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is the
Cabinet Cabinet or The Cabinet may refer to: Furniture * Cabinetry, a box-shaped piece of furniture with doors and/or drawers * Display cabinet, a piece of furniture with one or more transparent glass sheets or transparent polycarbonate sheets * Filin ...
-ordered
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, a ...
system for transcribing 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 ...
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 ...
. Its name is rendered ''Kunreisiki rômazi'' in the system itself. Kunrei-shiki is sometimes known as the Monbushō system in English because it is taught in the Monbushō-approved elementary school curriculum. The ISO has standardized Kunrei-shiki, under ISO 3602. Kunrei-shiki is based on the older Nihon-shiki romanization, which was modified for modern standard Japanese. For example, the word かなづかい, romanized ''kanadukai'' in Nihon-shiki, is pronounced ''kanazukai'' in standard modern Japanese and is romanized as such in Kunrei-shiki. The system competes with the older Hepburn romanization system, which was promoted by the
SCAP SCAP may refer to: * S.C.A.P., an early French manufacturer of cars and engines * Security Content Automation Protocol * '' The Shackled City Adventure Path'', a role-playing game * SREBP cleavage activating protein * Supervisory Capital Assessm ...
during the Allied
occupation of Japan Japan was occupied and administered by the victorious Allies of World War II from the 1945 surrender of the Empire of Japan at the end of the war until the Treaty of San Francisco took effect in 1952. The occupation, led by the United States ...
, after World War II.


History

Before
World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...
, there was a political conflict between supporters of Hepburn romanisation and supporters of the Nihon-shiki romanisation. In 1930, a board of inquiry, under the aegis of the Minister of Education, was established to determine the proper romanization system. The military increased its control over the civilian government in the
Empire of Japan The also known as the Japanese Empire or Imperial Japan, was a historical nation-state and great power that existed from the Meiji Restoration in 1868 until the enactment of the post-World War II 1947 constitution and subsequent form ...
following the February 26 Incident in 1936, and this nationalistic, militaristic government, by cabinet order (訓令 ''kunrei''), announced on 21 September 1937 that a modified form of Nihon-shiki would be officially adopted as Kunrei-shiki. The form at the time differs slightly from the modern form. Originally, the system was called the ''Kokutei'' (国定, government-authorized) system. The Japanese military-controlled government gradually introduced Kunrei-shiki, which appeared in secondary education, on railway station signboards, on nautical charts, and on the 1:1,000,000 scale International Map of the World.Romanization in Japan
"
Archive
(Paper presented by Japan) United Nations Economic and Social Council. 8 July 1977. p. 3. English only. Retrieved on 15 May 2013.
The military government, which had already led the Empire into the
Second Sino-Japanese War The Second Sino-Japanese War (1937–1945) or War of Resistance (Chinese term) was a military conflict that was primarily waged between the Republic of China and the Empire of Japan. The war made up the Chinese theater of the wider Pacific T ...
and
World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...
, continued to control romanization of the language, such as using Kunrei-shiki in its tourist brochures.Horvat, Andrew.
The Romaji (Roomaji) Conundrum
"

