Japanese language

===Early Middle Japanese===
{{main|Early Middle Japanese}}
[[File:Genji emaki 01003 001.jpg|thumb|right|alt=Genji Monogatari emaki scroll|A 12th-century [[emaki]] scroll of ''[[The Tale of Genji]]'' from the 11th century]]
Early Middle Japanese is the Japanese of the [[Heian period]], from 794 to 1185. It formed the basis for the [[Literary language|literary standard]] of [[Classical Japanese]], which remained in common use until the early 20th century.

During this time, Japanese underwent numerous [[phonological]] developments, in many cases instigated by an influx of [[Sino-Japanese vocabulary|Chinese loanwords]]. These included phonemic length distinction for both [[geminate consonant|consonants]] and [[vowel length|vowels]], palatal consonants (e.g. ''kya'') and labial consonant clusters (e.g. ''kwa''), and [[closed syllable]]s.<ref name="Frel">{{harvnb|Frellesvig|2010 |p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=v1FcAgiAC9IC&pg=PA184 184]}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Labrune |first=Laurence |chapter=Consonants |url=https://oxford.universitypressscholarship.com/view/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199545834.001.0001/acprof-9780199545834 |title=The Phonology of Japanese |date=2012 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-954583-4 |series=The Phonology of the World's Languages |pages=89–91 |doi=10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199545834.003.0003 |access-date=2021-10-14 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211027181824/https://oxford.universitypressscholarship.com/view/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199545834.001.0001/acprof-9780199545834 |archive-date=2021-10-27 |url-status=live}}</ref> This had the effect of changing Japanese into a [[mora-timed]] language.<ref name=Frel/>