Kireji in translations of such verses into this language, kireji may be represented by punctuation (typically by a dash or an ellipsis), an exclamatory particle (such as 'how...'), or simply left unmarked. The examples below are laid out as follows: Kireji Classical renga developed a tradition of 18 kireji, which were adopted by haikai, thence used for both renku and haiku, the most common of which are listed below: Hokku and haiku consist of 17 Japanese syllables, or on (a phonetic unit identical to the mora), in three metrical phrases of 5, 7, and 5 on respectively. A kireji is typically
On (Japanese prosody) transliterated into hiragana. In cases where a hiragana is represented by a pair of symbols each pair (or "digraph" e.g. "kyo" (きょ)) equates to a single "on". When viewed this way, the term ""ji"" ("character") is used in Japanese. In English-language discussions of Japanese poetry, the more familiar word "syllable" is sometimes used. Although the use of "syllable" is inaccurate, it often happens that the syllable count and the "on" count match in Japanese-language haiku. The disjunction between syllables and "on" becomes clearer when counting sounds in English-language versions of Japanese poetic forms, such as haiku in English. An English