When writing haikus, do words like ‘rests’ as in "The rabbit rests…’ count as two syllables?
Why would they? They’re one syllable in common usage; why would being in a haiku change that?
In Japanese, “rests” would be transliterated as three syllables “re-su-tsu”. Haiku syllable counts depend on what is a “syllable” in Japanese – though I guess you can change the rules when writing haiku in English.
Haiku don’t actually consist of 17 syllables; they consist of 17 morae.
I believe that “rests” would count as 2 morae, yes.
In english would it? I don’t really ‘feel’ it for the word ‘rests’. Can someone give some examples of english words that in english would have one syllable but more than one mora? And explain where the mora are?
Technically true about how a haiku is counted; a “mora” corresponds to one kana. For example, the word “kibun” has three morae, as the ending “n” sound counts as one. You can often hear this kind of thing in practice in Japanese singing, especially enka.
As for a word like “rests”, if you are writing a haiku in English using English pronunciation rules, I would call it one syllable, since it is not at all clear how you would pronounce it as two.
Dew rests on the grass
before the morning sun’s heat.
Night’s exhalation.
Like that.
Roddy
Wikipedia gives the word “cat” as having two morae. From the description, it is apparently divided ca/t, as the t would be coda.
It also says that all stressed syllables are bimoraic. Rests is usually a stressed syllable, so it would have two morae. And if I just go by my ear, it seems that it would be divided res/ts. Whether I pronounce the /t/ or not, the consonant cluster winds up being lengthened: either res/ts or resss.
Using this standard, a haiku in English would have a total of maybe 8 or 9 ordinary syllables. To the extent that a form of poetry conceived in a completely different language can be practiced in English, I just don’t see this standard as practical. Since the OP asked specifically about English words in haiku, I think we have to change the rules of the form to fit English better.
Roddy
I was taught that, in English, a haiku should be three lines of five, seven and five syllables each - no more, no less. “Rests” and “cat” are both one-syllable words IMHO.
Yeah, I get the feeling that these mora aren’t so easily translatable to english, and so it isn’t fair to apply the rules as given above. “Cat”, for instance, in english, is not pronounced or stressed like “ca-t” in english – the “ca” sound is different from the “a” sound, but both are rythmically and stressily identical and are not differentiated from each other by anything other than the type of sound that is produced. And each is followed by the same “t”. So I don’t get it. I understand that in japanese, these differences might be emphasized. “Cat” might be pronounced “cah-t”. But in English we pronounced it “cat” – one motion, without much complexity between the “c” and the “t”. Am I right that this is just an issue of trying to inappropriately translate a japanese way of pronunciation over to english?
English “cat” might in fact be transliterated as “ka-t-to”, where that first “t” is written as ッ. For example, the three-syllable English word “internet” becomes seven morae in Japanese: インターネット, or “i-n-ta-a-ne-t-to”.
Unfortunately I don’t remember where I read this, but I have seen it ably argued that a better way to capture the intention of haiku in English is to build a poem with two stressed syllables, followed by three, followed by another two. There should be some kind of turn in the three-stressed-syllable line. (Some kind of play on opposites IIRC.)
Interesting. From the Wikipedia page I see
(though I don’t know what “Tokyo” sounds like. 
)
In English (and in Thai AFAIK), long and short syllables are prescribed for specific “metrical feet” like anapests, but to substitute a long syllable (2 moras?) for two short syllables or vice versa would be irregular.
I know almost nothing about poetic effects in different languages, but from what I’ve read there must be a complicated relationship between a language’s nature and its poetry.
Strict Haiku definitions in english don’t seem to make much sense. Morae can’t be mapped one to one to syllables:
eg the words Tōkyō (to-u-kyo-u とうきょう), Ōsaka (o-o-sa-ka おおさか), and Nagasaki (na-ga-sa-ki ながさき) all have four moras, even though they have two, three, and four syllables, respectively.
Pretty much go for anything up to 17 syllables, I like the definition on this page:
http://raysweb.net/haiku/pages/haiku-definition.html
" a better measure of brevity is that when read aloud, a haiku can be completed in one breadth."
So whether rests is one or two syllables is irrelevant for en english form Haiku.
It sounds almost identical to how English speakers pronounce it.
5-7-5 is the basic haiku form, but there are a good number of exceptions from famous poets like Bashō. For instance, this haiku is 8-7-5:
芭蕉野分して盥に雨を聞く夜かな
Bashō nowaki shite / tarai ni ame wo / kiku yo kana
(Bashō listens to the rain in a bassin on a stormy night)
This phenomenon is called jiamari in Japanese. (Literally “extra characters”.)
Japanese haiku are always written in a single line. In English, they’re generally written as three verses, but in Japanese, they’re a single verse with two caesura.