Shiritori
しりとり
A Japanese word chain: each word begins with the last mora of the one before, and whoever ends a word in n has lost.
A Japanese chaining game. Each player names a word beginning with the last of the previous one: sakura → rampu → purin.
The count runs by kana rather than by letters — by syllables. For Japanese those are the same act: a word is written in morae, and its last one is visible at once.
What sets shiritori apart from other chains is one detail other languages simply lack. The mora n comes at the end of words often and begins almost nothing, so a player naming such a word does not put an opponent in difficulty but loses on the spot. The whole game is played with an eye on that: a convenient word may turn out to be your last.
Shiritori and other chains
The arrangement is that of Cities, and it works differently. In Cities the difficulty comes from a rare letter and an exhaustible stock of names; in shiritori the stock is unlimited but for the part of speech, while a move exists by which a player loses on their own.
English versions chaining by the last letter are already an adaptation: a language has a different number of letters than morae, and the ban on n means nothing in them.
Rules of shiritori
Order
Play goes in turn. The first player names any noun.
A turn
Each player in turn names a noun beginning with the last mora of the previous word.
Only nouns are allowed. Verbs, adjectives and whole expressions do not count.
Repeats
A word already said in the game may not be said again.
The mora n
A player who names a word ending in the mora ん loses immediately: practically no word begins with it, and there would be nothing to continue the chain with.
End of the game
The game ends when somebody cannot name a fitting word or names one ending in n. That player has lost and the rest have won.
What is agreed beforehand
Long vowels. A word may end in a mark of length — "mikisā". Three approaches are then possible, and one has to be chosen: treat the length as a vowel and continue from it; ignore it and take the mora before; or allow either.
Voicing. Whether a mora with a and one without count as the same. If they do, "tomato" may be followed by "dōnatsu".
What may be named at all. Proper nouns and loanwords are sometimes admitted and sometimes not; how many words are left on the rare morae depends heavily on that.
Worth knowing
There are only a few binding rules here, and nearly everything else is settled before play: what to do with a long vowel, whether signs with and without voicing count as one mora, whether proper nouns and loanwords are allowed. Whether a turn is timed is for the group to decide as well.
Glossary of terms
- Dakuten
- A mark of two strokes turning a voiceless consonant voiced: か ka becomes が ga. Whether a sign with it and one without count as the same mora is agreed beforehand.
- Mora
- The unit of a Japanese syllable, written with one kana sign. A shiritori chain runs by mora, not by letter.