Romanization of Japanese
Encyclopedia
The romanization of Japanese is the application of the Latin alphabet
to write the Japanese language
. This method of writing is known as , less strictly romaji, literally "Roman letters", sometimes incorrectly transliterated
as romanji or rōmanji. There are several different romanization
systems. The three main ones are Hepburn romanization
, Kunrei-shiki Rōmaji (ISO 3602), and Nihon-shiki Rōmaji (ISO 3602 Strict). Variants of the Hepburn system are the most widely used.
Japanese is normally written in logographic characters
borrowed from Chinese (kanji
) and syllabic
scripts (kana
) which also ultimately derive from Chinese characters. Rōmaji may be used in any context where Japanese text is targeted at non-Japanese speakers who cannot read kanji or kana, such as for names on street signs and passports, and in dictionaries and textbooks for foreign learners of the language. It is also used to transliterate Japanese terms in text written in English (or other language that uses the Roman alphabet) on Japanese topics such as linguistics, literature, history, and culture. Rōmaji is the most common way to input Japanese into word processors and computers, and may also be used to display Japanese on devices that do not support the display of Japanese characters.
All Japanese who have attended elementary school since World War II
have been taught to read and write romanized Japanese. Therefore, almost all Japanese are able to read and write Japanese using rōmaji.
. It was developed around 1548 by a Japanese
Catholic named Yajiro. Jesuit
presses used the system in a series of printed Catholic books so that missionaries
could preach and teach their converts without learning to read Japanese orthography. The most useful of these books for the study of early modern Japanese pronunciation and early attempts at romanization was the Nippo jisho
, a Japanese-Portuguese dictionary
written in 1603. In general, the early Portuguese system was similar to Nihon-shiki in its treatment of vowel
s. Some consonant
s were transliterated differently: for instance, the /k/ consonant was rendered, depending on context, as either c or q, and the /ɸ/ consonant (now pronounced /h/) as f, so Nihon no kotoba ("The language of Japan") was spelled Nifon no cotoba. The Jesuits also printed some secular books in romanized Japanese, including the first printed edition of the Japanese classic The Tale of the Heike
, romanized as Feiqe no monogatari, and a collection of Aesop's Fables
(romanized as Esopo no fabulas). The latter continued to be printed and read after the suppression of Christianity
in Japan (Chibbett, 1977).
Following the expulsion of Christian
s from Japan in the late 1590s and early 17th century, rōmaji fell out of use, and was only used sporadically in foreign texts until the mid-19th century, when Japan opened up again. The systems used today all developed in the latter half of the 19th century.
From the mid-19th century several systems were developed, culminating in the Hepburn system
, named after James Curtis Hepburn
who used it in the third edition of his Japanese–English dictionary, published in 1887. The Hepburn system included representation of some sounds that have since changed. For example, Lafcadio Hearn
's book Kwaidan
shows the older kw- pronunciation; in modern Hepburn romanization, this would be written Kaidan (lit., ghost tales.)
entirely and using rōmaji instead. The Nihon-shiki romanization was an outgrowth of that movement. Several Japanese texts were published entirely in rōmaji during this period, but it failed to catch on. Later, in the early 20th century, some scholars devised syllabary systems with characters derived from Latin (rather like the Cherokee syllabary
); these were even less popular, because they were not based on any historical use of the Latin alphabet
. Today, the use of Nihon-shiki for writing Japanese is advocated by the Oomoto
sect and some independent organizations.
vowels. It is an intuitive method of showing Anglophones
the pronunciation of a word in Japanese. It was standardized in the USA as American National Standard System for the Romanization of Japanese (Modified Hepburn), but this status was abolished on October 6, 1994. Hepburn is the most common romanization system in use today, especially in the English-speaking world.
The Revised Hepburn system of romanization uses a macron
to indicate some long vowels, and an apostrophe
to note the separation of easily confused phoneme
s (usually, syllabic n ん from a following naked vowel or semivowel). For example, the name じゅんいちろう, is written with the kana characters ju-n-i-chi-ro-u, and romanized as Jun'ichirō in Revised Hepburn. Without the apostrophe, it would not be possible to distinguish this correct reading from the incorrect ju-ni-chi-ro-u. This system is widely used in Japan and among foreign students and academics.
(voicing sign) ゛on the つ (tsu) kana to indicate that the tsu つ is now voiced. The づ kana is pronounced in the same way as a different kana, す (su), with dakuten, ず. Kunrei-shiki and Hepburn ignore the difference in kana and represent the sound in the same way, as kanazukai, using the same letters "zu" as are used to romanize ず. Nihon-shiki retains the difference, and romanizes the word as kanadukai, differentiating the づ kana from the ず kana, which is romanized as zu, even though they are pronounced identically. Similarly for the pair じ and ぢ, which are both zi in Kunrei-shiki and both ji in Hepburn romanization, but are zi and di respectively in Nihon-shiki. See the table below for full details.
Kunrei-shiki has been standardized by the Japanese Government and the International Organisation for Standardisation as ISO 3602. Kunrei-shiki is taught to Japanese elementary school
students in their fourth year of education.
Written in Kunrei-shiki, the name of the system would be rendered Kunreisiki.
marks to note the Japanese pitch accent
and diacritic marks to distinguish phonological changes, such as the assimilation of the moraic nasal /n/ (see Japanese phonology
).
system, using exactly one symbol for each phoneme, and marking pitch accent using diacritic
s. It was created for Eleanor Harz Jorden
's system of Japanese language teaching. Its principle is that such a system enables students to better internalize the phonology of Japanese. Since it does not have any of the advantages for non-native speakers that the other rōmaji systems have, and the Japanese already have a writing system for their language, JSL is not widely used outside the educational environment.
