How I learned the word "mora" wrong: mora is the singular form, and morae is the plural form of the word! Sorry about that!

@MartinSStoller

4 жыл бұрын

Got to love latin based words, right? Thanks so much for your insightful and dare I say entertaining take on the correct form of haiku. It was very instructive!

@kentonyc

4 жыл бұрын

@@MartinSStoller thank you so much for watching and your kind words!

@roasty-toasty-19

2 жыл бұрын

Thank you for the correction. I wouldn't have known, but I respect educators even more after they correct themselves. Also I learned so much from this video. I thought that there just wasn't "stressed" syllables in Japanese, so I try to keep my English haikus as even as possible. I've never heard of mora before, thank you so much!

As a young child In winter I learned haiku folding snowflakes

That refrigerator haiku tho. Deep!

@BooksForever

5 ай бұрын

Huge.

@vahnayasaki6989

Ай бұрын

Cold.

Thank you so much for this. I learned so much. I write poetry and have written many Haiku. The idea that "the rules" of 5, 7, 5, don't have to be followed so strictly is freeing. Thank you.

@mathiasbartl903

8 ай бұрын

They basically don't exist outside Japanese.

I finally "get" the haiku! All this time, I never understood what the beauty of that sort of poem was. Now I get it. It's about rhythm, something never taught to me, and when you did something so simple as GIVE that rhythm in the most basic way, it clicked. Imagine if as kids we'd been taught what a limerick is without ever going into their rhythm. It'd just be some weird bunch of words. So thank you again.

I've been thinking English haiku sound weird for years and this video finally put it into words. Bless. The cow haiku is great it's basically the first time I've heard an English haiku that gets the rhythm right.

Love this!....I wonder if you read an article I co-authored 20 years ago "From 5-7-5 to 8-8-8: An Investigation of Japanese Haiku Metrics and Implications for English Haiku". It's lovely to see our theory at work!

@kentonyc

2 жыл бұрын

Hi! I think I must have - it’s been a while since I wrote the script for the video, but I looked up the paper and the information in there is very familiar, if not, what I remember referencing in making the video! Thank you for your theory and work!

@user-eu1ho6pu5q

2 жыл бұрын

@@kentonyc You are very welcome--thank you for your work as well. I will be assigning your video for my writing class this semester!

@kentonyc

2 жыл бұрын

@@user-eu1ho6pu5q wow! That makes me so so happy and makes my day! I hope your students enjoy!

As both a poet and a student of the Japanese language, this video is very interesting to me. I'm inspired to do some more homework and learn to write a proper haiku of my own. Neat video, earned sub for sure.

@kentonyc

3 жыл бұрын

Thank you so much!

@jamesaritchie1

Жыл бұрын

In English, proper haiku is always 5-7-5, no matter what anyone says. There are egotistical losers with little talent who always want to break the rules, who destroy, rather than create. Don't listen to them or you will never, ever gey anywhere with your poetry.

@Zetsuuga

Жыл бұрын

@James Ritchie I think the English "syllabic" interpretation of haiku miss the point or nature of the original. That's what artistic licensing is anyway, I guess. You can take some liberties :)

@frankm.2850

Жыл бұрын

@@jamesaritchie1 This is a really goofy way of looking at it, and Kent did a wonderful job of explaining why this fixation on syllables is a disservice. Or do you think that that refrigerator poem is actually a good haiku?

@CarlosRodriguez-cj8oo

Жыл бұрын

@@jamesaritchie1 I dedicate this to you: My bro missed his meds--he flips out over haikus instead---find him a wash cloth, woman and bed!

from edge of the world. what do the butterflies see out there in the void

めちゃくちゃ分かりやすい説明ですね、音を海外ではモーラと表現するとは…勉強になります。ありがとうございます。

If you ever talk about Japanese poetry again, maybe you could include senryu? I didn't know about the difference between haiku and senryu until about 15 years after I lived in Japan....

