Haiku 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. In Japanese haiku a "kireji", or cutting word, typically appears at the end of one of the verse's three phrases. A "kireji" fills a role somewhat analogous to a "caesura" in classical western poetry or to a volta in sonnets. Depending on which cutting word is chosen, and its
Japanese consonant and vowel verbs verbs ended in "-hu," which is still seen on occasion in historical kana usage, and thus unambiguously ended in "h". The terms "consonant-stem" and "vowel-stem" come from considering the invariant part of the verb (the verb stem) on the basis of phonemes – concretely, by writing in rōmaji. This is an abstract perspective, as the consonant stem itself never occurs independently, but only with a following vowel, as Japanese words are formed of morae – concretely, writing in kana. For example, while the stem of "yomu" is "yom-," the bare *"yom" is not an independent word. The standard Japanese terms,