Hepburn romanization
Template:Short description Template:Use mdy dates Template:Use American English
Hepburn (Template:Langx, Template:Lit) is the main system of romanization for the Japanese language. The system was originally published in 1867 by American Christian missionary and physician James Curtis Hepburn as the standard in the first edition of his Japanese–English dictionary. The system is distinct from other romanization methods in its use of English orthography to phonetically transcribe sounds: for example, the syllable Template:IPA (Template:Lang) is written as Template:Transliteration and Template:IPA (Template:Lang) is written as Template:Transliteration, reflecting their spellings in English (compare to Template:Transliteration and Template:Transliteration in the more systematic Nihon-shiki and Kunrei-shiki systems).
In 1886, Hepburn published the third edition of his dictionary, codifying a revised version of the system that is known today as "traditional Hepburn". A version with additional revisions, known as "modified Hepburn", was published in 1908.
Although Kunrei-shiki is the style favored by the Japanese government, Hepburn remains the most popular method of Japanese romanization. It is learned by most foreign students of the language, and is used within Japan for romanizing personal names, locations, and other information, such as train tables and road signs. Because the system's orthography is based on English phonology instead of a systematic transcription of the Japanese syllabary, individuals who do not speak Japanese and know English phonology will generally be more accurate when pronouncing unfamiliar words romanized in the Hepburn style compared to other systems.<ref name=hadamitzky />
History
In 1867, American Presbyterian missionary doctor James Curtis Hepburn published the first Japanese–English dictionary, in which he introduced a new system for the romanization of Japanese into Latin script.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> He published a second edition in 1872 and a third edition in 1886, which introduced minor changes.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> The third edition's system had been adopted in the previous year by the Template:Nihongo3, a group of Japanese and foreign scholars who promoted a replacement of the Japanese script with a romanized system.<ref name="Seeley2000">Template:Cite book</ref>
Hepburn romanization, loosely based on the conventions of English orthography (spelling), stood in opposition to Nihon-shiki, which had been developed in Japan in 1881 as a script replacement.<ref name="Seeley2000" /> Compared to Hepburn, Nihon-shiki is more systematic in its representation of the Japanese syllabary (kana), as each symbol corresponds to a phoneme.<ref name="Unger1996-53">Template:Cite book</ref> However, the notation requires further explanation for accurate pronunciation by non-Japanese speakers: for example, the syllables Template:IPA and Template:IPA, which are written as Template:Transliteration and Template:Transliteration in Hepburn, are rendered as Template:Transliteration and Template:Transliteration in Nihon-shiki.<ref name="Seeley2000" /> After Nihon-shiki was presented to the Template:Transliteration in 1886, a dispute began between the supporters of the two systems, which resulted in a standstill and an eventual halt to the organization's activities in 1892.<ref name="Hannas1997">Template:Cite book</ref>
After the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–1905, the two factions resurfaced as the Template:Nihongo3, which supported Hepburn's style, and the Template:Nihongo3, which supported Nihon-shiki.<ref name="Hannas1997" /> In 1908, Hepburn was revised by educator Kanō Jigorō and others of the Template:Transliteration, which began calling it the Template:Nihongo3 or Template:Nihongo3.<ref name="Seeley2000" />
In 1930, a Special Romanization Study Commission, headed by the Minister of Education, was appointed by the government to devise a standardized form of romanization.<ref name="Unger1996-53" /> The Commission eventually decided on a slightly modified "compromise" version of Nihon-shiki, which was chosen for official use by cabinet ordinance on September 21, 1937; this system is known today as Kunrei-shiki.<ref name="Unger1996-53" /> On September 3, 1945, at the beginning of the occupation of Japan after World War II, Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers Douglas MacArthur issued a directive mandating the use of modified Hepburn by occupation forces.<ref name="Unger1996-78">Template:Cite book</ref> The directive had no legal force, however, and a revised version of Kunrei-shiki was reissued by cabinet ordinance on December 9, 1954, after the end of occupation.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
Although it lacks de jure status, Hepburn remains the de facto standard for multiple applications in Japan.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> As of 1977, many government organizations used Hepburn, including the Ministry of International Trade and Industry; the Ministry of Foreign Affairs requires the use of Hepburn on passports, and the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport requires its use on transport signs, including road signs and railway station signs.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> According to a survey by the Japanese Agency for Cultural Affairs in 2022, the Japanese primarily use Hepburn to spell place names.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Hepburn is also used by private organizations, including The Japan Times and the Japan Travel Bureau.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
American National Standard System for the Romanization of Japanese (ANSI Z39.11-1972), based on modified Hepburn, was approved in 1971 and published in 1972 by the American National Standards Institute.<ref name="Kudo2010" /> In 1989, it was proposed for International Organization for Standardization (ISO) standard 3602, but was rejected in favor of Kunrei-shiki.Template:Citation needed ANSI Z39.11-1972 was deprecated as a standard in 1994.<ref name="Kudo2010" />
In January 2024, the Cultural Affairs Agency proposed revising the 1954 Cabinet ordinance to make Hepburn the standard romanization system of Japan.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
Variants
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There are many variants of the Hepburn romanization. The two most common styles are as follows:
- Traditional Hepburn, as defined in various editions of Hepburn's dictionary, with the third edition (1886)<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> often considered authoritative<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> (although changes in kana usage must be accounted for). It is characterized by the rendering of syllabic Template:Transliteration as Template:Transliteration before the consonants b, m and p: for example, Template:Transliteration for Template:Nihongo2.
