Goroavase

The Japanese game of goroavase (語 呂 合 わ せ “consonance”, “game of numbers”, English “wordplay”) allows you to write words using numbers from 0 to 10. Signs for numerals, in fact, are ideograms, possessing both meaning and reading. At the same time, only readings, but not the values ​​of these ideograms, are taken into account in the Goroavase. The game is based on two principles: rebus and acrophonic. An example of the use of the rebus principle is a non-standard record of the name of the supermarket chain “Family” as “7th”. The acrophonic principle allows you to create additional readings of ideograms formed using the first letters of the main readings: for example, the main reading of roku generates an additional reading of ro . Most Japanese characters (kanji) have several readings, among which can be distinguished kun (Japanese) and he (Chinese). This structure is inherent in graphemes of Japanese numerals. In addition, English readings are used, which are understood by most native Japanese speakers. Thus, all readings can be divided into basic (kun, he and English) and additional, formed from them using the acrophonic principle. Below is a table of all the possible readings of the numbers found in the game of the city: