Rōmaji
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Rōmaji (ローマ字 "Roman characters", sometimes misunderstood as romanji in English), is a Japanese term for the Latin alphabet. Rōmaji are often used in Japanese text for abbreviations, metric measurements, and to write English and other foreign words, which have become quite common in Japan. Foreign language words and phrases are found in advertising, on consumer goods, and even in written material that is otherwise written in Japanese. Japanese popular music lyrics contain many English and other non-Japanese words and phrases as well.
However, foreign words that are adopted into the Japanese language (gairaigo) as new vocabulary are typically written in katakana rather than rōmaji.
In English usage, rōmaji usually refers to the romanization of Japanese words, which are written in kanji and kana in Japan. Japanese may be written in rōmaji for many reasons: street signs for visiting foreigners; transcription of personal, company, or place names to be used in another language context; dictionaries and textbooks for learners of the language; or even simply for typographic emphasis.
There are a number of different romanization systems in use; the three main ones are Hepburn, Kunrei-shiki (ISO 3602), and Nihon-shiki (ISO 3602 Strict). Hepburn (with long vowels omitted) is the most widely used. The "Revised Hepburn" system, which uses a macron to indicate some long vowels and an apostrophe to note the separation of easily confused phonemes (for example, the name じゅんいちろう is written with the characters ju-n-i-chi-ro-u, and romanized as Jun'ichirō in Revised Hepburn) is widely used in Japan and among foreign students and academics.
All Japanese who have attended elementary school since the war have been taught to read and write rōmaji. It is also the most common way to input Japanese words into word processors and computers. Therefore, other than a small segment of the older population, most Japanese are able to read and write using rōmaji, although apart from textbooks for learners of Japanese it is rare to find complete sentences written in rōmaji.
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Development of rōmaji
The earliest Japanese romanization system was based on the Portuguese language and its alphabet. 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. 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 vowels. Some consonants were transliterated differently: for instance, the /k/ consonant was rendered as "c", 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 rōmaji, 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 fabvlas). (The latter continued to be printed and read after the suppression of Christianity.) (Chibbett, 1977)
Following the expulsion of Christians from Japan in the early 1600s, rōmaji fell out of use, and were only used sporadically in foreign texts until the mid-1800s, when Japan opened up again. The systems used today all developed in the latter half of the 19th century.
In the Meiji era, some Japanese scholars advocated abolishing the Japanese writing system entirely and using rōmaji in its stead. Several Japanese texts were published entirely in rōmaji during this period, but failed to catch on because of the large number of homophones in Japanese, which are pronounced similarly but written in different characters. Later, in the early 20th century, some scholars devised syllabary systems with characters derived from Latin; these were even less popular, because they were not based on any historical use of the Latin alphabet.
Modern systems
Hepburn generally follows English phonology (with Romance vowels), and is an intuitive method of showing Anglophones the pronounciation of a word in Japanese. It was standardized in 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. Japanese school children now learn Hepburn when they first begin to learn the English alphabet in junior high school. The Hepburn system has been criticized because its distortion of the Japanese phonology can make it harder to teach Japanese to non-natives.
Nihon-shiki is the oldest and least used of the three main systems. It follows Japanese phonology and the syllabary order very strictly and is hence the only major system of romanization that allows lossless mapping to and from kana. It has also been known as ISO 3602 Strict form.
Kunrei-shiki is a slightly modified version of Nihon-shiki which eliminates several relics of the differences between the kana syllabary and modern pronunciation. For example, in a phenomenon called rendaku, when the words kana かな and tsukai つかい are combined, in kana the result is written かなづかい with a dakuten (voicing sign) ゛on the つ (tsu) 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 kana difference and represent the sounds as they are pronounced (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 and 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 ISO (ISO 3602). Kunrei-shiki is taught to all Japanese elementary school students in their fourth year.
It is possible to elaborate these romanizations to enable non-native speakers to pronounce Japanese words more correctly. Typical additions include tone 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).
