On (Japanese prosody) On (Japanese prosody) The term On (rarely "Onji") refers to counting phonetic sounds in Japanese poetry. In the Japanese language, the word ""on"" (音) means "sound". It is used to mean the phonetic units counted in haiku, tanka, and other such poetic forms. Known as "morae" to English-speaking linguists, the modern Japanese term for the linguistic concept is either "haku" () or "mōra" (). Ji (字) is Japanese for "symbol" or "character". The concatenation of the two words ""on"" and ""ji"" into ""onji"" (音字) was used by Meiji era grammarians to mean "phonic character" and was translated into English by
Haiku South Asia, some other poets also write Haiku from time to time, most notably including the Pakistani poet Omer Tarin, who is also active in the movement for global nuclear disarmament and some of his 'Hiroshima Haiku' have been read at various peace conferences in Japan and the UK. Haiku In Japanese, haiku are traditionally printed in a single vertical line while haiku in English often appear in three lines to parallel the three phrases of Japanese haiku. Previously called "hokku", haiku was given its current name by the Japanese writer Masaoka Shiki at the end of the 19th century.