I’d go with とわ as well just because I hear it that way in songs.
In professionally published works, I would expect it to have 振り仮名 if it’s meant to be とわ.
But also, えいえんのあい just doesn’t have to same ring to it that とわのあい does. I’m not sure if it’s the harder consonant sounds or because とわ feels more dramatic to me because of those songs.
Disclaimer: all bets are off for poetry and music. Could go either way. 
I don’t know about the reading in that phrase specifically, but as this page says, the usual reading in general is えいえん, not とわ:
I really think it depends entirely on the context and the intention of the writer. Both are correct and understandable. Just to be clear though…
Exactly. Here’s a classic example: in Cruel Angel’s Thesis, there’s this line
この宇宙を抱いて輝く
And yes, you’re really supposed to sing it as そら, not うちゅう. Poetic qualities are one thing, but there’s also the matter of creative freedom.
Yeah, that’s about what I thought. I got into an online discussion elsewhere earlier today with someone who was convinced that 永遠の愛 should definitely be とわのあい and not えいえんのあい (in general, not just with a specific instance). I wasn’t sure I agreed with that because I’ve come across the えいえんのあい reading a couple of times, although I’ve seen とわのあい used more often.
Thank you!
I apologize if this question has been answered elsewhere, but a recent interview question had me wondering how Japanese names are commonly ordered (e.g. in a list) in Japan? I imagine that if a list of names contains a mix of kanji, kana and romaji, the problem would be pretty difficult (or impossible) to solve. If that list of names also includes foreign names, would they be converted to katakana?
They’re ordered by 五十音順 (the syllabary order) so first surnames starting with あ then い and after the vowels the K row then S row, etc etc. Since surnames have a more predictable prononciation then given names, they’re usually not to difficult to order.
As for foreign names, it depends. I’ve seen mine in the middle (where it would be by kana) but also at the very beginning or end of a list.
There’s also a female name とわ that can be spelled either as 永遠 or 永久.
Anyone know what 雲手 is? I’m not finding anything useful from searching google images or searching for 雲手 意味. I assume it could just be these things in the scene I saw the word in, but I have no idea what they are or what the word means.
I found some stuff googling うんしゅ:
両腕を左右のホイールにのせて、回すことで肩・肩甲骨等のストレッチができる。
トレーニングの器具として使用するのは難しい。
I guess it’s a tai chi thing, and you spin the thingies in this kind of motion?
This looks informative:
http://www.tokyo-taichi.jp/katudou/050406/0505-nerima.htm
I’m reading more Urara Meirochou and this time I have a non-grammar question. Any time they do some 占い chant it has some kind of old language stuff. The context here is that they are talking about some form of 花占い using a flower called 相合花 (furigana in the manga is あいあいばな). In the chant there’s a handful of things using somewhat old, but fairly normal, language like 汝 and ぬ. But then there’s 相ひ合ひ花. Now, I’ve seen 思ふ as an old form of 思う. So give that 思ふ to 思う is a は行 to あ行 shift and given the previous context of 相合花 being read あいあいばな, can I safely assume this is the same shift, but in this case from ひ to い? If so, should I actually pronounce 相ひ合ひ花 out loud as あいあいばな, basically treating it as a spelling change but not a pronunciation change from modern Japanese?
I tried searching for the flower, but couldn’t find anything. Instead I found 相合傘 (あいあいがさ):
I feel @Jonapedia might know something more maybe 
Yeah, I think it’s made up for the manga, so not surprising. I figured it was meant to evoke the same feeling as 相合傘 (the sharing umbrella thing) since the 占い was an affinity test basically. I was just mentioning the furigana to show that it was written as あいあい earlier but then あひあひ in the chant. It’s more a question about old Japanese and kana reforms than this specific word.
Is your goal to read out loud in modern Japanese? I feel like this is very similar to the idea of reading Shakespeare or Chaucer as they’re written versus they modern day equivalent words. Like you could try to read it as it you assume it’s said from the spellings but likely be wrong unless you’ve studied the pronunciation.
On the other hand, if it’s faux old language, then you probably wouldn’t be expected to read it “correctly” anyway since it’s just for mood setting. So I’d say the answer to your question depends on your goal.
If you’ve ever looked at 百人一首 karuta cards, they also often use classical spelling. As such, school kids learn and know these spelling variants, and reading them “as written” with modern pronunciation would sound kind of silly to Japanese people, I think. You’re expected to read them as they would have been pronounced, so this ひ should sound like い, because all that changed was the spelling. This would just make logical sense to a Japanese reader as well, since “aiahi” just sounds like a less plausible word given the fact that the ひ is coming after 合.
Okay, that’s what I thought. Thanks!
Is there any analog in Japanese to what happened in English with “ye” where we now pronounce it ‘yee’ instead of ‘the’ because the fact that it was a spelling change wasn’t well known?
So I’m reading through an LN and I’ve come across a large quantity of comma-esque markings next to certain words. They’re the exact same marking as a comma and are in the same margin, but unlike the other commas in the book they do not have a space after them and also do not go in places where commas usually go; as in, they’re sometimes four or five in a row. This book is being read vertical, so it means that it really does look like a series of random dots to the right side of kanji. In one instance there is literally just eight of them in a row next to every character in the sentence. Any ideas? Is this a common thing or is it literally just exclusive to this book and I’ll have to figure it out on my own.
I’m putting this here and not in grammar because I have a suspicion this has very little to do with actual Japanese grammar. It kinda looks cool, though.
Is it the shirogoma (白ゴマ) from here? List of Japanese typographic symbols - Wikipedia
That’s italicization.
Thank you very much.
Took me a second to realize that’s literally just black-comma and white-comma. 
Just saw this:
What exactly is that last… Letter? Symbol?? This is the first time I’ve seen it. Is it another way to write ず？Or a way to not repeat す again…?