- JSL is a romanization system that is based on Japanese phonology, designed using the lingustic principles that are used by modern linguists in designing writing systems for languages that do not already have one. It is a purely phonemic system, using exactly one symbol for each phoneme, and marking pitch accent using diacritics. It is used in a system of Japanese language teaching that holds that when such a system is used, students are better able to internalize the phonology of Japanese. Since it does not have any of the advantages for non-native speakers of Japanese that the other romaji systems have, and the Japanese already have a writing system for their language, JSL does not enjoy much wide usage outside of 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. Further, the form of romanized Japanese used for computer input, so-called wāpuro rōmaji, combines features of all of the systems.
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 Japan, since romanized Japanese is seen mostly as a convenience for foreigners to be able to read signs easily, macrons and circumflexes are usually omitted for simplification.
Many typewriters, word processors, and computerized systems cannot easily deal with the macron used in Hepburn romanization. Nihon-shiki and Kunrei-shiki use a circumflex accent (thus, Tôkyô). This may allow for easier input, since all of â, î, û, ê, and ô are in the ISO-8859-1 character set, and may be easily input on a variety of systems.
The following variant romanizations are common:
- The Japanese particles written as を (wo), へ (he), and は (ha), but pronounced o, e and wa, respectively, are often romanized using the forms based on their pronunciation. This is the convention of Wikipedia, for example, and is common in Japanese language learning materials for foreigners.
- Japanese words and names that have established English spellings, such as kudzu and jiu jitsu, or loanwords such as kyatto for "cat", are sometimes written as they are in English, without regard for the rules of romanization.
- Oh for おお or おう (Hepburn ō). This is sometimes known as "passport Hepburn", as the Japanese Foreign Ministry has authorized (but not required) this usage in passports [1]
- Ou for おう (also Hepburn ō). This is an example of wāpuro rōmaji, the various methods that Japanese input methods use to convert keystrokes on a roman keyboard to kana. (Wāpuro is a contraction of wādo purosessā [word processor].) Unlike the standard systems, wāpuro rōmaji requires no characters from outside the ASCII character set.
- Ô for おお or おう (Hepburn ō). This is valid Nihon-shiki and Kunrei-shiki, but occasionally occurs in otherwise Hepburn-romanized words.
- Jya for じゃ, which is ja in Hepburn and zya in Nihon-shiki and Kunrei-shiki, and similarly jyu for じゅ and jyo for じょ. The extraneous y seems to be the result of confusion between the romanization systems.
- Dzu for づ, which is zu in Hepburn and du in Nihon-shiki. This is another combination between multiple systems, or possibly a representation of one of the sounds of this syllable. Examples include adzuki and kudzu.
- Cchi for っち (Hepburn tchi) and so on. This is wāpuro rōmaji, but is often used for stylistic reasons when rendering nicknames (for example, あきこ Akiko becoming あっちゃん Acchan rather than Atchan).
- La for ら (Hepburn ra) and so on. The Japanese consonant /r/ has a sound (IPA [ɽ]) that is near, but not identical, to both of English "r" and "l". "R" and "l" are both transcribed into Japanese using the Japanese /r/. Examples of "l" in romanized Japanese include Japanese children's doll リカ, romanized as Licca.
- A for ああ (Hepburn ā) and so on — in other words, merely failing to mark long vowels at all. This form of romanized Japanese is used in public information such as road and railway signs in Japan.
- Na for んあ (Hepburn n'a) and so on. This form of romanized Japanese is used in public information such as road and railway signs in Japan.
- Nn for ん (Hepburn n). This is also an example of wāpuro rōmaji, although many Japanese input methods also accept the Hepburn n'. This leads to ambiguity with the more widespread Hepburn system. For example, the cluster nna, which is んな in Hepburn, is んあ in this system. The double n is sometimes seen in names, for example in the name of the well-known Usenet poster Junn Ohta.
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.