- Modified Hepburn, also known as Revised Hepburn, in which (among other changes) the rendering of syllabic Template:Transliteration as Template:Transliteration before bilabial consonants is no longer used: Template:Transliteration for Template:Nihongo2. The version of the system published in the third (1954) and later editions of Kenkyusha's New Japanese-English Dictionary are often considered authoritative; it was adopted in 1989 by the Library of Congress as one of its ALA-LC romanizations,<ref name="Kudo2010">Template:Cite journal</ref> and is the most common variant of Hepburn romanization used today.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
In Japan itself, there are some variants officially mandated for various uses:
- Template:Nihongo,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> which mostly follows Modified Hepburn, except syllabic Template:Transliteration is rendered as in Traditional. Japan Railways and other major railways use it for station names.
- Template:Nihongo, used for road signs, which otherwise follows Modified Hepburn closely but specifies that macrons are not to be used.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
- Template:Nihongo,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> a permissive standard that renders the syllabic Template:Transliteration as Template:Transliteration before b, m and p. Most of the long vowels are not rendered, and macrons are not used above the letter. Moreover, this standard explicitly allows the use of Template:Nihongo in personal names with special approval,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> notably for passports. In particular, the long vowel ō can be romanized Template:Transliteration, Template:Transliteration or Template:Transliteration (Template:Transliteration, Template:Transliteration or Template:Transliteration for Template:Nihongo2).
Details of the variants can be found below.
Obsolete variants
The romanizations set out in the first and second versions of Hepburn's dictionary are primarily of historical interest. Notable differences from the third and later versions include: Template:Col-begin Template:Col-2
Second version
- Template:Nihongo2 and Template:Nihongo2 were written as Template:Transliteration: Yedo
- Template:Nihongo2 and Template:Nihongo2 were written as Template:Transliteration: kudzu, tsudzuku
- Template:Nihongo2, Template:Nihongo2, and Template:Nihongo2 were written as Template:Transliteration, Template:Transliteration and Template:Transliteration
- Template:Nihongo2 (modern: Template:Nihongo2) was written as Template:Transliteration:<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Kuwannon, kuwaidan
First version
The following differences are in addition to those in the second version:<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
- Template:Nihongo2 was written as Template:Transliteration.
- Template:Nihongo2 was written as Template:Transliteration.
- Template:Nihongo2 and Template:Nihongo2 were written as Template:Transliteration.
Features
The main feature of Hepburn is that its orthography is based on English phonology. More technically, when syllables that are constructed systematically according to the Japanese syllabary contain an "unstable" consonant in the modern spoken language, the orthography is changed to something that better matches the real sound as an English-speaker would pronounce it. For example, Template:Nihongo2 is written Template:Transliteration not Template:Transliteration. This transcription is thus only partly phonological.
