The Defiling of Haiku: Morae
Haiku is one of the most popular forms of Japanese poetry. It has long been regarded as elegant, meaningful, and thought provoking.
Over the past one-hundred years the haiku poem has taken new forms and evolved into more styles and new meanings. But what hasn’t changed is the true form of haiku.
Many American students and amateur poets have learned from their mentors that a haiku poem consists of three lines with the first containing five syllables, second with seven, and the third with five once more. What they might not realize is this isn’t true. A haiku is not a set of three lines nor does it care about syllables as the Japanese language does not contain syllables comparable to English.
The haiku has long been butchered by the English language. A syllable is nothing but an uninterrupted sound. The word ‘jump’ contains two morae but so does ‘haiku’. In the English langauge, the two words are not equal.
A mora is the equivelent of a short syllable and is the shortest linguistic measure–a long syllable is two morae (the plural of mora) (for more info on morae) Thus, the word ‘jump’ contains two morae (j-ump) and the word ‘haiku’ contains three (ha-i-ku).
Morae are difficult to comprehend the English language in some cases. Words with unstressed codas are hard to determine the number of morae. Because of this, diregarding morae is seen as acceptable in most poetry corners.
With this beind said, the reason for mentors explaining haiku this way is easy to see: simplisity. It is easier to say a haiku has 5,7,5 syllables and not explain the true value the haiku holds.
Janet
June 16, 2008 @ 10:38 pm
Very interesting! Enjoyed this post!
Maria
June 20, 2008 @ 12:33 am
I was afraid that the Americans would butcher something else so beautiful. Lol.
I never knew that about the English language, but mostly because it’s so much harder to distinguish between the syllables. I like phonetic languages; no muss, no fuss.
Jean
June 20, 2008 @ 2:46 am
This was all new to me. I have a haiku diary and try to instill the essence of every day into one (with varying degrees of success). But I use the 5-7-5 structure. Don’t think I could cope with morae.
Gary R. Hess
June 20, 2008 @ 3:51 am
Maria and Jane, you are both right. It is something the English language can easily butcher. Many languages use morae to distinguish all types of sounds; the English language uses syllables to distinguish vowels only. This makes it especially tough for students who want to learn the phonetics of the language or even new languages in general.
Most American students learn only of syllables, making poetry of certain types especially hard without taking further courses on the language.
Alan Summers
July 11, 2008 @ 10:37 am
Please don’t worry about morae at an early stage, but simply know that a haiku is roughly six seconds long, and you can make it fun by having a friend or partner time you by using the parachutists’ second count: one thousand; two thousand; up to six thousand.
Both U.S. and U.K. haiku are often twelve or less syllables, but the real form of haiku isn’t syllable crunching.
Check out my With Words site for a simple overview, then check out my Area 17 blog for some useful quality haiku website links: http://area17.blogspot.com
all my best,
Alan
Emm
November 3, 2009 @ 4:56 am
Sorry to point this out Gary, but you’ve made a mistake in saying that “jump” has two ‘syllables’. It certainly doesn’t. It may have two morae but not two syllables. Otherwise, thanks for this informative post. =)
Gary R. Hess
January 10, 2010 @ 3:50 pm
Thanks. Yes, I meant morae.