Hepburn romanization

The Hepburn romanization system (ヘボン式, Hebon-shiki) was devised by the Reverend 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 was subsequently revised and called Shūsei Hebon-shiki (修正ヘボン式). This revised version is sometimes also referred to as Hyōjun-shiki (標準式) (standard style).

The original and revised variants of Hepburn remain the most widely used methods of transcription of Japanese. As Hepburn is based on English phonology, an English speaker unfamiliar with Japanese will generally pronounce a word romanized in Hepburn more accurately than a word romanized in the competing Kunrei-shiki system. Likewise, native Japanese speakers familiar with the Roman alphabet through the study of English tend to find Hepburn more comfortable than Kunrei.

Standard variants of Hepburn romanization

There are three standard variants of Hepburn romanization.

The first is traditional Hepburn, which renders long vowels and syllabic n in a variety of ways.

The second is revised Hepburn, a revised version of traditional Hepburn, in which the rendering of syllabic n as m before certain consonants is no longer used. This is the most common form of Japanese romanization used today, and is used by the Library of Congress. (Revised Hepburn may be referred to as modified Hepburn.)

The third is modified Hepburn, which builds on revised Hepburn to further modify traditional Hepburn. This version is consistent in its treatment of long vowels (using macrons) and syllabic n. It has been adopted by some major dictionaries (e.g. the Pocket Kenkyusha Japanese Dictionary published by Oxford University Press), but is still mainly the preserve of linguists. (The term modified Hepburn may be used to refer to revised Hepburn.)

Judopedia uses a variation of revised Hepburn that uses macrons to indicate long vowels (ō and ū). This is often considered to be standard. For example, Tōkyō instead of Tokyo.

Features of Hepburn romanization

The main feature of Hepburn is that its spelling is based on English phonology. More technically, where syllables constructed systematically according to the Japanese syllabary contain the "unstable" consonant for the modern spoken language, the orthography is changed to something that, as an English speaker would pronounce it, better matches the real sound, for example し is written shi not *si.

Particles

When he へ is used as a particle it is written e.
When ha は is used as a particle it is written wa.
When wo を is used as a particle it is written o.

Long vowels

In traditional and revised Hepburn:

The long vowels o and u are indicated by a macron—e.g., long o is written ō.
In words of Japanese or Chinese origin, the long vowel e is written ei.
In words of Japanese or Chinese origin, the long vowel i is written ii.
In words of foreign origin, all long vowels are indicated by macrons.

In modified Hepburn:

All long vowels are indicated by doubling the vowel, e.g. long o is written oo.
- The combination ei is reserved for cases where the two vowels are pronounced as distinct sounds, e.g. in the word Supein (スペイン), meaning "Spain".

Syllabic n

In traditional Hepburn:

Syllabic n (ん) is written as n before consonants, but as n' (with an apostrophe) before vowels and y. It is written as m before other labial consonants, i.e. b, m, and p.

In revised Hepburn:

The rendering m before labial consonants is not used, being replaced with n. It is still written n' before vowels and y.

In modified Hepburn:

Syllabic n is always written as n with a macron (n̄), such as is used to indicate long vowels in traditional Hepburn. (This can be achieved on word processors through the use of various specialized fonts, e.g. Times Gandhari.) This renders the use of apostrophes unnecessary.

Double consonants

Double (or "geminate") consonants are marked by doubling the consonant following the sokuon, っ, except for sh→ssh, ch→tch, ts→tts..

Variations

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

Tokyo: not indicated at all. This is common for Japanese words that have been adopted into English. This is also the convention used in the de facto Hepburn used in signs and other English-language information around Japan, mentioned in the paragraph on legal status.
Tohkyoh: indicated with an "h". This is sometimes known as "passport Hepburn", as the Japanese Foreign Ministry has authorized (but not required) this usage in passports. [1]
Toukyou: written using kana spelling: ō as ou or oo (depending on the kana) and ū as uu. This is sometimes called wāpuro style, as this is how text is entered into a Japanese word processor (wādo purosessā) using a keyboard with Roman characters. This is not recognized as standard and is almost exclusively found in amateur romanization. Nevertheless, this method most accurately represents the way that vowels are written in kana, differentiating between おう (as in とうきょう (東京), written Toukyou in this system) and おお (as in とおい (遠い), written tooi in this system).

Some linguists object to Hepburn, as the pronunciation-based spellings can obscure the systematic origins of Japanese phonetic structures, inflections, and conjugations. Supporters argue that Hepburn is not intended as a linguistic tool.