. This is most obvious in the word おおきい which is often pronounced おをきひ.
  4. Not discriminating between different allophones of ん, instead only "n" is used. This is usually because "n" fills a mora better, and Japanese _mora_ , not syllables, are usually matched with the notes.
  5. Again a mora issue, the っ is pronounced a bit differently. In speech 強がっても would be (tsu-yo-ga-*-te-mo) but in song it would be more like (tsu-yo-ga-att-te-mo), almost as if it were つよがっあっても .

That's all my limited experience has noticed.