Some linguists such as Harold E. Palmer, Daniel Jones and Otto Jespersen object to Hepburn, contending that the pronunciation-based spellings can obscure the systematic origins of Japanese phonetic structures, inflections, and conjugations.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> Since the vowel sounds in Hepburn are similar to the vowel sounds in Italian, and the consonants similar to those of many other languages, in particular English, speakers unfamiliar with Japanese will generally be more accurate when pronouncing unfamiliar words romanized in the Hepburn style compared to other systems.<ref name=hadamitzky>Template:Cite web</ref>
Long vowels
In Hepburn, vowel combinations that form a long sound are usually indicated with a macron (◌̄). Other adjacent vowels, such as those separated by a morpheme boundary, are written separately:
| in traditional Hepburn<ref name="3rd">Template:Cite book</ref> | in modified Hepburn<ref name="kenkyusha">Template:Cite book</ref> | |
|---|---|---|
| A + A | aa: Template:Nihongo2 – Template:Transliteration 'grandmother' (ba + a) |
ā: Template:Nihongo2 – Template:Transliteration 'grandmother' (ba + a) |
| I + I | ii: Template:Nihongo2 – [[Niigata (city)|Template:Transliteration]] (ni + i) | |
| U + U | ū: Template:Nihongo2 – Template:Transliteration 'mathematics' (su + u) | |
| E + E | ee: Template:Nihongo2 – Template:Transliteration 'older sister' (ne + e) |
ē: Template:Nihongo2 – Template:Transliteration 'older sister' (ne + e) |
| O + O | ō: Template:Nihongo2 – Template:Transliteration 'detour' (to + o) | |
| O + U | ō: Template:Nihongo2 – Template:Transliteration 'study' (kyo + u) | |
All other vowel combinations are always written separately:
- E + I: Template:Nihongo2 – Template:Transliteration + Template:Transliteration – Template:Transliteration 'uniform' (despite E + I often being pronounced as a long E)
- U + I: Template:Nihongo2 – Template:Transliteration + Template:Transliteration – Template:Transliteration 'light (in weight)'
- O + I: Template:Nihongo2 – Template:Transliteration – Template:Transliteration 'nephew'
Loanwords
In foreign loanwords, long vowels followed by a chōonpu (ー) are indicated with macrons:
- Template:Nihongo2: se + (ー) + ra + (ー) = Template:Transliteration 'sailor'
- Template:Nihongo2: ta + ku + shi + (ー) = Template:Transliteration 'taxi'
- Template:Nihongo2: ko + n + ku + (ー) + ru = Template:Transliteration 'competition'
- Template:Nihongo2: ba + re + (ー) + bo + (ー) + ru = Template:Transliteration 'volleyball'
- Template:Nihongo2: so + (ー) + ru = Template:Transliteration 'sole (of a shoe, etc.)'
Adjacent vowels in loanwords are written separately:
- Template:Nihongo2: ba + re + e – Template:Transliteration 'ballet'
- Template:Nihongo2: mi + i + ra – Template:Transliteration 'mummy'
- Template:Nihongo2: so + u + ru – Template:Transliteration 'soul', 'Seoul'
Variations
There are many variations on the Hepburn system for indicating long vowels with a macron. For example, Template:Nihongo2 (Template:Nihongo2) is properly romanized as Tōkyō, but can also be written as:
- Template:Transliteration – not indicated at all. Common for Japanese words that have been adopted into English, and the de facto convention for Hepburn used in signs and other English-language information around Japan.
- Template:Transliteration – indicated with circumflex accents, as in the alternative Nihon-shiki and Kunrei-shiki romanizations.<ref name="tebiki">Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
- Template:Transliteration – indicated with an h (only applies after o). This is sometimes known as "passport Hepburn", as the Japanese Foreign Ministry has authorized (but not required) it in passports.<ref name="tokyo">Template:Cite web</ref><ref name="cisco">Template:Cite web</ref><ref name="detroit">Template:Cite web</ref>
- Template:Transliteration – written using kana spelling: ō as ou or oo (depending on the kana). This is also known as Template:Transliteration style, as it reflects how text is entered into a Japanese word processor by using a keyboard with Roman characters. Template:Transliteration more accurately represents the way that ō is written in kana by differentiating between Template:Nihongo2 (as in Template:Nihongo2 (Template:Nihongo2), Template:Transliteration in Template:Transliteration) and Template:Nihongo2 (as in Template:Nihongo2 (Template:Nihongo2), Template:Transliteration in Template:Transliteration); however, it fails to differentiate between long vowels and vowels separated by a morpheme boundary.
- Template:Transliteration – written by doubling the long vowels. Some dictionaries such as the Pocket Kenkyusha Japanese Dictionary<ref name="pocket">Template:Cite book</ref> and Basic English Writers' Japanese-English Wordbook follow this style, and it is also used in the JSL form of romanization.
Particles
In traditional and modified:
- When Template:Nihongo2 is used as a particle, it is written Template:Transliteration.
In traditional Hepburn:
- When Template:Nihongo2 is used as a particle, Hepburn originally recommended Template:Transliteration.<ref name="3rd"/> This spelling is obsolete, and it is commonly written as Template:Transliteration (Romaji-Hirome-Kai, 1974<ref name="hyouzyunC">Template:Cite webTemplate:Self-published source</ref>).
