こんにちわ or こんにちは？

[WacKostRacKo]

I've just enrolled on a Japanese degree program at uni. I've been studying japanese for a year now and i have always spelt こんにちわ with a わ at the end. But in my text books it uses は, does anyone know why this is? i assume that it is the topic particle は pronounced わ, that means that it was part of a sentence once.

The same goes for こんばんは / こんばんわ. Can anyone think of any other words where this appears?:|

[lomagu]

Yeah, it should be written as こんにちは ( not with a わ). I think the は is just the は particle being pronounced as わ as you said. I think こんにちは and こんばんは are more like set phrases than proper sentences... not too sure though. You can check out the "About konnichiwa" thread in this same section. They talk a bit about the same thing there.

[mandolin]

I'll just throw in support behind Iomagu. He's right.

[WacKostRacKo]

yea cheers, ive spoken to my tutor about it and she hinted along the same lines, but she didnt sound like she knew the exact reason so i guess its just one of those anonmalies that make this language fun /darn difficult to learn. However i always take heart from the fact that (so far in my studies) ive found that english has far more, but we will see....

Cheers guys

[Spaztick]

I think こんにちは is short for こんんいちはいい日ですね, but I'm not totaly sure.

[WacKostRacKo]

ok thanks for the input, i will check with my tutor. its starting to bug me now.....:@