Japanese pitch accent

Japanese pitch accent (高低アクセント, kōtei akusento^?) is a feature of the Japanese language that distinguishes words in most Japanese dialects, though the nature and location of the accent for a given word may vary between dialects. For instance, in the Tokyo dialect, considered the standard Japanese dialect (標準語 hyōjungo), the word for "now" is [iꜜma], with the accent on the first mora (or equivalently, with a downstep in pitch between the first and second morae), but in the Kansai dialect it is [i.maꜜ]. A final [i] or [u] is often devoiced to [i̥] or [u̥] after a downstep and an unvoiced consonant.

Normative pitch accent, essentially the pitch accent of the Tokyo Yamanote dialect, is considered essential in jobs such as broadcasting. The current standards for pitch accent are presented in special accent dictionaries for native speakers such as the Shin Meikai Nihongo Akusento Jiten (新明解日本語アクセント辞典) and the NHK Nihongo Hatsuon Akusento Jiten (NHK日本語発音アクセント辞典). Newsreaders and other speech professionals are required to follow these standards.

Foreign learners of Japanese are often not taught to pronounce the pitch accent, though it is included in some noted texts, such as Japanese: The Spoken Language. Incorrect pitch accent is a strong characteristic of a "foreign accent" in Japanese.

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