@MartinSStoller

4 жыл бұрын

Oh I am a great fan of senryu - have been for decades - there is even a really cute anime "Senryuu Shoujo" where senryu in a way is sort of the main character :D

@afilipinomanwholikesjapane5104

2 жыл бұрын

Senryū tend to be about 'human foibles' while haiku tend to be about nature, and love.( ´◡‿ゝ◡`)

This was a revelation. I could add a dozen exclamation points. Dare I say that I felt so much missing from my understanding of haiku, and your analysis both confirmed what I felt was missing and then went so far beyond...Thank you so very much. I'll be listening to this again and again for some time to come.

@SmallSpoonBrigade

Жыл бұрын

Part of the fundamental issue here is that the rules are very specific and very tied to Japanese. Trying to bring them to English, or really any other language, is going to necessitate some changes. The Lawson example is questionable as you've still got the same number of syllables, there's just an extra non-syllable sound in the middle. It's a bit like if you over enunciate a word making it longer, it would still have the same number of syllables, even if you choose to increase the time you take on part of it. A good example would be like many Southern dialects of English where the vowel sounds get dragged out, there's still the same number of syllables, it's just that it's much more obvious when you're dealing with dipthongs. There's also the issue of Japanese haiku being originally intended as the beginning of a longer poem and there's a bunch of rules that really only make sense if you're intending to continue the pattern for more lines. If you don't get the break and the rest of it, it kind of screws up the rest of the poem structure.

This was very instructive. Of course, the thesis is deliberately provocative. What we English users have done is to adapt a foreign form to our language and culture. Something the Japanese have themselves mastered better than all others. It does not make it wrong-merely adapted or partially absorbed into a different cultural blotter.

fading evening light the battlefield is quiet now only ghosts and the crows

Thank you so much for making this video. I’ve been fascinated with haiku for ages, but never heard of morae before. Now it makes so much more sense!!!

Awesome video! I learned a lot, and my eyes have been opened to many possibilities for my writing. Thanks Kent!

Dude. This is such a great video. The production value deserve more subs. Subbed, shared. Hope your year is great.

Excellent video, Kent! The best I have seen on the topic of Haiku!

This is insane, thank you and I seriously enjoyed

@kentonyc

9 ай бұрын

Thank you for the kind words!

Its amazing! The artist! Great idea! Thank you for the teaching!🙏🏼

@kentonyc

2 ай бұрын

Thank you for stopping by!

Very much appreciated this video & all the info I learned from you! Thank you!

This video is from 2020, but the way it's shot and edited gives me very strong 2014-2015 nostalgia. It's also very informative, clear and to the point. Great video man! Took me back and learned a lot along the way too!

@kentonyc

9 күн бұрын

Thanks for the kind words!

Great video! Really enjoyed the topics you explored regarding the similarities/differences between the Japanese and English languages as well as the culture surrounding that relationship.

@kentonyc

4 жыл бұрын

Thank you! 😃

Brilliant! I always thought something missing with my Haiku. Thank you for shining the light.

Wonderful. Thank you. So much to reflect on as I attempt to write haiku.

That was fascinating and so informational. Thank you so much!

@kentonyc

12 күн бұрын

Thanks for stopping by!

thanks for the explanation. I hope you will make more videos!

Excellent explanation. Thanks.

THANK YOU FOR THIS VIDEO! 🙏💜

@kentonyc

3 жыл бұрын

Thanks for checking it out!!!

Clear, simple, helpful. Thank you. Onwards.

@kentonyc

2 жыл бұрын

Thank you for stopping by!!!

thank you so much! i had haiku that i was happy with, but knew there was more. i didn't know how to get it, but this has been extremely helpful.

Good explanation. Thanks 😀

Nicely done!

Just stumbled onto this video but I really love your video and teaching style

@kentonyc

Жыл бұрын

Thanks for the kind words and thanks for checking out the video!

