James Curtis Hepburn (; March 13, 1815 – September 21, 1911) was an

American American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, pe ...

physician, translator,

educator A teacher, also called a schoolteacher or formally an educator, is a person who helps students to acquire knowledge, competence, or virtue, via the practice of teaching. ''Informally'' the role of teacher may be taken on by anyone (e.g. whe ...

, and lay Christian

missionary A missionary is a member of a Religious denomination, religious group which is sent into an area in order to promote its faith or provide services to people, such as education, literacy, social justice, health care, and economic development.Tho ...

. He is known for the Hepburn romanization system for

transliteration Transliteration is a type of conversion of a text from one writing system, script to another that involves swapping Letter (alphabet), letters (thus ''wikt:trans-#Prefix, trans-'' + ''wikt:littera#Latin, liter-'') in predictable ways, such as ...

of the Japanese language into the

Latin alphabet The Latin alphabet or Roman alphabet is the collection of letters originally used by the ancient Romans to write the Latin language. Largely unaltered with the exception of extensions (such as diacritics), it used to write English and the o ...

, which he popularized in his Japanese–English

dictionary A dictionary is a listing of lexemes from the lexicon of one or more specific languages, often arranged alphabetically (or by radical and stroke for ideographic languages), which may include information on definitions, usage, etymologies ...

Background and early life

Hepburn was born in

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Pennsylvania Pennsylvania (; ( Pennsylvania Dutch: )), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It borders Delaware to its southeast, ...

, on March 13, 1815. He attended

Princeton University Princeton University is a private university, private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial Colleges, fourth-oldest ins ...

, earned a master's degree, after which he attended the

University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (also known as Penn or UPenn) is a private research university in Philadelphia. It is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and is ranked among the highest-regarded universitie ...

, where he received his

M.D. Doctor of Medicine (abbreviated M.D., from the Latin ''Medicinae Doctor'') is a medical degree, the meaning of which varies between different jurisdictions. In the United States, and some other countries, the M.D. denotes a professional degree. T ...

degree in 1836, and became a physician. He decided to go to China as a medical missionary, but had to stay in Singapore for two years because the

Opium War The First Opium War (), also known as the Opium War or the Anglo-Sino War was a series of military engagements fought between Britain and the Qing dynasty of China between 1839 and 1842. The immediate issue was the Chinese enforcement of the ...

was under way and Chinese ports were closed to foreigners. After five years as a missionary, he returned to the United States in 1845 and opened a medical practice in New York City.

Missionary work in Japan

In 1859, Hepburn went to Japan as a medical missionary with the

American Presbyterian Mission Presbyterian Mission Agency is the ministry and mission agency of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). Founded as the Western Foreign Missionary Society by the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America in 1837, it was involved in sending w ...

. After first arriving in

Nagasaki is the capital and the largest city of Nagasaki Prefecture on the island of Kyushu in Japan. It became the sole port used for trade with the Portuguese and Dutch during the 16th through 19th centuries. The Hidden Christian Sites in the ...

in October 1859, Hepburn swiftly relocated to the newly opened

treaty port Treaty ports (; ja, 条約港) were the port cities in China and Japan that were opened to foreign trade mainly by the unequal treaties forced upon them by Western powers, as well as cities in Korea opened up similarly by the Japanese Empire. ...

Yokohama is the second-largest city in Japan by population and the most populous municipality of Japan. It is the capital city and the most populous city in Kanagawa Prefecture, with a 2020 population of 3.8 million. It lies on Tokyo Bay, south of To ...

, opening his first clinic in April 1861 at the Sokoji Temple. Initially residing at Jobutsuji in

Kanagawa is a Prefectures of Japan, prefecture of Japan located in the Kantō region of Honshu. Kanagawa Prefecture is the List of Japanese prefectures by population, second-most populous prefecture of Japan at 9,221,129 (1 April 2022) and third-dens ...

, a dilapidated temple formerly occupied by the Dutch consulate, Hepburn was the first Christian missionary to take up residence close to the newly opened treaty port. Hepburn's family shared accommodation at Jobutsuji with Dutch Reformed minister Rev.

Samuel Robbins Brown Rev. Samuel Robbins Brown D.D. (June 16, 1810 – June 20, 1880) was an American missionary to China and Japan with the Reformed Church in America. Birth and education Brown was born in East Windsor, Connecticut. He graduated from Yale College i ...

and all were quickly absorbed into the local foreign community, Hepburn being appointed honorary physician to the US Consul,

Townsend Harris Townsend Harris (October 4, 1804 – February 25, 1878) was an American merchant and politician who served as the first United States Consul General to Japan. He negotiated the "Harris Treaty" between the US and Japan and is credited as the di ...