 – Excerpt from Horvat's book: ''Japanese Beyond Words: How to Walk and Talk Like a Native Speaker''. Hosted at the David See-Chai Lam Centre for International Communication of Simon Fraser University. Retrieved on 13 May 2013.
In Japan, some use of Nihon-shiki and Modified Hepburn remained, because some individuals supported the use of those systems. After the imperialistic Japanese government was defeated in 1945, General
Douglas MacArthur Douglas MacArthur (26 January 18805 April 1964) was an American military leader who served as General of the Army for the United States, as well as a field marshal to the Philippine Army. He had served with distinction in World War I, was ...
, the
Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers was the title held by General Douglas MacArthur during the United States-led Allied occupation of Japan following World War II. It issued SCAP Directives (alias SCAPIN, SCAP Index Number) to the Japanese government, aiming to suppress its "milit ...
(SCAP), issued a directive, dated 3 September 1945, that stated that Modified Hepburn was the method to transcribe Japanese names. Some editorials printed in Japanese newspapers advocated for using only Hepburn. Supporters of Hepburn denounced pro-Kunrei-shiki and pro-Nihon-shiki advocates to the SCAP offices by accusing them of being inactive militarists and of collaborating with militarists. Unger said that the nature of Kunrei-shiki led to "pent-up anger" by Hepburn supporters. During the postwar period, several educators and scholars tried to introduce romanized letters as a teaching device and possibility later replacing
kanji are the logographic Chinese characters taken from the Chinese script and used in the writing of Japanese. They were made a major part of the Japanese writing system during the time of Old Japanese and are still used, along with the subsequ ...
. However, Kunrei-shiki had associations with Japanese militarism, and the US occupation was reluctant to promote it. On 9 December 1954, the Japanese government re-confirmed Kunrei-shiki as its official system but with slight modifications.Gottlieb, p. 78. Eleanor Jorden, an American linguist, made textbooks with a modified version of Kunrei-shiki, which were used in the 1960s in courses given to US diplomats. The use of her books did not change the US government's hesitation to use Kunrei-shiki. As of 1974, according to the Geographical Survey Institute (now the
Geospatial Information Authority of Japan The , or GSI, is the national institution responsible for surveying and mapping the national land of Japan. The former name of the organization from 1949 until March 2010 was Geographical Survey Institute; despite the rename, it retains the same ...
), Kunrei-shiki was used for topographical maps, and Modified Hepburn was used for geological maps and aeronautical charts. As of 1978, the National Diet Library used Kunrei-shiki. The
Ministry of Foreign Affairs In many countries, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs is the government department responsible for the state's diplomacy, bilateral, and multilateral relations affairs as well as for providing support for a country's citizens who are abroad. The enti ...
, the
Ministry of International Trade and Industry The was a ministry of the Government of Japan from 1949 to 2001. The MITI was one of the most powerful government agencies in Japan and, at the height of its influence, effectively ran much of Japanese industrial policy, funding research and ...
, and many other official organizations instead used Hepburn, as did ''
The Japan Times ''The Japan Times'' is Japan's largest and oldest English-language daily newspaper. It is published by , a subsidiary of News2u Holdings, Inc.. It is headquartered in the in Kioicho, Chiyoda, Tokyo. History ''The Japan Times'' was launched b ...
'', the JTB Corporation, and many other private organisations.


Legal status

The system was originally promulgated as Japanese Cabinet Order No. 3 as of 21 September 1937. Since it had been overturned by the SCAP during the occupation of Japan, the Japanese government repealed it and decreed again, as Japanese Cabinet Order No.1 as of 29 December 1954. It mandated the use of Kunrei-shiki in "the written expression of Japanese generally". Specific alternative spellings could be used in international relations and to follow established precedent. See Permitted Exceptions for detail

Kunrei-shiki has been recognised, along with Nihon-shiki, in ''ISO 3602:1989. Documentation—Romanisation of Japanese (kana script)'' by the ISO. It was also recommended by the American National Standards Institute, ANSI after it withdrew its own standard, ''ANSI Z39.11-1972 American National Standard System for the Romanization of Japanese (Modified Hepburn)'', in 1994.