Helpful video I have written here and there Thinking hat is on! Lol. Thanks for the haiku info. 😁

Super interesting, and as a big fan of the Haiku form who sadly does not speak or read Japanese, this was really illuminating. I always had a feeling that the form was both less strict and also differently-defined than I'd been led to believe. So thanks! A quick note--more for viewers than for you, since you pretty clearly are already aware of this--regarding your mention (around 1:20) of English being "a stress timed or syllable timed language": this is misleading. It's stress timed, not syllable timed. In syllable-timed languages, each syllable is given equal time (and thus unstressed sounds tend to be less reduced), in stress-timed languages the stressed syllables are what is given roughly equal time (meaning a big reduction in unstressed sounds). You demonstrated this with your riff on cows and grass, of course. This is one of the most difficult things for learners to master about English, in my experience, and those who can do it will always sound more natural, even with an accent, than those who can't, though their accent might be less pronounced. In case anybody has read this far and is mentally composing a rebuttal: Yes, while there is something of a spectrum between the two (French is more stress timed than Spanish, which is more stress timed than Italian, but they're all basically syllable timed languages), English is very far toward the stress-timed end of things (more so than German, for instance). Other examples of stress-timed languages are Arabic and Russian. Interestingly, while Cantonese is strongly syllable-timed, Mandarin is somewhere near the middle the two extremes of stress- and syllable-timed (though it's nearer to the latter). The existence of a spectrum doesn't eliminate the usefulness of categories. So we might say that languages like Italian, which adhere to a very rigid syllable-timed scheme, lend themselves more easily to Haiku than others, like English or German. I think this is both right and wrong. Obviously if we're mainly concerned with rhythm and meter, then yes--but then again, as you point out (the cow thing again), scansion is a thing in all languages, and while some English poetry (nearly all of Shakespeare, for instance) scans, practically no utterances in the spoken language do. On the other hand, when you think of the fact that Italian has both a very regular syllable-timing structure and also a very limited range of word endings, it makes Dante's accomplishments seem a bit less impressive. Kidding--he's the fucking master. On the other hand, as you point out, the rhythmic structure is only a part of what haiku is really all about, and arguably not the most important part. Still, I think "stick to this syllable pattern" is useful because it will constrain people and make them work a little harder. For the same reason, I value constraint in the creation of pretty much all art (rhythmic structure, musical scales, representationalism in painting for the most part, etc): I feel that it forces the artist to work a bit harder and thus have a better chance of capturing that elusive moment of truth.

❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️ Thank you so much for this haiku insight ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️

What makes this video especially good is its emphasis on the typical objective of haiku. As a classical musician, I learned that genres and forms are not fixed standards but sets of generalizations against which the best composers were constantly pushing and pulling. However, the explanation of the technical issue was also very clear and made me conscious of what I noticed subconsciously about the way Japanese people often read haiku aloud, the pause between the first two lines significantly longer than the pause between the second and third lines. If anything, I want to add to it, because (especially with Kento's accent of English) there's another fundamental difference between the languages which is difficult to reconcile to the genre of haiku: the flow of the language. English is Germanic not only in its emphasis of stress over mora, but also in its choppy, erratic cadence and its abundance of consonants. It struggles to flow. The mora of Japanese flow like oil, smoother even than Italian or Spanish for lack of terminal consonants, and English can achieve some flow if the poet is masterful but it's quite difficult. By direct consequence, the flow of Japanese mora are like a quiet brook, inviting the listener into 間, whereas English will at best struggle awkwardly to achieve the same effect, especially by the same means. No, it is easier for English to aim for a comparable sense of quiet and space in its own way, inventing a different rhythm more natural to itself. The quiet and space will be different than what Japanese creates, but it can succeed on its own terms in its own right. And then we can talk about the very purpose of haiku, because any form or genre can and will be radically repurposed (take, for example, the haiku written to crack up the poor players of the batsu game where they aren't allowed to laugh in school - many of you remember what I'm referring to). I could have written a tanka (one subtype of haiku with a standard 5-line structure) to demonstrate my bit about flow of syllables by using smooth syllables for the first three lines and percussive, choppy syllables for the last two (or vice versa); if I really wanted to push the point I could use Japanese for the smooth section and English for the rough. There's no hard rule requiring a poem to be composed entirely of one language (only the reality that the flavour of fluently multilingual compositions is fully accessible to very few people). See, genre and form can be defied and bent in ways you didn't even conceive of, so of course purpose is not exempt from the manipulations of clever creatives.

