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pronunciation according to the spelling Echizen, which from its use in the columns of the Japan Mail I imagine to have the sanction of the highest authority, is not only never heard, but is hardly understood. ‘Echigo’ would be understood to mean the wild strawberry.
The series of aspirate sounds (in Tôkiô ha, hi, fu, be, ho), all take an initial F., thus fa, fi, fu, fe, fo. In the mouths of many of the samurai this F often becomes Fü, thus füana, füata, füato, but the lower classes say decidedly fana, fata, fato, for ‘a flower,’ ‘a flag’ ‘a pigeon.’ This interchange of the initial sound of F and H is of such frequent occurrence in philology as not to require any comment, but I may perhaps mention it as occurring in China, where Foochow becomes Hookchow in the mouths of the Cantonese, while every schoolboy is familiar with the fact of the ancient digamma having been replaced by the rough breathing.
In the T series, チ is pronounced chi as at Tôkiô by the majority of the educated class, but among the common people it becomes a lisping tsi, and as a natural sequence ヂ is pronounced dzi. In the pronunciation of the contracted syllables usually spelt cha, cho, chu (for chi-ya, chi-yo, chi-yu) it is to be noted that the Y of the second component part is preserved: as tsya, tsyo, tsyu. Students of Chinese will remark that this change of ch into ts is identical with one of the differences existing between the Peking and Nanking dialects.
In the S series (at Tôkiô sa, shi, su, se, so) the sh appears to be transposed, and the series runs sa, si, su, she, so. This also chiefly applies to the lower classes who lisp all the sibilants, and say shenshei for sensei, and for ‘seventy-one’ say sitsi dzyu-itsi. The word for ‘seven’ (shichi), which in Tôkiô is pronounced almost in one syllable, has its two syllables distinctly pronounced by all classes, and is made to rhyme with ichi. ヅ has identically the same sound as ヂ, the Yonezawa dialect following the Tôkiô