. Hepburn's first clinic failed as the

Bakumatsu was the final years of the Edo period when the Tokugawa shogunate ended. Between 1853 and 1867, Japan ended its isolationist foreign policy known as and changed from a feudal Tokugawa shogunate to the modern empire of the Meiji government ...

authorities, wanting the missionaries to relocate to Yokohama, put pressure on patients to stop going to it. In the spring of 1862 Hepburn and his family relocated to the house and compound at Kyoryuchi No. 39, in the heart of the foreigners residential district in the treaty port of Yokohama. There, in addition to his clinic, he and his wife Clara founded the Hepburn School, which eventually developed into

Meiji Gakuin University is a Christian university in Tokyo and Yokohama that was established in 1863. The Reverend Dr. James Curtis Hepburn was one of its founders and served as the first president. The novelist and poet Shimazaki Toson graduated from this colleg ...

. Hepburn's Japanese pupils included

Furuya Sakuzaemon Furuya (written: 古谷 or 古屋) is a Japanese surname. Notable people with the surname include: *, Japanese politician *, Japanese ice hockey player *, Japanese businessman in Hawaii *, Japanese American banker, merchant and businessman *, Japan ...

Takahashi Korekiyo Viscount was a Japanese politician who served as a member of the House of Peers, as Prime Minister of Japan from 1921 to 1922, and as the head of the Bank of Japan and Ministry of Finance. Takahashi made many contributions to Japan's develop ...

, and

Numa Morikazu was a politician and journalist in Meiji period Japan.Nussbaum, Louis-Frédéric. (2005). "Numa Morikazu" in . Biography Born to a ''samurai'' family in Edo in 1843, Numa was involved in scholarship at an early age. He learned English from Ja ...

( 沼間守一). For his medical contributions to the city of Yokohama, Hepburn Hall was named in his honor on the campus of

Yokohama City University is a public university, in Yokohama, Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan. As of 2013, YCU has two faculties with a total of around 4,850 students, 111 of whom are foreign. YCU also has four campuses (Kanazawa-Hakkei, Fukuura, Maioka and Tsurumi) and two ...

School of Medicine. In May 1867, with the collaboration of his long-time assistant Kishida Ginkō, Hepburn published a Japanese–English dictionary which rapidly became the standard reference work for prospective students of Japanese. In the dictionary's third edition, published in 1886, Hepburn adopted a new system for

romanization Romanization or romanisation, in linguistics, is the conversion of text from a different writing system to the Roman (Latin) script, or a system for doing so. Methods of romanization include transliteration, for representing written text, and ...

of the Japanese language developed by the Society for the Romanization of the Japanese Alphabet ('' Rōmajikai''). This system is widely known as the Hepburn romanization because Hepburn's dictionary popularized it. Hepburn also contributed to the translation of the Bible into Japanese.

Later years

Hepburn returned to the United States in 1892. On March 14, 1905, a day after Hepburn's 90th birthday, he was awarded the decoration of the

Order of the Rising Sun The is a Japanese order, established in 1875 by Emperor Meiji. The Order was the first national decoration awarded by the Japanese government, created on 10 April 1875 by decree of the Council of State. The badge features rays of sunlight ...

, third class. Hepburn was the second foreigner to receive this honor. He died on September 21, 1911, in

East Orange East Orange is a City (New Jersey), city in Essex County, New Jersey, Essex County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. As of the 2020 United States census, 2020 U.S. census, the city's population was 69,612. The city was List of municipalities in ...

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, at the age of 96. He is interred in Orange's Rosedale Cemetery.

Publications

* (first edition) 690pp
A Japanese and English dictionary: with and English and Japanese index (1867)Japanese-English and English-Japanese Dictionary (1881)
* (4th edition), 962pp (gives Japanese next to romaji)
A Japanese-English and English-Japanese dictionary (1903)
* (2nd. ed. abridged), 1032pp (romaji only)

References

External links

History of Meiji Gakuin UniversityHepburn Christian Fellowship
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hepburn, James Curtis American expatriates in Japan American Japanologists Presbyterian missionaries in Japan Presbyterian missionaries in Singapore American lexicographers Translators of the Bible into Japanese 1815 births 1911 deaths Recipients of the Order of the Rising Sun, 3rd class 19th-century American physicians People from Northumberland County, Pennsylvania 19th-century American translators American Presbyterian missionaries University and college founders Missionary linguists