Notably, the various mappings that Japanese input methods
use to convert keystrokes on a Roman keyboard to kana often combine features of all of the systems; when used as plain text rather than being converted, these are usually known as wāpuro rōmaji
. (Wāpuro is a blend
of wādo purosessā word processor
.) Unlike the standard systems, wāpuro rōmaji requires no characters from outside the ASCII
character set.
While there may be arguments in favour of some of these variant romanizations in specific contexts, their use, especially if mixed, leads to confusion when romanized Japanese words are indexed. Note that this confusion never occurs when inputting Japanese characters with a word processor, because inputted roman alphabets are transcribed into Japanese kana characters as soon as IME
decides what character is input.
In addition, the following three methods of representing long vowels are authorized by the Japanese Foreign Ministry for use in passports.
(from boke) or butoh
(from butō), so that the vowels are pronounced as monophthong
s. Other Japanese words borrowed into English, such as karate
, do not have such spelling modifications.
sound: hence Tokyo becomes "Tokio" and Kyoto
becomes "Kioto". This romanization can still be seen in the species name "mioga" of the Japanese vegetable myōga
. The kana え and ゑ were rendered as ye. The actual pronunciations of these kana were once e and we, but the w of we had already been lost by the time that (e.g.) ゑど "Edo
" was first romanized as Yedo, "Iyeyasu" instead of "Ieyasu", "Inouye" instead of "Inoue", and "yen" instead of "en". This usage reflects the older pronunciation of e as ye. This pronunciation was lost sometime in the late 19th to early 20th centuries. The kana づ (Nihon-shiki du) was romanized as dzu, as seen in the plant names adzuki and kudzu. This enjoys some currency even today as Hepburn-like wāpuro rōmaji
, and has a phonetic value distinct from zu in many dialects of Japanese
.
artist Yasuhiro Nightow
's family name would be more conventionally written in Hepburn romanization as Naitō.
Other variations seen in names include the substitution of k with c, as in the name of television celebrity Ricaco or the snack food Jagarico.
, Nihon-shiki
and Kunrei-shiki
:
This chart shows the significant differences among them.
or small tsu kana っ/ッ when it is not directly followed by a consonant. Although these are usually regarded as merely phonetic marks or diacritics, they do sometimes appear on their own, such as at the end of sentences, in exclamations, or in some names. The detached sokuon is sometimes represented as an apostrophe or as t; for example, あっ might be written as a' or at.
Full-sized kana combined with smaller versions of the vowel kana ぁ/ァ, ぃ/ィ, ぅ/ゥ, ぇ/ェ and ぉ/ォ, mostly used to write loanwords, can be romanized in the "obvious way", reflecting the sound that they are meant to represent. For example, ディ, consisting of katakana de and small i, would typically be romanized as di. Sometimes this may create potential conflicts; for example if トゥ (katakana to and small u, used to represent sounds as in the English word "too") is romanised as tu, it may be confused with the Nihon-shiki and Kunrei-shiki romanizations of the kana ツ, also written tu. However, ツ is romanized as tsu in the Hepburn scheme, and since Hepburn is dominant among three systems, this kind of confusion is less likely to occur.
On a computer or word processor, smaller kana may be produced in various ways. For example, an "x" or an "l" preceding the romanization of the full-sized kana produces a small version on some systems, thus xtu gives "っ" on Microsoft Windows
. However this is not standardized, and these forms are restricted to use in input systems; they are never used to represent the smaller kana in romanized Japanese.
is spelled enu-eichi-kei, (エヌエイチケイ). The following pronunciations are based on English letter names; otherwise, for example, A would likely be called ā (アー) in Japanese.
Latin alphabet
The Latin alphabet, also called the Roman alphabet, is the most recognized alphabet used in the world today. It evolved from a western variety of the Greek alphabet called the Cumaean alphabet, which was adopted and modified by the Etruscans who ruled early Rome...
to write the Japanese language
Japanese language
is a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities. It is a member of the Japonic language family, which has a number of proposed relationships with other languages, none of which has gained wide acceptance among historical linguists .Japanese is an...
. This method of writing is known as , less strictly romaji, literally "Roman letters", sometimes incorrectly transliterated
Transliteration
Transliteration is a subset of the science of hermeneutics. It is a form of translation, and is the practice of converting a text from one script into another...
as romanji or rōmanji. There are several different romanization
Romanization
In linguistics, romanization or latinization is the representation of a written word or spoken speech with the Roman script, or a system for doing so, where the original word or language uses a different writing system . Methods of romanization include transliteration, for representing written...
systems. The three main ones are Hepburn romanization
Hepburn romanization
The is named after James Curtis Hepburn, who used it to transcribe the sounds of the Japanese language into the Latin alphabet in the third edition of his Japanese–English dictionary, published in 1887. The system was originally proposed by the in 1885...
, Kunrei-shiki Rōmaji (ISO 3602), and Nihon-shiki Rōmaji (ISO 3602 Strict). Variants of the Hepburn system are the most widely used.
Japanese is normally written in logographic characters
Logogram
A logogram, or logograph, is a grapheme which represents a word or a morpheme . This stands in contrast to phonograms, which represent phonemes or combinations of phonemes, and determinatives, which mark semantic categories.Logograms are often commonly known also as "ideograms"...
borrowed from Chinese (kanji
Kanji
Kanji are the adopted logographic Chinese characters hanzi that are used in the modern Japanese writing system along with hiragana , katakana , Indo Arabic numerals, and the occasional use of the Latin alphabet...