Great content!

Thanks for the video, and your explanations are very helpful. Subbed.

One of the best videos on Haiku Thanks

Thanks a lot for this amazing video. It really helped me to understand it better and is a great inspiration for my haiku journey.

So very cool to hear the possibilities

Thank you!

Kento I just loved this video👍🏽

@kentonyc

12 күн бұрын

Thank you!

Thank You

This is fascinating

Thank you. You are very smart. Love your video.

Thank you so much.

I still amazed by the depth of this video. It makes me mad love with haiku

at last! Great!

Fantastic video, great work! One addendum to consider is that when a new compound word is created, such as English Haiku, a new set of modified rules would be logical to consider as part of the new definitive expectation.

@kentonyc

3 ай бұрын

Thanks for the comment! Really appreciate it!

Great vid - thank you!

@kentonyc

2 жыл бұрын

Thanks for stopping by!

Such a brilliant video.

@kentonyc

2 жыл бұрын

Thank you so much for stopping by!

You are the best to describe it ❤

What is a dog? A dog is a pet. -Conversation i made up 4(2)-5(2)-7(2) The numbers outside the brackets are the syllables~, and the ones inside are the silent beats. The break at the end isn’t said but helps to keep the rhythm if followed by another Haiku.

This is a pretty late comment, for some reason this video just showed up on my recommended, but I think English can fit the original rhythmic pattern if you follow a sort of iambic meter, alternating stressed and unstressed syllables in a 3-4-3 pattern. For instance: The snow lay on the ground, The stars are shining in the sky, Winter warms the heart.

Thank you

its like self Therapy. love it

Highly informative and well presented. I wish this video existed 15 years ago when I was mis-taught Haiku at University

@kentonyc

9 күн бұрын

Thanks for the kind words!

Check out the lyrics to "Moonlight in Vermont"! They seem to fit the intended rhythm and tone pretty well

Thank you for explaining this, I never understood them

@kentonyc

Жыл бұрын

Thanks for stopping by! I'm glad the video helped!

I learned something today over breakfast. Great video! Domo arigato!

This is great, dude

@kentonyc

9 ай бұрын

Thanks for stopping by!

Cool info.

Thank you very much Wondered about this all day Now I'll try in Dutch

Wow. You just spoke to my soul. I get it

Thank you so much I can fo haiku way better now ❤

画期的説明！この知識を絶対広めて欲しいです！ 俳句ってリズムが構造の中に入っているからこそ 575の「ルール」としての意味がありますしね。 一方、リズムパターンはいくつかありそうです。 2列目に着目すると 「4文字＋3文字」「3文字＋4文字」で リズムが異なるかと。 古池や、は「3＋4」なので 以下のリズムの方がが自然に感じました： 1　●●●●●○○○ 2　○●●●●●●● 3　●●●●●○○○ 柿食えば鐘がなるなり法隆寺、も「3＋4」 夏草や兵どもが夢の跡、は「4＋3」 字余り、字足らずも考えると面白そうですね。

I don't need the rules. The concept is what I like.

Great video

*slaps desk* THANK YOU! I've been trying to tell people the 5-7-5 "rule" is nonsense for years!

@SmallSpoonBrigade

Жыл бұрын

Any rules that you try to apply for poetry in one language are likely to break in another. Latin poems have basically no rhyming because rhymes are pretty much everywhere in the language due to the massive amount of conjugation and declension involved in the language, there are somewhere between few and no words that don't rhyme in Latin, so only hacks would use rhyming to create a poem. So, they did a lot with meter when writing poems and basically nothing with rhyme.

@rachelelizabethmason18

3 ай бұрын

@@SmallSpoonBrigadewoooow! I’m just now about 8/9 months into learning Spanish and this makes so much sense! Obviously not all poems in English rhyme either, but it’s one of the most common ways a novice would recognize a writing piece as poetry. But I’ve never thought about how the rhyming would mean nothing in Spanish and other Latin languages since their sentences probably end up rhyming ALL the time anyways! Amazing!

