, or kana spelling, is a style of romanization of Japanese originally devised for entering

Japanese Japanese may refer to: * Something from or related to Japan, an island country in East Asia * Japanese language, spoken mainly in Japan * Japanese people, the ethnic group that identifies with Japan through ancestry or culture ** Japanese diaspor ...

into while using a Western

QWERTY QWERTY () is a keyboard layout for Latin-script alphabets. The name comes from the order of the first six Computer keyboard keys#Types, keys on the top left letter row of the keyboard ( ). The QWERTY design is based on a layout created f ...

keyboard. In Japanese, the more formal name is , literally "Roman character kana conversion". One conversion method has been standardized as JIS X 4063:2000 (Keystroke to KANA Transfer Method Using Latin Letter Key for Japanese Input Method); however, the standard explicitly states that it is intended as a means of input, not as a method of romanization.「この規格は、キー入力時の変換方式を規定するものであって、日本語のローマ字の標準表記を規定するものではない。�
JISX4063 仮名漢字変換システムのための英字キー入力から仮名への変換方式
!--http://www.jisc.go.jp/app/pager?%23jps.JPSH0083D%3AJPSO0081%3A%2FJPS%2FJPSO0083.jsp=&AKKNB_vJISJISID=1000004241-->, page 2. Wāpuro rōmaji is now frequently employed in general-purpose computer input as well as word processing, but the name lives on. Wāpuro-style romanizations are also frequently used by native speakers of Japanese in informal contexts, as well as by many fans of

anime is Traditional animation, hand-drawn and computer animation, computer-generated animation originating from Japan. Outside of Japan and in English, ''anime'' refers specifically to animation produced in Japan. However, in Japan and in Japane ...

and other aspects of

Japanese culture The culture of Japan has changed greatly over the millennia, from the country's prehistoric Jōmon period, to its contemporary modern culture, which absorbs influences from Asia and other regions of the world. Historical overview The ance ...

. A common characteristic of these (often online) cases is the avoidance of hard-to-type circumflexes or macrons. Also, some ambiguities in spelling may exist. Spellings are seen that would fail to produce the desired kana when typed on a computer, for example failure to distinguish between (properly entered as "zu") and (properly entered as "du").

Spelling conventions

In practice, there are as many variants of wāpuro rōmaji as there are manufacturers of word processing and IME software. Many aspects of Hepburn,

Kunrei 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 ...

and

Nihon-shiki Nihon-shiki ( ja, 日本式ローマ字, "Japan-style," romanized as ''Nihonsiki'' in the system itself), is a romanization system for transliterating the Japanese language into the Latin alphabet. Among the major romanization systems for Japan ...

romanizations are accepted, so that both ''si'' (Kunrei/Nihon-shiki) and ''shi'' (Hepburn) resolve to . Some conventions, however, differ from standard romanizations: * Owing to the difficulty of entering diacritics like macrons or circumflexes with standard keyboards (as well as the ambiguity of ō, etc., which in Hepburn can represent either or )

long vowel In linguistics, vowel length is the perceived length of a vowel sound: the corresponding physical measurement is duration. In some languages vowel length is an important phonemic factor, meaning vowel length can change the meaning of the word, f ...

s are almost universally entered following

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 p ...

spelling rules; thus, ''kou'' for and ''koo'' for . *The Nihon-shiki forms of romanization take precedence over other romanizations. Thus ''du'' usually produces rather than . * Small kana can be entered by prefacing them with an ''x'' or ''l'', e.g. ''xa'' for , or ''ltu'' for . This is commonly employed for modern

katakana is a Japanese syllabary, one component of the Japanese writing system along with hiragana, kanji and in some cases the Latin script (known as rōmaji). The word ''katakana'' means "fragmentary kana", as the katakana characters are derived f ...

combinations like , which would be entered ''texi'', ''thi'', or ''t'i''. However, on some systems ''l'' is treated the same as ''r'' when followed by a vowel or "y". * , and may also be romanized as ''jya'', ''jyu'' and ''jyo'' respectively. This matches the kana closely, but is used by neither Nihon-shiki/Kunrei (which would be ''zya, zyu, zyo'') nor Hepburn (''ja, ju, jo''). * The Hepburn spelling ''tchi'' for may be rejected, and ''cchi'' may be required instead. * The Hepburn spelling ''mma'' is likely to be rendered , not the intended (''nma''). This is not an issue for revised Hepburn, which eliminates the ''-mm-'' forms in favor of ''-nm-''. *

Moraic A mora (plural ''morae'' or ''moras''; often symbolized μ) is a basic timing (linguistics), timing unit in the phonology of some spoken languages, equal to or shorter than a syllable. For example, a short syllable such as ''ba'' consists of one m ...

''n'', , can be entered as ''nn'', ''n'' or ''n'''. While moraic ''n'' can be typed in simply as ''n'' in some cases, in other cases it is necessary to type in a non-ambiguous form to prevent the IME from interpreting the ''n'' as belonging to a kana from the ''na'' column ( ''na'', ''ni'', ''nu'', ''ne'', ''no''). * Phonetic names can often be used for

Japanese typographic symbols This article lists Japanese typographic symbols that are not included in kana or kanji groupings. The usages of these symbols are unique and specific. Repetition marks Brackets and quotation marks Phonetic marks Punctuation marks Other ...

not found on standard keyboards. For example, in some IMEs ～ can be entered as ''nami'' (wave) or ''kara'' (from) and an ellipsis (...) can be entered as ''tenten'' (point point).

Phonetic accuracy

Unlike Kunrei and Hepburn, wāpuro style is based on a one-to-one

transcription Transcription refers to the process of converting sounds (voice, music etc.) into letters or musical notes, or producing a copy of something in another medium, including: Genetics * Transcription (biology), the copying of DNA into RNA, the fir ...

of the

. Wāpuro thus does not represent some distinctions observed in spoken Japanese, but not in writing, such as the difference between (long vowel) and (o+u). For example, in standard Japanese the kana can be pronounced in two different ways: as meaning "king" (), and as meaning "to chase" ().大辞泉お・う〔おふ〕【追う／▽逐う】
/ref> Kunrei and Hepburn spell the two differently as ''ō'' and ''ou'', because the former is a long vowel while the latter has an ''o'' that happens to be followed by a ''u''; however, wāpuro style simply transcribes the kana and renders them both as ''ou''. Likewise, the irregularly spelled particles ''wa'' (), ''e'' () and ''o'' () must be entered as written (''ha'', ''he'' and ''wo'' respectively), not as pronounced (unlike Kunrei and Hepburn, which transcribe the pronunciation).

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Wapuro romaji Romanization of Japanese Japanese writing system

Spelling conventions

Phonetic accuracy

See also

References