) and syllabic
Syllabary
A syllabary is a set of written symbols that represent syllables, which make up words. In a syllabary, there is no systematic similarity between the symbols which represent syllables with the same consonant or vowel...
scripts (kana
Kana
Kana are the syllabic Japanese scripts, as opposed to the logographic Chinese characters known in Japan as kanji and the Roman alphabet known as rōmaji...
) which also ultimately derive from Chinese characters. Rōmaji may be used in any context where Japanese text is targeted at non-Japanese speakers who cannot read kanji or kana, such as for names on street signs and passports, and in dictionaries and textbooks for foreign learners of the language. It is also used to transliterate Japanese terms in text written in English (or other language that uses the Roman alphabet) on Japanese topics such as linguistics, literature, history, and culture. Rōmaji is the most common way to input Japanese into word processors and computers, and may also be used to display Japanese on devices that do not support the display of Japanese characters.
All Japanese who have attended elementary school since World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
have been taught to read and write romanized Japanese. Therefore, almost all Japanese are able to read and write Japanese using rōmaji.
History
The earliest Japanese romanization system was based on the Portuguese orthographyPortuguese orthography
The Portuguese orthography is based on the Latin alphabet, and makes use of the acute accent, the circumflex accent, the grave accent, the tilde, and the cedilla, to denote stress, vowel height, nasalization, and other sound changes...
. It was developed around 1548 by a Japanese
Japanese people
The are an ethnic group originating in the Japanese archipelago and are the predominant ethnic group of Japan. Worldwide, approximately 130 million people are of Japanese descent; of these, approximately 127 million are residents of Japan. People of Japanese ancestry who live in other countries...
Catholic named Yajiro. Jesuit
Society of Jesus
The Society of Jesus is a Catholic male religious order that follows the teachings of the Catholic Church. The members are called Jesuits, and are also known colloquially as "God's Army" and as "The Company," these being references to founder Ignatius of Loyola's military background and a...
presses used the system in a series of printed Catholic books so that missionaries
Missionary
A missionary is a member of a religious group sent into an area to do evangelism or ministries of service, such as education, literacy, social justice, health care and economic development. The word "mission" originates from 1598 when the Jesuits sent members abroad, derived from the Latin...
could preach and teach their converts without learning to read Japanese orthography. The most useful of these books for the study of early modern Japanese pronunciation and early attempts at romanization was the Nippo jisho
Nippo Jisho
The Nippo Jisho or Vocabvlario da Lingoa de Iapam was a Japanese to Portuguese dictionary published in Nagasaki, Japan in 1603. It contains entries for 32,293 Japanese words in Portuguese. Only four copies of the original 1603 edition exist...
, a Japanese-Portuguese dictionary
Dictionary
A dictionary is a collection of words in one or more specific languages, often listed alphabetically, with usage information, definitions, etymologies, phonetics, pronunciations, and other information; or a book of words in one language with their equivalents in another, also known as a lexicon...
written in 1603. In general, the early Portuguese system was similar to Nihon-shiki in its treatment of vowel
Vowel
In phonetics, a vowel is a sound in spoken language, such as English ah! or oh! , pronounced with an open vocal tract so that there is no build-up of air pressure at any point above the glottis. This contrasts with consonants, such as English sh! , where there is a constriction or closure at some...
s. Some consonant
Consonant
In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the vocal tract. Examples are , pronounced with the lips; , pronounced with the front of the tongue; , pronounced with the back of the tongue; , pronounced in the throat; and ,...
s were transliterated differently: for instance, the /k/ consonant was rendered, depending on context, as either c or q, and the /ɸ/ consonant (now pronounced /h/) as f, so Nihon no kotoba ("The language of Japan") was spelled Nifon no cotoba. The Jesuits also printed some secular books in romanized Japanese, including the first printed edition of the Japanese classic The Tale of the Heike
The Tale of the Heike
is an epic account of the struggle between the Taira and Minamoto clans for control of Japan at the end of the 12th century in the Genpei War...
, romanized as Feiqe no monogatari, and a collection of Aesop's Fables
Aesop's Fables
Aesop's Fables or the Aesopica are a collection of fables credited to Aesop, a slave and story-teller believed to have lived in ancient Greece between 620 and 560 BCE. The fables remain a popular choice for moral education of children today...
(romanized as Esopo no fabulas). The latter continued to be printed and read after the suppression of Christianity
Christianity
Christianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus as presented in canonical gospels and other New Testament writings...
in Japan (Chibbett, 1977).
Following the expulsion of Christian
Christian
A Christian is a person who adheres to Christianity, an Abrahamic, monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as recorded in the Canonical gospels and the letters of the New Testament...
s from Japan in the late 1590s and early 17th century, rōmaji fell out of use, and was only used sporadically in foreign texts until the mid-19th century, when Japan opened up again. The systems used today all developed in the latter half of the 19th century.
From the mid-19th century several systems were developed, culminating in the Hepburn system
Hepburn romanization
The is named after James Curtis Hepburn, who used it to transcribe the sounds of the Japanese language into the Latin alphabet in the third edition of his Japanese–English dictionary, published in 1887. The system was originally proposed by the in 1885...
