Nihon-shiki ( ja, 日本式ローマ字, "Japan-style," romanized as ''Nihonsiki'' in the system itself), is a

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 ...

system for

transliterating 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 ...

the

Japanese language is spoken natively by about 128 million people, primarily by Japanese people and primarily in Japan, the only country where it is the national language. Japanese belongs to the Japonic or Japanese- Ryukyuan language family. There have been ma ...

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 ...

. Among the major romanization systems for Japanese, it is the most regular one and has an almost one-to-one relation to the

kana The term may refer to a number of syllabaries used to write Japanese phonological units, morae. Such syllabaries include (1) the original kana, or , which were Chinese characters (kanji) used phonetically to transcribe Japanese, the most pr ...

writing system.

History

It was invented by physicist Aikitsu Tanakadate (田中館愛橘) in 1885,Gottlieb, p. 78 with the intention to replace the Hepburn system of romanization.Kent, et al. "Oriental Literature and Bibliography." p
155
Tanakadate's intention was to replace the traditional

kanji are the logographic Chinese characters taken from the Chinese family of scripts, Chinese script and used in the writing of Japanese language, Japanese. They were made a major part of the Japanese writing system during the time of Old Japanese ...

and

system of writing Japanese completely by a romanized system, which he felt would make it easier for Japan to compete with Western countries. Since the system was intended for Japanese people to use to write their own language, it is much more regular than Hepburn romanization, and unlike Hepburn's system, it makes no effort to make itself easier to pronounce for English-speakers. Nihon-shiki was followed by

Kunrei-shiki is the Cabinet-ordered romanization system for transcribing the Japanese language into the Latin alphabet. Its name is rendered ''Kunreisiki rômazi'' in the system itself. Kunrei-shiki is sometimes known as the Monbushō system in English bec ...

, which was adopted in 1937, after a political debate over whether Nihon-shiki or Hepburn-shiki should be used by the Japanese government. Kunrei is otherwise nearly identical, but it merges syllable pairs di/zi ぢ/じ, du/zu づ/ず, dya/zya ぢゃ/じゃ, dyu/zyu ぢゅ/じゅ, dyo/zyo ぢょ/じょ, wi/i ゐ/い, we/e ゑ/え, kwa/ka くゎ/か, and gwa/ga ぐゎ/が, whose pronunciations in Modern Standard Japanese are now identical. For example, the word かなづかい, rendered ''kanadukai'' in Nihon-shiki, is pronounced as ''kanazukai'' in modern Japanese, and is romanized as such in Kunrei. However, some Japanese-speakers still distinguish di from zi and du from zu and so Nihon-shiki spelling is not entirely obsolete. Nihon-shiki is considered the most regular of the romanization systems for the Japanese language because it maintains a strict "one kana, two letters" form. Because it has unique forms corresponding to each of the respective pairs of ''kana'' homophones listed above, it is the only formal system of romanization that can allow (almost) lossless ("round trip") mapping, but the standard does not mandate the precise spellings needed to distinguish ô 王/おう, ou 追う/おう and oo 大/おお. (See the

hiragana is a Japanese syllabary, part of the Japanese writing system, along with ''katakana'' as well as ''kanji''. It is a phonetic lettering system. The word ''hiragana'' literally means "flowing" or "simple" kana ("simple" originally as contrast ...

article for more details.) Nippon-shiki has been established by the

International Organization for Standardization The International Organization for Standardization (ISO ) is an international standard development organization composed of representatives from the national standards organizations of member countries. Membership requirements are given in Ar ...

in the

ISO 3602 ISO is the most common abbreviation for the International Organization for Standardization. ISO or Iso may also refer to: Business and finance * Iso (supermarket), a chain of Danish supermarkets incorporated into the SuperBest chain in 2007 * Is ...

strict form. The JSL system, which is intended for use instructing foreign students of Japanese, is also based on Nihon-shiki.

Romanization charts

Notes

*Letters in red are obsolete in modern Japanese. *Even when ''he'' へ is used as a particle, it is written as ''he'', not ''e'' (Kunrei-shiki/Hepburn). *Even when ''ha'' は is used as a particle, it is written as ''ha'', not ''wa''. *Even when ''wo'' を is used as a particle, it is written as ''wo'', not ''o''. *Long vowels are indicated by a

circumflex accent The circumflex () is a diacritic in the Latin and Greek scripts that is also used in the written forms of many languages and in various romanization and transcription schemes. It received its English name from la, circumflexus "bent around"a ...

: long o is written ''ô'', unlike Hepburn, which uses a macron. *Syllabic n ん is written as ''n'' before consonants but as ''n''' before vowels and ''y''. *

Geminate consonant In phonetics and phonology, gemination (), or consonant lengthening (from Latin 'doubling', itself from ''Gemini (constellation), gemini'' 'twins'), is an articulation of a consonant for a longer period of time than that of a singleton consonan ...

s are always marked by doubling the consonant following the

sokuon The is a Japanese symbol in the form of a small hiragana or katakana '' tsu''. In less formal language it is called or , meaning "small ''tsu''". It serves multiple purposes in Japanese writing. Appearance In both hiragana and katakana, t ...

(っ).

Sources

* Gottlieb, Nanette.
The Rōmaji movement in Japan
" ''

Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society The ''Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society'' is an academic journal which publishes articles on the history, archaeology, literature, language, religion and art of South Asia, the Middle East (together with North Africa and Ethiopia), Central Asi ...

'' (Third Series). January 2010. Vol. 20, iss. 1. pp. 75–88. Published online on November 30, 2009. Available at

Cambridge Journals Cambridge University Press is the university press of the University of Cambridge. Granted letters patent by King Henry VIII in 1534, it is the oldest university press in the world. It is also the King's Printer. Cambridge University Press i ...

. . * Kent, Allen, Harold Lancour, and Jay Elwood Daily (Executive Editors). ''Encyclopedia of Library and Information Science Volume 21''.

CRC Press The CRC Press, LLC is an American publishing group that specializes in producing technical books. Many of their books relate to engineering, science and mathematics. Their scope also includes books on business, forensics and information tec ...

, April 1, 1978. , . *''Nihongo Daihakubutsukan'' (日本語大博物館), author: Kida, Jun'ichirō (紀田順一郎 ''Kida Jun'ichirō''), publisher: Just System (ジャストシステム, ''Jasuto Shisutemu'') (in Japanese), chapter 6.

References

{{Japanese language Romanization of Japanese ISO 3602 Japanese writing system

History

Romanization charts

Notes

See also

Sources

References