Shiritori

Shiritori

Shiritori (しりとり) is a Japanese word game in which the players are required to say a word which begins with the final kana of the previous word. No distinction is made between hiragana, katakana or kanji. "Shiritori" literally means "taking the end" or "taking the rear".^[1]

Rules[]

• Two or more people take turns to play.
• Only nouns are permitted.
• A player who plays a word ending in the mora N (ん) loses the game, as no Japanese word begins with that character.
• Words may not be repeated.
• Phrases connected by no (の) are permitted, but only in those cases where the phrase is sufficiently fossilized to be considered a "word".^[2]

Example: sakura (さくら) → rajio (ラジオ) → onigiri (おにぎり) → risu (りす) → sumou (すもう) → udon (うどん)

The player who used the word udon lost this game.

There are various optional and advanced rules, which must be agreed on before the game begins.

Optional rules[]

• Dakuten and handakuten may be ignored or added. Thus suupu (スープ) may be followed by furo (ふろ), and sato (さと) may be followed by dochi (どち).
• A long vowel may either be ignored or considered as a vowel. Mikisaa (ミキサー/みきさあ) can be followed by either sakura (さくら) or aki (あき).
• Common pronouns and place names may be permitted. Example: Edo jou (えどじょう) lit. Edo castle is acceptable.
• Two words spelled with the same kana but different kanji may be permitted. For example, Su (す) can either be spelled as "巣" (lit. a birdnest) or "酢" (lit. vinegar).

Advanced rules[]

• Words are limited to a certain genre.
• Instead of using only the last kana, the final two kana must be used again. In this case, only the first kana may not be the mora N (ん).
• The length of a word must be three or more syllables.^[2]

English shiritori[]

A Shiritori game using only English words was invented to help people learn English. Most rules are the same, yet there are several original and optional rules that are used.

• For students of English, any words including nouns, verbs, and adjectives can be used.
• Players cannot use different tenses of previously used verbs unless they have nonstandard conjugation. For example, a player may use "be," "was," and "is," but not both "kick" and "kicked."
• When a word ends in a silent vowel, like "life," one may either use the vowel in another word or use the preceding consonant instead.

Similar games[]

In English, the most similar game is Word chain.

There are Russian wordgames similar to shiritori known as "Igra v slova" ("Игра в слова"—A game of words), where players are required to say a noun that begins with the final letter of the previous word, and "Igra v goroda" ("Игра в города"—A game of cities), where players are required to say a name of a city or town that begins with the final letter of the previous word.

In Sinitic languages there is a game known as jielong (接龍), where players start new words with the last hanzi.

There is also a similar South Slavic game called Kalodont, in which players continue the chain by beginning with last two letters of the previous word.

In Korean, there is a game called ggeut-mar-it-gi (끝말잇기—End Word Continue), in which players must say a word that starts with the last Hangul letter of the previous word.

In Romanian, there is a game called "Fazan" ("Pheasant"), in which players must say a word that starts with the last two letters of the previous word.

Examples from popular culture[]

• In the Japanese version of Tomodachi Life, there is an event called Shiritori Tournament but obviously changed into Word Chain in the European version, and ggeut-mar-it-gi in the Korean version, the North American version lacks the game but there is a similar event called Rap Battle.

• In episode 6 of the anime Nichijou, the characters Yūko Aioi and Mio Naganohara play a picture version of the game.

• The Japanese ending theme of Pokémon Journeys is "Pokémon Shiritori", which features the game being played with names of Pokémon.

References[]