, named after James Curtis Hepburn
James Curtis Hepburn
James Curtis Hepburn, M.D., LL.D. was a physician who became a Christian missionary. He is known for the Hepburn romanization system for transliteration of the Japanese language into the Latin alphabet, which he popularized in his Japanese–English dictionary.- Biography :Hepburn was born in...
who used it in the third edition of his Japanese–English dictionary, published in 1887. The Hepburn system included representation of some sounds that have since changed. For example, Lafcadio Hearn
Lafcadio Hearn
Patrick Lafcadio Hearn , known also by the Japanese name , was an international writer, known best for his books about Japan, especially his collections of Japanese legends and ghost stories, such as Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things...
's book Kwaidan
Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things
, often shortened to Kwaidan, is a book by Lafcadio Hearn that features several Japanese ghost stories and a brief non-fiction study on insects...
shows the older kw- pronunciation; in modern Hepburn romanization, this would be written Kaidan (lit., ghost tales.)
As a replacement for Japanese writing system
In the Meiji era (1868-1912), some Japanese scholars advocated abolishing the Japanese writing systemJapanese writing system
The modern Japanese writing system uses three main scripts:*Kanji, adopted Chinese characters*Kana, a pair of syllabaries , consisting of:...
entirely and using rōmaji instead. The Nihon-shiki romanization was an outgrowth of that movement. Several Japanese texts were published entirely in rōmaji during this period, but it failed to catch on. Later, in the early 20th century, some scholars devised syllabary systems with characters derived from Latin (rather like the Cherokee syllabary
Cherokee syllabary
The Cherokee syllabary is a syllabary invented by Sequoyah to write the Cherokee language in the late 1810s and early 1820s. His creation of the syllabary is particularly noteworthy in that he could not previously read any script. He first experimented with logograms, but his system later developed...
); these were even less popular, because they were not based on any historical use of the Latin alphabet
Latin alphabet
The Latin alphabet, also called the Roman alphabet, is the most recognized alphabet used in the world today. It evolved from a western variety of the Greek alphabet called the Cumaean alphabet, which was adopted and modified by the Etruscans who ruled early Rome...
. Today, the use of Nihon-shiki for writing Japanese is advocated by the Oomoto
Oomoto
Oomoto also known as Oomoto-kyo , is a sect, often categorised as a new Japanese religion originated from Shinto; it was founded in 1892 by Deguchi Nao...
sect and some independent organizations.
Hepburn
generally follows English phonology with RomanceRomance languages
The Romance languages are a branch of the Indo-European language family, more precisely of the Italic languages subfamily, comprising all the languages that descend from Vulgar Latin, the language of ancient Rome...
vowels. It is an intuitive method of showing Anglophones
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
the pronunciation of a word in Japanese. It was standardized in the USA as American National Standard System for the Romanization of Japanese (Modified Hepburn), but this status was abolished on October 6, 1994. Hepburn is the most common romanization system in use today, especially in the English-speaking world.
The Revised Hepburn system of romanization uses a macron
Macron
A macron, from the Greek , meaning "long", is a diacritic placed above a vowel . It was originally used to mark a long or heavy syllable in Greco-Roman metrics, but now marks a long vowel...
to indicate some long vowels, and an apostrophe
Apostrophe
The apostrophe is a punctuation mark, and sometimes a diacritic mark, in languages that use the Latin alphabet or certain other alphabets...
to note the separation of easily confused phoneme
Phoneme
In a language or dialect, a phoneme is the smallest segmental unit of sound employed to form meaningful contrasts between utterances....
s (usually, syllabic n ん from a following naked vowel or semivowel). For example, the name じゅんいちろう, is written with the kana characters ju-n-i-chi-ro-u, and romanized as Jun'ichirō in Revised Hepburn. Without the apostrophe, it would not be possible to distinguish this correct reading from the incorrect ju-ni-chi-ro-u. This system is widely used in Japan and among foreign students and academics.
Nihon-shiki
, which predates the Hepburn system, was originally invented as a method for the Japanese to write their own language in Latin characters. It follows the Japanese syllabary very strictly, with no adjustments for changes in pronunciation. It is therefore the only major system of romanization that allows lossless mapping to and from kana. It has also been standardized as ISO 3602 Strict. Also known as Nippon-shiki, rendered in the Nihon-shiki style of romanization the name is either Nihon-siki or Nippon-siki.Kunrei-shiki
is a slightly modified version of Nihon-shiki which eliminates differences between the kana syllabary and modern pronunciation. For example, when the words kana かな and tsukai つかい are combined, the result is written in kana as かなづかい with a dakutenDakuten
, colloquially ten-ten , is a diacritic sign most often used in the Japanese kana syllabaries to indicate that the consonant of a syllable should be pronounced voiced. Handakuten , colloquially maru , is a diacritic used with the kana for syllables starting with h to indicate that they should...
(voicing sign) ゛on the つ (tsu) kana to indicate that the tsu つ is now voiced. The づ kana is pronounced in the same way as a different kana, す (su), with dakuten, ず. Kunrei-shiki and Hepburn ignore the difference in kana and represent the sound in the same way, as kanazukai, using the same letters "zu" as are used to romanize ず. Nihon-shiki retains the difference, and romanizes the word as kanadukai, differentiating the づ kana from the ず kana, which is romanized as zu, even though they are pronounced identically. Similarly for the pair じ and ぢ, which are both zi in Kunrei-shiki and both ji in Hepburn romanization, but are zi and di respectively in Nihon-shiki. See the table below for full details.
Kunrei-shiki has been standardized by the Japanese Government and the International Organisation for Standardisation as ISO 3602. Kunrei-shiki is taught to Japanese elementary school
Education in Japan
In Japan, education is compulsory at the elementary and lower secondary levels. Approximately 98% of all students progress to the upper secondary level, which is voluntary . Most students attend public schools through the lower secondary level, but private education is popular at the upper...
students in their fourth year of education.
