Romaji

     From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

In Japanese, rōmaji (Japanese: ローマ字 "Roman characters") broadly refers to the Roman alphabet.

In English, the word is usually used to refer specifically to the writing of the Japanese language in Roman characters as opposed to the usual mix of kanji and 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 four main ones are Hepburn, Kunrei-shiki (Cabinet order or ISO 3602), Nihon-shiki (ISO 3602 Strict) and JSL. Hepburn is the most widely accepted method outside Japan, and is used on Japanese road signs and passports. The Japanese government, however, officially sanctions Kunrei for use in education.

See also: Cyrillization of Japanese Wikipedia:Manual of Style for Japan-related articles

Table of contents

1 Advantages of each romanization system 2 Non standard Romanization 3 Example words written in each romanization system 4 Differences between romanization systems

Advantages of each romanization system

• Hepburn follows English phonology and so gives the best indication to English speakers of how a word is pronounced in Japanese. It is used by Wikipedia.
• Nihon-shiki follows Japanese kana spelling and so is easiest for Japanese speakers to compose and interpret. It has also been known as ISO 3602 Strict form.
• Kunrei-shiki is a modified Nihon-shiki with a touch of Hepburn; it is the official romanization system of the Japanese government and is taught in Japanese schools. It has been standardized as ISO 3602.
• JSL has a system of indicating pitch.

Non standard Romanization

In addition to the standardized systems above, one can see many other romanizations. These are used by many, either because they don't fully understand the system, or deliberately for stylistic reasons.

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

• oh for おお (Hepburn ō)
• ou for おう (also Hepburn ō). This is known as wāpuro (word processor) spelling because it's the way you type おう into a computer with a Roman keyboard.
• 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.
• la for ら (Hepburn ra) and so on. The difficulty many Japanese have in distigushing l and r is well known.

While there may be arguments in favour of these romanizations, their use 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.

Example words written in each romanization system

English	Japanese	Kana spelling	Hepburn	Kunrei-shiki	Nihon-shiki	JSL
Roman characters	ローマ字	ローマじ	rōmaji	romazi	rōmazi	roomazi
Mount Fuji	富士山	ふじさん	Fujisan	Huzisan	Huzisan	Huzisan
Tokyo	東京	とうきょう	Tōkyō	Tokyo	Tōkyō	Tookyoo
tea	お茶	おちゃ	ocha	otya	otya	otya
governor	知事	ちじ	chiji	tizi	tizi	tizi
shrink	縮む	ちぢむ	chijimu	tizimu	tidimu	tidimu

(TODO: The JSL column needs pitch indicators.)

Differences between romanization systems

Kana	Hepburn	Kunrei-shiki	Nihon-shiki	JSL
うう	ū	u	ū	uu
おう, おお	ō	o	ō	oo
し	shi	si	si	si
しゃ	sha	sya	sya	sya
しゅ	shu	syu	syu	syu
しょ	sho	syo	syo	syo
じ	ji	zi	zi	zi
じゃ	ja	zya	zya	zya
じゅ	ju	zyu	zyu	zyu
じょ	jo	zyo	zyo	zyo
ち	chi	ti	ti	ti
つ	tsu	tu	tu	tu
ちゃ	cha	tya	tya	tya
ちゅ	chu	tyu	tyu	tyu
ちょ	cho	tyo	tyo	tyo
ぢ	ji	zi	di	di
づ	zu	zu	du	du
ぢゃ	ja	zya	dya	dya
ぢゅ	ju	zyu	dyu	dyu
ぢょ	jo	zyo	dyo	dyo
ふ	fu	hu	hu	hu