The cows poem is stuck in my head 😂 thank you for this video, really helped me!

surprised how small this creator is even though with all his work it's really crazy i found this channel today through a lesson in my 9th grade english class

@kentonyc

4 ай бұрын

Thanks for sharing this! It totally made my day! Hope your class enjoyed the video too!

Thank you for this video. I’ve had to send this video to many people promoting 5-7-5 in English :)

@kentonyc

Жыл бұрын

Thank you for checking it out!

This makes so much sense. Even with closely related languages, usually poetic forms need to be adapted to match the melody of languages. Just like how sonnets in English have 5 iambic feet per verse and are 4+4+4+2, VS sonnets in Spanish that have 11 syllables per verse and are 4+4+3+3, and even Italian uses a different rhyme scheme than Spanish. Each form doesn't adapt to the other one because each language is different, and so the parameters need to be loosened up a bit. This makes haikus so much more interesting than I was thought. This simple definition even made me think they weren't that special.

Thank you for the clear explanation! I had been screaming internally "No! Something is wrong!" all these years every time I heared the English explanation of 俳句.

Nice! Is the seasonal word in the cow poem cows or grass?

As a pianist/music produder I can’t even turn off that beat in my head 😊 Good video 🎉

@kentonyc

Ай бұрын

Thank you for the kind words!

Amazing. Thanks. Is there an English book of Japanese haiku you would recommend? Maybe. Thanks much. : )

wonderful.. I've been explaining this until my throat was sore... still is -

Oh now I understand. I was reading the English translation of "Four Haiku" by Basho. I was counting it using the 5/7/5 syllables and was wondering why was it not 575. Was this because the translation of Bownas & Thwaite was using 5/7/5 morae?

Nice video and excellent explanation. Do Japanese put musical rhythm to their Haikus or is it just poetry with Mora restricted parameters? If the later, then the rhythmic sound can't be a valid argument because linguistically English and Japanese differ. Therefore a separate paradigm must be create for the environment it is created. So we can call this, as a different commenter mentioned, a Western Haiku construction. Similar to Brazilian Jiujitsu, it creates it's own style within the environment it is introduce. Like Japanese style pasta and pizza (which I love!), they are fundamentally wrong, but oh so good!

@kentonyc

3 жыл бұрын

They do put it on rhythm, if you look up some haikus being read out loud on KZread, you will find examples of the rhythm being emphasized. That said, I am a supporter of a “western construction” - language and art is all meant to be reinterpreted, reconstructed, and shared across cultures in my view. When I say “How You Learned Haikus Wrong” there are huge air quotes around “Wrong” for sure.

@j.scottbrowning6669

3 жыл бұрын

@@kentonyc , thanks for replying. You're absolutely right regarding art & language. I do hear a rhythmic sound in the readings, which I think the Mora arrangement makes easier to do than with English. Might be an interesting challenge to try to add that rhythmic element into the Western variety.

So why not just designate it as 'Western-Style Haiku'?

Woww..

dude you are awesome. thanks for the video. Greetings from Turkey

@kentonyc

Жыл бұрын

Thank you for the kind words!

Wow, thank you for this! Since I learned about haikus in maybe 3rd grade, I’ve never understood them. For years I’ve literally thought “no offense to Japanese culture, but what is the point in haikus?” 😂 So finally about 18 years later I’ve decided to come to KZread to see if someone could explain haikus in a way that I would appreciate them, maybe even hear one that resonated with me. I searched “what is a haiku?” And chose your video first, as the title made me hopeful lol. And I love everything about this video! The mora-syllable adjustment just does not translate well, and I was never taught that rhythm had anything to do with it in school. So truly, a thought (usually about nature) conveyed in a 5-7-5 syllable structure just did not sound like poetry to me. I got an A on a poem as silly as your cow and refrigerator one, it was literally about Daylight Saving Time! Anyways my eyes have been opened, despite feeling a little skeptical that I would feel any differently about haikus after doing the research. Also, I love the one you shared of the lonely man. Now understanding the rhythm aspect of a haiku, I can hear the silence after he says he is alone. Incredible!