Written in Kunrei-shiki, the name of the system would be rendered Kunreisiki.
Other variants
It is possible to elaborate these romanizations to enable non-native speakers to pronounce Japanese words more correctly. Typical additions include toneTone (linguistics)
Tone is the use of pitch in language to distinguish lexical or grammatical meaning—that is, to distinguish or inflect words. All verbal languages use pitch to express emotional and other paralinguistic information, and to convey emphasis, contrast, and other such features in what is called...
marks to note the Japanese pitch accent
Japanese pitch accent
Japanese pitch accent is a feature of the Japanese language which distinguishes words in most Japanese dialects, though the nature and location of the accent for a given word may vary between dialects...
and diacritic marks to distinguish phonological changes, such as the assimilation of the moraic nasal /n/ (see Japanese phonology
Japanese phonology
This article deals with the phonology of the Japanese language.-Consonants:The Japanese vowels are pronounced as monophthongs, unlike in English; except for , they are similar to their Spanish or Italian counterparts....
).
JSL
JSL is a romanization system based on Japanese phonology, designed using the linguistic principles used by linguists in designing writing systems for languages that do not have any. It is a purely phonemicPhoneme
In a language or dialect, a phoneme is the smallest segmental unit of sound employed to form meaningful contrasts between utterances....
system, using exactly one symbol for each phoneme, and marking pitch accent using diacritic
Diacritic
A diacritic is a glyph added to a letter, or basic glyph. The term derives from the Greek διακριτικός . Diacritic is both an adjective and a noun, whereas diacritical is only an adjective. Some diacritical marks, such as the acute and grave are often called accents...
s. It was created for Eleanor Harz Jorden
Eleanor Jorden
Eleanor Harz Jorden was an American linguistics scholar and an influential Japanese language educator and expert. Born Eleanor Harz, she married William Jorden, reporter and diplomat; the marriage ended in divorce....
's system of Japanese language teaching. Its principle is that such a system enables students to better internalize the phonology of Japanese. Since it does not have any of the advantages for non-native speakers that the other rōmaji systems have, and the Japanese already have a writing system for their language, JSL is not widely used outside the educational environment.
Non-standard romanization
In addition to the standardized systems above, there are many variations in romanization, used either for simplification, in error or confusion between different systems, or for deliberate stylistic reasons.Notably, the various mappings that Japanese input methods
Japanese input methods
Japanese input methods are the methods used to input Japanese characters on a computer.There are two main methods of inputting Japanese on computers. One is via a romanized version of Japanese called rōmaji , and the other is via keyboard keys corresponding to the Japanese kana...
use to convert keystrokes on a Roman keyboard to kana often combine features of all of the systems; when used as plain text rather than being converted, these are usually known as wāpuro rōmaji
Wapuro romaji
, or kana spelling, is a style of romanization of Japanese originally devised for entering Japanese into word processors while using a Western QWERTY keyboard....
. (Wāpuro is a blend
Blend
In linguistics, a blend is a word formed from parts of two or more other words. These parts are sometimes, but not always, morphemes.-Linguistics:...
of wādo purosessā word processor
Word processor
A word processor is a computer application used for the production of any sort of printable material....
.) Unlike the standard systems, wāpuro rōmaji requires no characters from outside the ASCII
ASCII
The American Standard Code for Information Interchange is a character-encoding scheme based on the ordering of the English alphabet. ASCII codes represent text in computers, communications equipment, and other devices that use text...
character set.
While there may be arguments in favour of some of these variant romanizations in specific contexts, their use, especially if mixed, leads to confusion when romanized Japanese words are indexed. Note that this confusion never occurs when inputting Japanese characters with a word processor, because inputted roman alphabets are transcribed into Japanese kana characters as soon as IME
Input method editor
An input method is an operating system component or program that allows any data, such as keyboard strokes or mouse movements, to be received as input. In this way users can enter characters and symbols not found on their input devices...
decides what character is input.
Long vowels
The most common variant romanization is to omit the macrons or circumflexes used to indicate a long vowel. This is extremely common in the romanized version of Japanese words used in English. For example the capital city of Japan, correctly written Tōkyō in romanized Japanese, is universally written as Tokyo.In addition, the following three methods of representing long vowels are authorized by the Japanese Foreign Ministry for use in passports.
- Oh for おお or おう (Hepburn ō).
- Oo for おお or おう. This is valid JSL and modified Hepburn.
- Ou for おう. This is also an example of wāpuro rōmaji.
Anglicization
Japanese words borrowed into English may have their spelling Anglicized to accord with English spelling conventions. This is done in various ad hoc ways – one example is adding a terminal -h as in bokehBokeh
In photography, bokeh is the blur, or the aesthetic quality of the blur, in out-of-focus areas of an image, or "the way the lens renders out-of-focus points of light."...
(from boke) or butoh
Butoh
is the collective name for a diverse range of activities, techniques and motivations for dance, performance, or movement inspired by the movement. It typically involves playful and grotesque imagery, taboo topics, extreme or absurd environments, and is traditionally performed in white body makeup...
(from butō), so that the vowels are pronounced as monophthong
Monophthong
A monophthong is a pure vowel sound, one whose articulation at both beginning and end is relatively fixed, and which does not glide up or down towards a new position of articulation....
s. Other Japanese words borrowed into English, such as karate
Karate
is a martial art developed in the Ryukyu Islands in what is now Okinawa, Japan. It was developed from indigenous fighting methods called and Chinese kenpō. Karate is a striking art using punching, kicking, knee and elbow strikes, and open-handed techniques such as knife-hands. Grappling, locks,...
