Shiritori


Shiritori 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, and kanji. "Shiritori" literally means "taking the end" or "taking the rear".

Rules

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

Standard rules

  • Two or more people take turns to play.
  • Only nouns are permitted.
  • A player who plays a word ending in the mora "N" loses the game, as almost no Japanese word begins with that character, except for some loanwords and proper nouns such as ンジャメナ.
  • Words may not be repeated.
  • Phrases connected by no are permitted, but only in those cases where the phrase is sufficiently lexicalized to be considered a "word".
Example:
sakura → rajio → onigiri → risu → sumou → udon.
The player who used the word udon lost this game, because the word ends in N.

Optional rules

  • The first word of the game is shiritori, the name of the game itself.
  • Dakuten and handakuten may be ignored or added. Thus suupu may be followed by furo, and sato may be followed by dorayaki.
  • A long vowel may either be ignored or considered as a vowel. Mikisaa can be followed by either sakura or aki.
  • Common pronouns and place names may be permitted. Example: Edo jou, is acceptable.
  • Two words spelled with the same kana but different kanji may be permitted. For example, su can either be spelled as "巣" or "酢".

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".
  • The length of a word must be three or more syllables.

English shiritori

A version of Shiritori 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 closest game is word chain.
  • Similar Russian word games include "A Game of Words", where players are required to say a noun that begins with the final letter of the previous word, and "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 Chinese languages, a similar game is known as jielong, where players start new words with the last hanzi of the preceding word. Another variant of the game is known as tzuchuan, which utilises adding, removing or replacing of one of the character's components to form another character. The most popular variant of the game is known as chengyu jielong, which involves four character idioms instead.
  • 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, a similar game is kkeunmaritgi, in which players must say a word that starts with the last Hangul syllable of the previous word.
  • In Romanian, there is a game called "Fazan", in which players must say a word that starts with the last two letters of the previous word.

Examples from popular culture