Hepburn (Japanese:ヘボン式ローマ字,romanized: Hebon-shiki rōmaji,lit.'Hepburn-styleRoman letters') is the main system ofromanization for the Japanese language. The system was originally published in 1867 by American Christianmissionary and physicianJames Curtis Hepburn as the standard in the first edition of his Japanese–English dictionary. The system is distinct from other romanization methods in its use ofEnglish orthography to phonetically transcribe sounds: for example, the syllable[ɕi] (し) is written asshi and[tɕa] (ちゃ) is written ascha, reflecting their spellings in English (compare tosi andtya in the more systematicNihon-shiki andKunrei-shiki systems).
In 1886, Hepburn published the third edition of his dictionary, codifying a revised version of the system that is known today as "traditional Hepburn". A version with additional revisions, known as "modified Hepburn", was published in 1908.
AlthoughKunrei-shiki is the style favored by the Japanese government, Hepburn remains the most popular method of Japanese romanization. It is learned by most foreign students of the language, and is used within Japan for romanizing personal names, locations, and other information, such as train tables and road signs. Because the system's orthography is based on English phonology instead of a systematic transcription of theJapanese syllabary, individuals who do not speak Japanese and know English phonology will generally be more accurate when pronouncing unfamiliar words romanized in the Hepburn style compared to other systems.[1]
In 1867, AmericanPresbyterian missionary doctorJames Curtis Hepburn published the first Japanese–English dictionary, in which he introduced a new system for theromanization of Japanese intoLatin script.[2] He published a second edition in 1872 and a third edition in 1886, which introduced minor changes.[3] The third edition's system had been adopted in the previous year by theRōmaji-kai (羅馬字会, "Romanization Club"), a group of Japanese and foreign scholars who promoted a replacement of theJapanese script with a romanized system.[4]
Hepburn romanization, loosely based on the conventions ofEnglish orthography (spelling), stood in opposition toNihon-shiki, which had been developed in Japan in 1881 as a script replacement.[4] Compared to Hepburn,Nihon-shiki is more systematic in its representation of the Japanesesyllabary (kana), as each symbol corresponds to aphoneme.[5] However, the notation requires further explanation for accurate pronunciation by non-Japanese speakers: for example, the syllables[ɕi] and[tɕa], which are written asshi andcha in Hepburn, are rendered assi andtya inNihon-shiki.[4] AfterNihon-shiki was presented to theRōmaji-kai in 1886, a dispute began between the supporters of the two systems, which resulted in a standstill and an eventual halt to the organization's activities in 1892.[6]
After theRusso-Japanese War of 1904–1905, the two factions resurfaced as theRōmaji Hirome-kai (ローマ字ひろめ会, "Society for the Spread of Romanization"), which supported Hepburn's style, and theNihon no Rōmaji-sha (日本のローマ字社, "Romanization Society of Japan"), which supportedNihon-shiki.[6] In 1908, Hepburn was revised by educatorKanō Jigorō and others of theRōmaji Hirome-kai, which began calling it theShūsei Hebon-shiki (修正ヘボン式, "modified Hepburn system") orHyōjun-shiki (標準式, "standard system").[4]
In 1930, a Special Romanization Study Commission, headed by the Minister of Education, was appointed by the government to devise a standardized form of romanization.[5] The Commission eventually decided on a slightly modified "compromise" version ofNihon-shiki, which was chosen for official use bycabinet ordinance on September 21, 1937; this system is known today asKunrei-shiki.[5] On September 3, 1945, at the beginning of theoccupation of Japan afterWorld War II,Supreme Commander for the Allied PowersDouglas MacArthur issued a directive mandating the use of modified Hepburn by occupation forces.[7] The directive had no legal force, however, and a revised version ofKunrei-shiki was reissued by cabinet ordinance on December 9, 1954, after the end of occupation.[8]
In January 2024, theCultural Affairs Agency proposed revising the 1954 Cabinet ordinance to make Hepburn the standard romanization system of Japan.[15]
There are many variants of the Hepburn romanization. The two most common styles are as follows:
Traditional Hepburn, as defined in various editions of Hepburn's dictionary, with the third edition (1886)[16] often considered authoritative[17] (althoughchanges in kana usage must be accounted for). It is characterized by the rendering of syllabicn asm before the consonantsb,m andp: for example,Shimbashi for新橋.
Modified Hepburn, also known asRevised Hepburn, in which (among other changes) the rendering of syllabicn asm beforebilabial consonants is no longer used:Shinbashi for新橋. The version of the system published in the third (1954) and later editions ofKenkyusha's New Japanese-English Dictionary are often considered authoritative; it was adopted in 1989 by theLibrary of Congress as one of itsALA-LC romanizations,[14] and is the most common variant of Hepburn romanization used today.[18]
In Japan itself, there are some variants officially mandated for various uses:
Railway Standard (鉄道掲示基準規程,Tetsudō Keiji Kijun Kitei),[19] which mostly follows Modified Hepburn, except syllabicn is rendered as in Traditional.Japan Railways and other major railways use it for station names.
Road Sign Romaji (Hepburn) (道路標識のローマ字(ヘボン式),Dōrohyōji no rōmaji (Hebonshiki)), used for road signs, which otherwise follows Modified Hepburn closely but specifies that macrons are not to be used.[20]
Ministry of Foreign Affairs Passport Standard (外務省旅券規定,Gaimushō Ryoken Kitei),[21] a permissive standard that renders the syllabicn asm beforeb,m andp. Most of the long vowels are not rendered, and macrons are not used above the letter. Moreover, this standard explicitly allows the use of "non-Hepburn romaji" (非ヘボン式ローマ字,hi-Hebon-shiki rōmaji) in personal names with special approval,[22] notably for passports. In particular, the long vowelō can be romanizedoh,oo orou (Satoh,Satoo orSatou for佐藤).