, do not have such spelling modifications.
Archaic variants
In older texts, other variant romanizations which are now no longer used are sometimes seen. Some of them have survived to the present day, although few of them are still actively used. Examples include:- The vowel
Yoon
is a feature of the Japanese language in which a mora is formed with an added sound.Yōon are represented in hiragana using a kana ending in i, such as き , plus a smaller-than-usual version of one of the three y kana, ya, yu or yo. For example kyō, "today", is written きょう, using a small version of...
sound: hence Tokyo becomes "Tokio" and Kyoto
Kyoto
is a city in the central part of the island of Honshū, Japan. It has a population close to 1.5 million. Formerly the imperial capital of Japan, it is now the capital of Kyoto Prefecture, as well as a major part of the Osaka-Kobe-Kyoto metropolitan area.-History:...
becomes "Kioto". This romanization can still be seen in the species name "mioga" of the Japanese vegetable myōga
Myoga
Myōga or myoga ginger is an herbaceous, deciduous, perennial native to Japan and southern part of Korea that is grown for its edible flower buds and flavorful shoots. Flower buds are finely shredded and used in Japanese cuisine as a garnish for miso soup, sunomono and dishes such as roasted...
.
Edo
, also romanized as Yedo or Yeddo, is the former name of the Japanese capital Tokyo, and was the seat of power for the Tokugawa shogunate which ruled Japan from 1603 to 1868...
" was first romanized as Yedo, "Iyeyasu" instead of "Ieyasu", "Inouye" instead of "Inoue", and "yen" instead of "en". This usage reflects the older pronunciation of e as ye. This pronunciation was lost sometime in the late 19th to early 20th centuries.
Wapuro romaji
, or kana spelling, is a style of romanization of Japanese originally devised for entering Japanese into word processors while using a Western QWERTY keyboard....
, and has a phonetic value distinct from zu in many dialects of Japanese
Japanese dialects
The comprise many regional variants. The lingua franca of Japan is called hyōjungo or kyōtsūgo , and while it was based initially on the Tokyo dialect, the language of Japan's capital has since gone in its own direction to become one of Japan's many dialects...
.
Romanization of Japanese names
Names can be subject to even more variation, with spellings depending on the individual's preference. For example, the mangaManga
Manga is the Japanese word for "comics" and consists of comics and print cartoons . In the West, the term "manga" has been appropriated to refer specifically to comics created in Japan, or by Japanese authors, in the Japanese language and conforming to the style developed in Japan in the late 19th...
artist Yasuhiro Nightow
Yasuhiro Nightow
is a Japanese manga artist and game creator who created the anime and manga Trigun. Nightow was born on April 8, 1967 in Yokohama, Japan. He moved to Yokosuka when he was in elementary school, and spent the junior high and high school years in Shizuoka....
's family name would be more conventionally written in Hepburn romanization as Naitō.
Other variations seen in names include the substitution of k with c, as in the name of television celebrity Ricaco or the snack food Jagarico.
Example words written in each romanization system
| English | Japanese | Kana spelling | Romanization | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Revised Hepburn | Kunrei-shiki | Nihon-shiki | |||
| Roman characters | ローマ字 | ローマじ | rōmaji | rômazi | rômazi |
| Mount Fuji Mount Fuji is the highest mountain in Japan at . An active stratovolcano that last erupted in 1707–08, Mount Fuji lies about south-west of Tokyo, and can be seen from there on a clear day. Mount Fuji's exceptionally symmetrical cone is a well-known symbol of Japan and it is frequently depicted in art and... |
富士山 | ふじさん | Fujisan | Huzisan | Huzisan |
| tea Tea Tea is an aromatic beverage prepared by adding cured leaves of the Camellia sinensis plant to hot water. The term also refers to the plant itself. After water, tea is the most widely consumed beverage in the world... |
お茶 | おちゃ | ocha | otya | otya |
| governor Governor A governor is a governing official, usually the executive of a non-sovereign level of government, ranking under the head of state... |
知事 | ちじ | chiji | tizi | tizi |
| to shrink | 縮む | ちぢむ | chijimu | tizimu | tidimu |
| to continue | 続く | つづく | tsuzuku | tuzuku | tuduku |
Differences among romanizations
This chart shows in full the three main systems for the romanization of Japanese: HepburnHepburn romanization
The is named after James Curtis Hepburn, who used it to transcribe the sounds of the Japanese language into the Latin alphabet in the third edition of his Japanese–English dictionary, published in 1887. The system was originally proposed by the in 1885...
, Nihon-shiki
Nihon-shiki
Nihon-shiki or Nippon-shiki Rōmaji is a romanization system for transliterating the Japanese language into the Latin alphabet. In discussion about romaji, it is abbreviated as Nihon-shiki or Nippon-shiki. Among the major romanization systems for Japanese, Nippon-shiki is the most regular, and has...
and Kunrei-shiki
Kunrei-shiki
is a Japanese romanization system, i.e. a system for transcribing the Japanese language into the Latin alphabet. It is abbreviated as Kunrei-shiki. Its name is rendered Kunreisiki using Kunrei-shiki itself....
