What’s so special about the syllable number in haiku lines? Who and why decided on the standard?
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Check out [this site](https://www.writebetterpoems.com/articles/how-to-write-haiku). It explains haiku pretty well, but the key point is that a definite haiku is broken into two parts: an observation and an insight. The 5-7-5 mostly doesn’t make sense in English, because it’s based on something in Japanese that doesn’t translate over.
What’s special about it is… nothing. But it’s familiar, and it’s mistakenly the “key feature” that people think of about haiku. If you want your poetry to be recognized as haiku, writing it 5-7-5 is the easiest way to do it. As to who decided that, I have no idea. But the obvious explanation is that someone had a loose idea of morae, and figured syllables were close enough to match it. People unfamiliar with it just ran with it from there.
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