Romaji Details, Meaning Romaji Article and Explanation Guide

Romaji Guide, Meaning , Facts, Information and Description

Rōmaji (ローマ字 "Roman characters"), sometimes misspelled as Rōmanji, is a Japanese term for the Latin alphabet. Rōmaji are often used in Japanese text for abbreviations, metric measurements, and to clarify the spelling of foreign names.

In English usage, rōmaji usually refers to the romanization of Japanese words that would usually be written in kanji or kana. 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 (long-vowel omitted) is the most widely used. Modified Hepburn, which uses a macron to indicate some long vowels and an apostrophe to note the separation of easily confused syllables (for example, the name じゅんいちろう is written with the syllables jun-ichi-ro and u, and is romanized as Jun'ichirō in Modified Hepburn) is widely used in Japan and among foreign students and academics.

Table of contents

1 Development of romaji
2 Modern systems
3 Non-standard romanization
4 Example words written in each romanization system
5 Chart of romanizations
6 See also
7 External links

Development of romaji

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. 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 /h/ consonant as "f," so Nihon no kotoba ("The language of Japan") was spelled "Nifon no cotoba."

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 homonyms 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 and so gives the best indication to many Westerners of how a word is pronounced in Japanese. It was standardized 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.
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 one of the few systems 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, if 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) ゛ atop to indicate that the tsu つ is now voiced. Kunrei-shiki (and Hepburn) ignore the underlying kana and represent the sounds as they are pronounced (kanazukai), but Nihon-shiki retains the difference and romanizes the word as kanadukai. Kunrei-shiki has been standardized by the Japanese Government and ISO (ISO 3602). Kunrei-shiki used to be taught to all Japanese elementary school students.

Non-standard romanization

In addition to the standardized systems above, one can see many other romanizations. These are used by many people, either because they do not fully understand the particular system they are attempting to use, or for deliberate stylistic reasons. Macrons and other diacritical symbols are often omitted or substituted for, because of carelessness, difficulty in remembering or inputting them, or simply unavailability in one's character set (although this last reason is becoming less frequent with the widespread introduction of Unicode).

Also commonly seen are wāpuro rōmaji;, referring to the various methods that IMEss use for converting keystrokes on a roman keyboard to kana. (Wāpuro derives from wādo purosessā [word processor].) Unlike the standard systems, wāpuro rōmaji requires no characters from outside the ASCII character set.

Romanizations that one is likely to come across "in the wild" include:

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. This romanization style is popular with fans of anime (otaku).
ô for おお or おう (Hepburn ō). This is valid Kunrei-shiki, but occasionally occurs in otherwise Hepburn-romanized words due to confusion or substitution (since ô exists in ISO-8859-1 but ō does not).
jya for じゃ (Hepburn ja) and so on. This seems to be the result of confusion between the Hepburn and the other romanization systems.
dzu for づ (Hepburn zu). Another combination between multiple systems, in this case Hepburn and Nihon-shiki.
cchi for っち (Hepburn tchi) and so on. This is often used for stylistic reasons when rendering nicknames (e.g., あきこ Akiko becoming あっちゃん Acchan rather than Atchan).
la for ら (Hepburn ra) and so on. Since the Japanese consonant /r/ has a sound (IPA ɽ) that is somewhat between an English "r" and an "l" (and to some listeners sounds somewhat like an American "d"), this is unsurprising.
a for ああ (Hepburn ā) and so on -- in other words, merely failing to mark long vowels at all.
na for んあ (Hepburn n'a) and so on.
nn for ん (Hepburn n). This is also an example of wāpuro rōmaji, although many IMEss also accept the Hepburn n'. Since this leads to ambiguity with the more widespread Hepburn system (in, e.g., the cluster nna, which unambiguously represents んな in Hepburn but would be んあ in this system), this form occurs only rarely.

While there may be arguments in favour of these romanizations in specific contexts, their use (especially if mixed) generally leads to even greater confusion, especially when Japanese words are romanized for indexing in a database.

Personal 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 as Naitō.

In addition, Japanese words and names that have established English spellings, such as kudzu and jiu jitsu, are sometimes written as they are in English, without regard for the rules of romanization.

Example words written in each romanization system

English	Japanese	Kana spelling	Romanization
English	Japanese	Kana spelling	Modified 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
shrink	縮む	ちぢむ	chijimu	tizimu	tidimu

Chart of romanizations

Kana	Modified 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

External links

Free dictionaries project: English - Japanese Ramaji

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