:
This chart shows the significant differences among them.
| Kana | Revised Hepburn Hepburn romanization The is named after James Curtis Hepburn, who used it to transcribe the sounds of the Japanese language into the Latin alphabet in the third edition of his Japanese–English dictionary, published in 1887. The system was originally proposed by the in 1885... | Nihon-shiki Nihon-shiki Nihon-shiki or Nippon-shiki Rōmaji is a romanization system for transliterating the Japanese language into the Latin alphabet. In discussion about romaji, it is abbreviated as Nihon-shiki or Nippon-shiki. Among the major romanization systems for Japanese, Nippon-shiki is the most regular, and has... | Kunrei-shiki Kunrei-shiki is a Japanese romanization system, i.e. a system for transcribing the Japanese language into the Latin alphabet. It is abbreviated as Kunrei-shiki. Its name is rendered Kunreisiki using Kunrei-shiki itself.... |
|---|---|---|---|
| うう | ū | û | |
| おう, おお | ō | ô | |
| し | shi | si | |
| しゃ | sha | sya | |
| しゅ | shu | syu | |
| しょ | sho | syo | |
| じ | ji | zi | |
| じゃ | ja | zya | |
| じゅ | ju | zyu | |
| じょ | jo | zyo | |
| ち | chi | ti | |
| つ | tsu | tu | |
| ちゃ | cha | tya | |
| ちゅ | chu | tyu | |
| ちょ | cho | tyo | |
| ぢ | ji | di | zi |
| づ | zu | du | zu |
| ぢゃ | ja | dya | zya |
| ぢゅ | ju | dyu | zyu |
| ぢょ | jo | dyo | zyo |
| ふ | fu | hu | |
| ゐ | i | wi | i |
| ゑ | e | we | e |
| を | o | wo | o |
| ん | n-n(-m) | n-n' | |
Kana without standardised forms of romanization
There is no universally accepted style of romanization for the smaller versions of the y kana (ゃ/ャ, ゅ/ュ and ょ/ョ) when used outside the normal combinations (きゃ, きょ etc.), nor for the sokuonSokuon
The is a Japanese symbol consisting of a small hiragana or katakana tsu. In less formal language it is called or , meaning "little tsu". Compare to a full-sized tsu:The sokuon is used for various purposes...
or small tsu kana っ/ッ when it is not directly followed by a consonant. Although these are usually regarded as merely phonetic marks or diacritics, they do sometimes appear on their own, such as at the end of sentences, in exclamations, or in some names. The detached sokuon is sometimes represented as an apostrophe or as t; for example, あっ might be written as a
Full-sized kana combined with smaller versions of the vowel kana ぁ/ァ, ぃ/ィ, ぅ/ゥ, ぇ/ェ and ぉ/ォ, mostly used to write loanwords, can be romanized in the "obvious way", reflecting the sound that they are meant to represent. For example, ディ, consisting of katakana de and small i, would typically be romanized as di. Sometimes this may create potential conflicts; for example if トゥ (katakana to and small u, used to represent sounds as in the English word "too") is romanised as tu, it may be confused with the Nihon-shiki and Kunrei-shiki romanizations of the kana ツ, also written tu. However, ツ is romanized as tsu in the Hepburn scheme, and since Hepburn is dominant among three systems, this kind of confusion is less likely to occur.
On a computer or word processor, smaller kana may be produced in various ways. For example, an "x" or an "l" preceding the romanization of the full-sized kana produces a small version on some systems, thus xtu gives "っ" on Microsoft Windows
Microsoft Windows
Microsoft Windows is a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft.Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20, 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces . Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal...
. However this is not standardized, and these forms are restricted to use in input systems; they are never used to represent the smaller kana in romanized Japanese.
Historical romanizations
- 1603: Vocabvlario da Lingoa de IapamNippo JishoThe Nippo Jisho or Vocabvlario da Lingoa de Iapam was a Japanese to Portuguese dictionary published in Nagasaki, Japan in 1603. It contains entries for 32,293 Japanese words in Portuguese. Only four copies of the original 1603 edition exist...
(1603) - 1604: Arte da Lingoa de IapamArte da Lingoa de Iapamis an early 17th century Portuguese grammar of the Japanese language. It was compiled by João Rodrigues, a Portuguese missionary of the Society of Jesus. It is the oldest complete Japanese grammar, and is a valuable reference for late Late Middle Japanese.-Background:Christian missionary work in...
