Hepburn romanization

The Hepburn romanization system (Japanese ヘボン式, Hebon-shiki) was designed by the Rev. James Curtis Hepburn to transcribe the sounds of the Japanese language into the Roman alphabet for his Japanese-English dictionary, published in 1867. This system is sometimes known as Hyōjun-shiki (standard style).

Variations (original and revised versions) of the Hepburn system remain by far the most widely used for transcribing Japanese. It gives a speaker of languages like English the best indication of how words are pronounced in modern Japanese. In Japan itself, many young people learn the Roman alphabet through the study of English, and therefore find the Hepburn system more comfortable than the Monbushō system. Other romanization systems for Japanese are Nihon-shiki (ISO 3602 strict), Kunrei-shiki (Monbushō and ISO 3602), and JSL. See rōmaji for a comparison between these systems.

The Hepburn system is used in the Spanish Wikipedia, since it is also the one that is closest to Spanish speakers.

Legal status

The Hepburn system is based on English consonant phonology, and as such has met with some opposition in Japan. In particular, a law of September 21, 1937 proclaimed the adoption of an alternative system known as Kunrei as the official romanization system in Japan. The law (slightly modified) was reissued in 1954, with little effect.

In 1972, the Modified Hepburn system was codified as ANSI Z39.11-1972 standard. It was proposed in 1989 as a draft for ISO 3602, but rejected in favor of the Kunrei system. The Z39.11-1972 standard was finally deemed obsolete on October 6, 1994.

However, despite its lack of de jure status, the Hepburn system remains the de facto standard. In Japan, all official signs (road signs, warnings, etc.) are romanized in Hepburn or, increasingly, modified Hepburn. The Japanese railway system, as well as all other means of transport (buses, subway, planes, etc) use Hepburn or modified Hepburn. This is also the case with newspapers, television, cities and prefectures, Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs publications, official tourist information published by the government, guidebooks, etc. Students of Japanese as a foreign language often use Hepburn or modified Hepburn.

Characteristics of Hepburn romanization

• When I is used as a particle, is romanized as e.
• When ha movable is used as a particle, is romanized as wa.
• When wo Flash is used as a particle, is romanized as or.
• Long vowels are indicated by macron, for example, or long written ō.
• La n silábica ← n before consonant, but ♪ when it goes before the vowel or and.
• The geminated consonants are marked as such by duplicating the consonant that follows the character rrell, with the exception of sh→ssh, ch→tch.
• When the syllables systematically built in line with the Japanese silage contain a "unstable" consonant for the modern spoken language, the spelling changes to something better suited to how it would pronounce an Anglo-speaking. For example,, is written shiNo. Yeah.. This type of irregular writing, however, makes it difficult to explain regular verbal conjugations in Japanese.

Variations of the Hepburn system indicate the long vowels ō and ū as follows:

• Tōkyō: indicated with macron (standard)
• Tôkyô: indicated with circle (as a substitute for lack of macron on the keyboard)
• Tokyo: macron is omitted completely (component in Japanese words adopted in other languages, particularly in English)
• Tookyoo: the vocal folds
• Tohkyoh: indicated with an "h".
• Toukyou: written by the romanization of each hiragan character: ō Like ou and ū Like uu. This is known as style wāpuroas this is how the text is inserted into a Japanese text processor (in Japanese) wādo Puresessāin turn English word processor, text processor) using a keyboard with Roman characters.
• Tõkyõ: La or long is indicated by a tilde. This style is extremely rare.
• Tökyö: La or long is indicated by a diresis. This style is extremely rare.

Some linguists oppose the Hepburn system, as it does not correctly transcribe Japanese phonetic structures and conjugations. Supporters of the Hepburn system argue that it was not intended as a linguistic tool, and that the International Phonetic Alphabet should be used in these contexts.

Original and modified Hepburn

The original version of the Hepburn system romanizes the syllabic n ん as m before the consonants p, b and m, while the modified Hepburn system always romanizes it as n.

Hepburn romanization of hiragana

The characters in red have become obsolete in modern Japanese.

HEPBURN ROMANIZATION OF THE STANDARD KATAKANA

Characters in red have been deprecated in modern Japanese.

Hepburn romanization of extended katakana

(These character combinations are used primarily to represent sounds in words in other languages.)