- When Template:Nihongo2 is used as a particle, it is written Template:Transliteration.<ref name="3rd"/>
In modified Hepburn:<ref name="kenkyusha"/>
- When Template:Nihongo2 is used as a particle, it is written Template:Transliteration.
- When Template:Nihongo2 is used as a particle, it is written Template:Transliteration.
Syllabic n
In traditional Hepburn:<ref name="3rd"/>
- Syllabic Template:Transliteration (Template:Nihongo2) is written as Template:Transliteration before consonants, but as Template:Transliteration before labial consonants: b, m, and p. It is sometimes written as n- (with a hyphen) before vowels and y (to avoid confusion between, for example, Template:Nihongo2 n + a and Template:Nihongo2 Template:Transliteration, and Template:Nihongo2 n + ya and Template:Nihongo2 Template:Transliteration), but its hyphen usage is not clear.
- Template:Nihongo2: Template:Transliteration – guide
- Template:Nihongo2: Template:Transliteration – Gunma
- Template:Nihongo2: Template:Transliteration – simple
- Template:Nihongo2: Template:Transliteration – trust
In modified Hepburn:<ref name="kenkyusha"/>
- The rendering m before labial consonants is not used and is replaced with Template:Transliteration. It is written n' (with an apostrophe) before vowels and y.
- Template:Nihongo2: Template:Transliteration – guide
- Template:Nihongo2: Template:Transliteration – Gunma
- Template:Nihongo2: Template:Transliteration – simple
- Template:Nihongo2: Template:Transliteration – trust
Long consonants
Elongated (or "geminate") consonant sounds are marked by doubling the consonant following a sokuon, Template:Nihongo2; for consonants that are digraphs in Hepburn (sh, ch, ts), only the first consonant of the set is doubled, except for ch, which is replaced by tch.<ref name="3rd"/><ref name="kenkyusha"/>
- Template:Nihongo2: Template:Transliteration – result
- Template:Nihongo2: Template:Transliteration – quickly
- Template:Nihongo2: Template:Transliteration – all the time
- Template:Nihongo2: Template:Transliteration – ticket
- Template:Nihongo2: Template:Transliteration – magazine
- Template:Nihongo2: Template:Transliteration – together
- Template:Nihongo2: Template:Transliteration (not Template:Transliteration) – this way
- Template:Nihongo2: Template:Transliteration (not Template:Transliteration) – matcha
- Template:Nihongo2: Template:Transliteration – three
Romanization charts
- Each entry contains hiragana, katakana, and Hepburn romanization, in that order.
- † — The characters in Template:Red are historical characters and are obsolete in modern Japanese.<ref name="usage1946">Template:Cite web</ref><ref name="usage1986">Template:Cite web</ref> In modern Hepburn romanization, they are often undefined.<ref name="kenkyusha"/>
- ‡ — The characters in Template:Blue are rarely used outside of their status as a particle in modern Japanese,<ref name="tebiki"/> and romanization follows the rules above.
Extended katakana
These combinations are used mainly to represent the sounds in words in other languages.
Digraphs with orange backgrounds are the general ones used for loanwords or foreign places or names, and those with blue backgrounds are used for more accurate transliterations of foreign sounds, suggested by the Cabinet of Japan's Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Katakana combinations with beige backgrounds are suggested by the American National Standards Institute<ref name="ansi">Template:Cite webTemplate:Self-published source</ref> and the British Standards Institution as possible uses.<ref name="bs">Template:Cite webTemplate:Self-published source</ref> Ones with purple backgrounds appear on the 1974 version of the Hyōjun-shiki formatting.<ref name="hyouzyunC"/>
- * — The use of Template:Nihongo2 in these two cases to represent w is rare in modern Japanese except for Internet slang and transcription of the Latin sound Template:IPA into katakana. E.g.: ミネルウァ (Mineruwa "Minerva", from Latin MINERVA Template:IPA); ウゥルカーヌス (Wurukānusu "Vulcan", from Latin VVLCANVS, Vulcānus Template:IPA). The wa-type of foreign sounds (as in watt or wipe) is usually transcribed to ワ (wa), while the wu-type (as in wood or woman) is usually to ウ (Template:Transliteration) or ウー (Template:Transliteration).
- ⁑ — Template:Nihongo2 has a rarely used hiragana form in Template:Nihongo2 that is also Template:Transliteration in Hepburn romanization systems.
- ⁂ — The characters in Template:Green are obsolete (out of date) in modern Japanese and very rarely used.<ref name="usage1946"/><ref name="usage1986"/>
See also
References
External links
- Preface of Hepburn's original dictionary, explaining romanization: First edition, Third edition