(1604–1608) - 1620: Arte Breve da Lingoa Iapoa (1620)
| あ | い | う | え | お | |||||
| 1603 | a | i, j, y | v, u | ye | vo, uo | ||||
| 1604 | i | v | vo | ||||||
| 1620 | y | ||||||||
| か | き | く | け | こ | きゃ | きょ | くゎ | ||
| 1603 | ca | qi, qui | cu, qu | qe,que | co | qia | qio, qeo | qua | |
| 1604 | qui | que | quia | quio | |||||
| 1620 | ca, ka | ki | cu, ku | ke | kia | kio | |||
| が | ぎ | ぐ | げ | ご | ぎゃ | ぎゅ | ぎょ | ぐゎ | |
| 1603 | ga | gui | gu, gv | gue | go | guia | guiu | guio | gua |
| 1604 | gu | ||||||||
| 1620 | ga, gha | ghi | gu, ghu | ghe | go, gho | ghia | ghiu | ghio | |
| さ | し | す | せ | そ | しゃ | しゅ | しょ | ||
| 1603 | sa | xi | su | xe | so | xa | xu | xo | |
| 1604 | |||||||||
| 1620 | |||||||||
| ざ | じ | ず | ぜ | ぞ | じゃ | じゅ | じょ | ||
| 1603 | za | ii, ji | zu | ie, ye | zo | ia, ja | iu, ju | io, jo | |
| 1604 | ji | ia | ju | jo | |||||
| 1620 | ie | iu | io | ||||||
| た | ち | つ | て | と | ちゃ | ちゅ | ちょ | ||
| 1603 | ta | chi | tçu | te | to | cha | chu | cho | |
| 1604 | |||||||||
| 1620 | |||||||||
| だ | ぢ | づ | で | ど | ぢゃ | ぢゅ | ぢょ | ||
| 1603 | da | gi | zzu | de | do | gia | giu | gio | |
| 1604 | dzu | ||||||||
| 1620 | |||||||||
| な | に | ぬ | ね | の | にゃ | にゅ | にょ | ||
| 1603 | na | ni | nu | ne | no | nha | nhu, niu | nho, neo | |
| 1604 | nha | nhu | nho | ||||||
| 1620 | |||||||||
| は | ひ | ふ | へ | ほ | ひゃ | ひゅ | ひょ | ||
| 1603 | fa | fi | fu | fe | fo | fia | fiu | fio, feo | |
| 1604 | fio | ||||||||
| 1620 | |||||||||
| ば | び | ぶ | べ | ぼ | びゃ | びゅ | びょ | ||
| 1603 | ba | bi | bu | be | bo | bia | biu | bio, beo | |
| 1604 | |||||||||
| 1620 | bia | biu | |||||||
| ぱ | ぴ | ぷ | ぺ | ぽ | ぴゃ | ぴゅ | ぴょ | ||
| 1603 | pa | pi | pu | pe | po | pia | pio | ||
| 1604 | |||||||||
| 1620 | pia | ||||||||
| ま | み | む | め | も | みゃ | みょ | |||
| 1603 | ma | mi | mu | me | mo | mia, mea | mio, meo | ||
| 1604 | |||||||||
| 1620 | mio | ||||||||
| や | ゆ | よ | |||||||
| 1603 | ya | yu | yo | ||||||
| 1604 | |||||||||
| 1620 | |||||||||
| ら | り | る | れ | ろ | りゃ | りゅ | りょ | ||
| 1603 | ra | ri | ru | re | ro | ria, rea | riu | rio, reo | |
| 1604 | rio | ||||||||
| 1620 | riu | ||||||||
| わ | ゐ | ゑ | を | ||||||
| 1603 | va, ua | vo, uo | |||||||
| 1604 | va | y | ye | vo | |||||
| 1620 | |||||||||
| ん | |||||||||
| 1603 | n, m, ~ (tilde) | ||||||||
| 1604 | n | ||||||||
| 1620 | n, m | ||||||||
| っ | |||||||||
| 1603 | -t, -cc-, -cch-, -cq-, -dd-, -pp-, -ss-, -tt, -xx-, -zz- | ||||||||
| 1604 | -t, -cc-, -cch-, -pp-, -cq-, -ss-, -tt-, xx- | ||||||||
| 1620 | -t, -cc-, -cch-, -pp-, -ck-, -cq-, -ss-, -tt-, -xx- | ||||||||
Alphabet letter names in Japanese
The list below shows how to spell Latin character words or acronyms in Japanese. For example, NHKNHK
NHK is Japan's national public broadcasting organization. NHK, which has always identified itself to its audiences by the English pronunciation of its initials, is a publicly owned corporation funded by viewers' payments of a television license fee....
is spelled enu-eichi-kei, (エヌエイチケイ). The following pronunciations are based on English letter names; otherwise, for example, A would likely be called ā (アー) in Japanese.
- A; Ē or ei (エー or エイ)
- B; Bī (ビー, alternative pronunciation bē, ベー)
- C; Shī (シー, sometimes pronounced sī, スィー)
- D; Dī (ディー, alternative pronunciation dē, デー)
- E; Ī (イー)
- F; Efu (エフ)
- G; Jī (ジー)
- H; Eichi or Etchi (エイチ or エッチ)
- I; Ai (アイ)
- J; Jē or Jei (ジェー or ジェイ)
- K; Kē or Kei (ケー or ケイ)
- L; Eru (エル)
- M; Emu (エム, alternative pronunciation en(em), エン)
- N; Enu (エヌ, sometimes pronounced en, エン)
- O; Ō (オー)
- P; Pī (ピー, alternative pronunciation pē, ペー)
- Q; Kyū (キュー)
- R; Āru (アール)
- S; Esu (エス)
- T; Tī (ティー, though sometimes pronounced chī, チー, and alternatively pronounced tē, テー)
- U; Yū (ユー)
- V; Vi (ヴィ, though often pronounced bui, ブイ)
- W; Daburyū (ダブリュー)
- X; Ekkusu (エックス)
- Y; Wai (ワイ)
- Z; Zetto, zeddo, or zī (ゼット, ゼッド, or ズィー, though sometimes pronounced jī, ジー)
See also
- Cyrillization of JapaneseCyrillization of JapaneseCyrillization of Japanese is the practice of expressing Japanese sounds using Cyrillic characters. It is commonly accepted in Russia.Below is a cyrillization system for the Japanese language known as the Yevgeny Polivanov system...
- List of ISO romanizations
- Japanese writing systemJapanese writing systemThe modern Japanese writing system uses three main scripts:*Kanji, adopted Chinese characters*Kana, a pair of syllabaries , consisting of:...
External links
- Rōmaji sōdan shitsu contains an extremely extensive and accurate collection of materials relating to rōmaji, including standards documents and HTML versions of Hepburn's original dictionaries.
- The rōmaji conundrum by Andrew Horvat contains a discussion of the problems caused by the variety of confusing romanization systems in use in Japan today.
- Say no to romaji!, a resource promoting the use of kana in the Japanese learning industry, contains a discussion between students and teachers of Japanese on the subject of rōmaji.