The romanizations set out in the first and second versions of Hepburn's dictionary are primarily of historical interest. Notable differences from the third and later versions include:
The main feature of Hepburn is that itsorthography is based on Englishphonology. More technically, when syllables that are constructed systematically according to the Japanese syllabary contain an "unstable" consonant in the modern spoken language, the orthography is changed to something that better matches the real sound as an English-speaker would pronounce it. For example,し is writtenshi notsi. This transcription is thus only partly phonological.
Some linguists such asHarold E. Palmer,Daniel Jones andOtto Jespersen object to Hepburn, contending that the pronunciation-based spellings can obscure the systematic origins of Japanese phonetic structures, inflections, and conjugations.[25] Since the vowel sounds in Hepburn are similar to the vowel sounds in Italian, and the consonants similar to those of many other languages, in particular English, speakers unfamiliar with Japanese will generally be more accurate when pronouncing unfamiliar words romanized in the Hepburn style compared to other systems.[1]
In Hepburn, vowel combinations that form a long sound are usually indicated with amacron (◌̄). Other adjacent vowels, such as those separated by amorpheme boundary, are written separately:
There are many variations on the Hepburn system for indicating long vowels with a macron. For example,東京 (とうきょう) is properly romanized asTōkyō, but can also be written as:
Tokyo – not indicated at all. Common for Japanese words that have been adopted into English, and thede facto convention for Hepburn used in signs and other English-language information around Japan.
Tohkyoh – indicated with anh (only applies aftero). This is sometimes known as "passport Hepburn", as the Japanese Foreign Ministry has authorized (but not required) it in passports.[30][31][32]
Toukyou – written usingkana spelling:ō asou oroo (depending on the kana). This is also known aswāpuro style, as it reflects how text is entered into a Japanese word processor by using a keyboard withRoman characters.Wāpuro more accurately represents the way thatō is written in kana by differentiating betweenおう (as inとうきょう (東京),Toukyou inwāpuro) andおお (as inとおい (遠い),tooi inwāpuro); however, it fails to differentiate between long vowels and vowels separated by a morpheme boundary.
Tookyoo – written by doubling the long vowels. Some dictionaries such as thePocket Kenkyusha Japanese Dictionary[33] andBasic English Writers' Japanese-English Wordbook follow this style, and it is also used in theJSL form of romanization.
Whenへ is used as a particle, Hepburn originally recommendedye.[26]This spelling is obsolete, and it is commonly written ase (Romaji-Hirome-Kai, 1974[34]).
Syllabicn (ん) is written asn before consonants, but asm beforelabial consonants:b,m, andp. It is sometimes written asn- (with a hyphen) before vowels andy (to avoid confusion between, for example,んあn + a andなna, andんやn + ya andにゃnya), but its hyphen usage is not clear.
Elongated (or "geminate") consonant sounds are marked by doubling the consonant following asokuon,っ; for consonants that are digraphs in Hepburn (sh,ch,ts), only the first consonant of the set is doubled, except forch, which is replaced bytch.[26][27]
Each entry containshiragana,katakana, and Hepburn romanization, in that order.
† — The characters inred are historical characters and are obsolete in modern Japanese.[35][36] In modern Hepburn romanization, they are often undefined.[27]
‡ — The characters inblue are rarely used outside of their status as a particle in modern Japanese,[28] and romanization follows the rulesabove.
* — The use ofウ in these two cases to representw is rare in modern Japanese except for Internet slang and transcription of the Latin sound[w] into katakana. E.g.:ミネルウァ (Mineruwa "Minerva", from LatinMINERVA[mɪˈnɛrwa]);ウゥルカーヌス (Wurukānusu "Vulcan", from LatinVVLCANVS,Vulcānus[wʊlˈkaːnʊs]). Thewa-type of foreign sounds (as inwatt orwipe) is usually transcribed to ワ (wa), while thewu-type (as inwood orwoman) is usually to ウ (u) or ウー (ū).
⁑ —ヴ has a rarely usedhiragana form inゔ that is alsovu in Hepburn romanization systems.
⁂ — The characters ingreen are obsolete (out of date) in modern Japanese and very rarely used.[35][36]
^abHadamitzky, Wolfgang; Spahn, Mark (October 2005)."Romanization systems".Wolfgang Hadamitzky: Japan-related Textbooks, Dictionaries, and Reference Works.Archived from the original on January 24, 2017. RetrievedAugust 10, 2017.
^和英語林集成第三版 [Digital 'Japanese English Forest Collection'].Meiji Gakuin University Library (in Japanese). Meiji Gakuin University. March 2010 [2006].Archived from the original on October 22, 2016. RetrievedAugust 10, 2017.
^"鉄道掲示基準規程". Homepage1.nifty.com. Archived fromthe original on March 1, 2012. RetrievedJuly 13, 2012.
^道路標識のローマ字(ヘボン式) の綴り方 [How to spell Roman letters (Hepburn style) of road signs].Kictec (in Japanese). June 14, 2012.Archived from the original on April 20, 2016. RetrievedAugust 10, 2017.
^"ヘボン式ローマ字綴方表". Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan.Archived from the original on August 10, 2022. RetrievedMay 16, 2022.
^Consulate-General of Japan in San Francisco.ヘボン式ローマ字綴方表 [Table of Spelling in Hepburn Romanization](PDF) (in Japanese). Archived fromthe original(PDF) on May 13, 2012. RetrievedDecember 13, 2011.
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