Romanization of Japanese names
Names can be subject to even more variation, with spellings depending on the individual's preference. For example, the manga 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, or the removal of unvoiced vowels, as in the name of film director Macoto Tezka (the son of manga artist Osamu Tezuka). Note the removal of the u vowel.
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 | rōmazi |
| Mount Fuji | 富士山 | ふじさん | Fujisan | Huzisan | Huzisan |
| tea | お茶 | おちゃ | ocha | otya | otya |
| governor | 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 |
Chart of romanizations
This chart shows the significant differences between the major romanization systems.
| Kana | Revised Hepburn | Kunrei-shiki | Nihon-shiki |
|---|---|---|---|
| うう | ū | û | ū |
| おう, おお | ō | ô | ō |
| し | shi | si | si |
| しゃ | sha | sya | sya |
| しゅ | shu | syu | syu |
| しょ | sho | syo | syo |
| じ | ji | zi | zi |
| じゃ | ja | zya | zya |
| じゅ | ju | zyu | zyu |
| じょ | jo | zyo | zyo |
| ち | chi | ti | ti |
| つ | tsu | tu | tu |
| ちゃ | cha | tya | tya |
| ちゅ | chu | tyu | tyu |
| ちょ | cho | tyo | tyo |
| ぢ | ji | zi | di |
| づ | zu | zu | du |
| ぢゃ | ja | zya | dya |
| ぢゅ | ju | zyu | dyu |
| ぢょ | jo | zyo | dyo |
| ふ | fu | hu | hu |
Alphabet letter names in Japanese
The list below shows how to spell latin character words or acronyms in Japanese. For example NHK is spelled enuetchikē.
- A エー ē (or エイ ei)
- B ビー bī
- C シー shī
- D ディー dī
- E イー ī
- F エフ efu
- G ジー jī
- H エッチ etchi/ecchi (or エイチ eichi)
- I アイ ai
- J ジェー jē (or ジェイ jei)
- K ケー kē (or ケイ kei)
- L エル eru
- M エム emu
- N エヌ enu
- O オー ō
- P ピー pī
- Q キュー kyū
- R アール āru
- S エス esu
- T ティー tī (or チー chī)
- U ユー yū
- V ヴイ vui; (or ブイ bui)
- W ダブリュー daburyū
- X エックス ekkusu
- Y ワイ wai
- Z ゼット zetto
Kana without romaji
There is no generally accepted form of romanization for some forms of kana, in particular full-sized kana combined with smaller versions of the vowel kana, 'ぁ', 'ぃ', 'ぅ', 'ぇ' and 'ぉ', the smaller versions of the y kana, 'ゃ', 'ゅ', and 'ょ', and the sokuon or small tsu kana 'っ'. Although this is usually regarded as merely a phonetic mark, it does in fact appear on its own, for example at the end of sentences. For example, there is no accepted way of romanizing the common combination 'トゥ' of katakana to and small u, used to represent sounds such as the English word 'too'. Some people write this pair as tu, but this is likely to be confused with the tu Nihon-shiki and Kunrei-shiki romanizations of the kana ツ, romanized as tsu in Hepburn romanization.
On a computer or word processor, these 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 a Microsoft IME. However this is not standardized, and these forms are restricted to use in input systems; they are not used to represent the smaller kana in romanized Japanese.
References
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See also
- Cyrillization of Japanese
- Wikipedia:Manual of Style for Japan-related articles explains the Wikipedia conventions for romanization of Japanese.
External links
- Rōmaji sōdan shitsu (in Japanese) contains an extremely extensive and accurate collection of materials relating to romaji, including standards documents and even HTML versions of Hepburn's original dictionaries.
- The romaji conundrum from Andrew Horvat's Total Quality Japanese contains a discussion of the problems caused by the variety of confusing romanization systems in use in Japan today.
- Convert Kanji to Romaji
- All free Japanese romaji dictionaries
- Romaji to Kana translator