@kentonyc

3 ай бұрын

Thank you so much for stopping by and leaving this wonderful comment! Made my day! Hope you have a great one!

@rachelelizabethmason18

2 ай бұрын

@@kentonyc I never check my notifications, but I’m glad I made your day! Thank you for sharing your knowledge, I hope some school teachers see this video lol 😂

Wow 🎉 how come we get fluency on Nihon language and English 😮 so differs. Arigatto and Thank you. Very very educational video. 🎉

the flowers tell the bear take my forgiveness and go hunger is not sin

はじめまして。とても興味深い内容だったので登録させていただきました！ ところで俳句の「リズム」のところで気になったのですが 〇〇〇〇〇××× ×〇〇〇〇〇〇〇 〇〇〇〇〇××× と２行目の頭を一拍開けたほうがしっくりくると思いました。いかがでしょうか？

@kentonyc

4 жыл бұрын

たしかにそちらの方がしっくりくる俳句もあると思います！ 他に、 〇〇〇〇〇××× 〇〇〇×〇〇〇〇 〇〇〇〇〇××× といったパターンもあるみたいです。 動画で紹介させていただきました、 〇〇〇〇〇××× 〇〇〇〇〇〇〇× 〇〇〇〇〇××× のみではないみたいですね。コメント及びご視聴ありがとうございます！

Very interesting, thank you. One quirk of this formulation is that there are 3 morae beats between the 1st and 2nd lines, whereas the 3rd line follows the 2nd almost immediately. Is that standard in Japanese haiku? I had hard a similar formulation years ago, but I had remembered it as in 2/2 time, with the first line starting on the first downbeat of ms 1, the second line on the last upbeat of ms 4, and the last line on the first downbeat of ms 10.

I have been saying these things or awhile. Liberated Haiku both in English and Japanese. 5 7 5 is basic. Seasonal words and the required break. I never counted beats before.

how do you only have 1K? Seriously this should get more attention

@kentonyc

2 жыл бұрын

Thank you for the kind words!

Very many thanks for this. It's helped my appreciation of Haiku enormously. FYI though, I find the PiP inserts very distracting and a barrier to my understanding. Why not assume that your viewer is coming to you for knowledge, not for entertainment?

well, i m a rapper too and i have always sensed something wrong like you said. thanks mate, great job

What was the last haiku? Thanks

Alone in my room Watching this youtube content Procrastinating But seriously, tho, thank you so much. I have been fascinated with haiku but never really noticed the linguistic difference, and you pointed it out so concisely.

@kentonyc

10 күн бұрын

Thanks for sharing the haiku (I relate so much!) and the comment!

I came across this video just a few days before submitting my first draft of a book. It is a collection of haiku. I think I might have gone wrong in some but I didn't rework on them as I didn't want to break the rhythm I had selected to depict the story. Would you like to read my book once published? I'll love to hear your views on it.

@kentonyc

Жыл бұрын

I'm fairly confident your rhythm is the right rhythm for the work of art you are producing, and I would not let the contents of my video sway your rhythm! In my opinion, haiku is about encapsulating more with less, giving our life a moment to be mindful, and to reflect. But that's just my opinion. Any art form is meant to be interpreted by people and I'm sure your words are the right ones! I'd be happy to give your book a look, that said, I'm probably going to not have much to add - your words are your words and I intend to respect them.

@subhashreejena5730

Жыл бұрын

@@kentonyc Thank you so much for your kind words! I will make sure I give my best to this and surely more books on Haiku in the future :)

fall winds from the north now they come white wings and black our glorious cranes

What’s the translation for the Haiku by HIROIKOJIMA

@kentonyc

4 ай бұрын

Evening calm A bird beckons From home 夕凪や 鳥は家から 招きます He's great!!!