Usage

Despite its official recognition, Japanese commonly choose between Nihon-shiki/Kunrei-shiki and Hepburn for any given situation. However, the Japanese government generally uses Hepburn, especially for passports, road signage, and train signage. Most Western publications, as well, and all English-language newspapers use some form of Hepburn. J. Marshall Unger, the author of ''Literacy and Script Reform in Occupation Japan: Reading between the Lines'', said that the Hepburn supporters "understandably" believed that the Kunrei-shiki "compromise" was not fair because of the presence of the "un-English-looking spellings" that the Modified Hepburn supporters had opposed. Andrew Horvat, the author of ''Japanese Beyond Words: How to Walk and Talk Like a Native Speaker'', argued that "by forcing non-native speakers of Japanese with no intentions of learning the language to abide by a system intended for those who have some command of Japanese, the government gave the impression of intolerant language management that would have dire consequences later on." Because Kunrei-shiki is based on
Japanese phonology The phonology of Japanese features about 15 consonant phonemes, the cross-linguistically typical five- vowel system of , and a relatively simple phonotactic distribution of phonemes allowing few consonant clusters. It is traditionally desc ...
rather than the actual phonetic realization, it can cause non-native speakers to pronounce words incorrectly. John Hinds, the author of ''Japanese: Descriptive Grammar'', describes that as "a major disadvantage." It must be noted, however, that words written with Hepburn system are often pronounced incorrectly as well; for example, while English has the sound of Japanese, in English it is rarely written as 'i', which creates the impression that 'i' is supposed to represent — thus �iɾa̠ɡa̠na̠became ɪɹəɡænəin English instead of iɹəɡænə Moreover, whereas Hepburn romanization is English-centric and thus of little to no help for speakers of languages other than English, Kunrei-shiki avoids this problem by not accommodating itself to the orthographic standards of any particular language in the first place and instead only taking into account the morphology of the language it was meant to represent. Additional complications appear with newer kana combinations such as ティーム (チーム) ''team''. In Hepburn, they would be distinguished as different sounds and represented as ''tīmu'' and ''chīmu'' respectively. That gives better indications of the English pronunciations. For some Japanese-speakers, however, the sounds ティ "ti" and チ "chi" are the same phoneme; both are represented in Kunrei-shiki as ''tîmu''. Such complications may be confusing to those who do not know Japanese phonology well. Use of an apostrophe (t'îmu), not unseen in Wāpuro rōmaji, may be a possible solution. Today, the main users of Kunrei-shiki are native speakers of Japanese, especially within Japan, and
linguists Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. It is called a scientific study because it entails a comprehensive, systematic, objective, and precise analysis of all aspects of language, particularly its nature and structure. Lingui ...
studying Japanese. The main advantage of Kunrei-shiki is that it is better able to illustrate Japanese grammar, as Hepburn gives the impression of certain conjugations being irregular (see table, right). The most serious problem of Hepburn in this context is that it may change the
stem Stem or STEM may refer to: Plant structures * Plant stem, a plant's aboveground axis, made of vascular tissue, off which leaves and flowers hang * Stipe (botany), a stalk to support some other structure * Stipe (mycology), the stem of a mushro ...
of a
verb A verb () is a word ( part of speech) that in syntax generally conveys an action (''bring'', ''read'', ''walk'', ''run'', ''learn''), an occurrence (''happen'', ''become''), or a state of being (''be'', ''exist'', ''stand''). In the usual descr ...
, which is not reflected in the underlying morphology of the language. One notable introductory textbook for English-speakers, Eleanor Jorden's '' Japanese: The Spoken Language'', uses her JSL romanization, a system strongly influenced by Kunrei-shiki in its adherence to Japanese phonology, but it is adapted to teaching proper pronunciation of Japanese phonemes.


Kunrei-shiki spellings of kana


Notes

* Characters in red are obsolete in modern Japanese. * When ''he'' (へ) is used as a particle, it is written as ''e'', not ''he'' (as in Nihon-shiki). * When ''ha'' (は) is used as a particle, it is written as ''wa'', not ''ha''. * ''wo'' (を/ヲ) is used only as a particle, written ''o''. * Long vowels are indicated by a circumflex accent: long ''o'' is written ''ô''. * Vowels that are separated by a morpheme boundary are not considered to be a long vowel. For example, ''おもう (思う)'' is written ''omou'', not ''omô''. * Syllabic ''n'' (ん) is written as ''n before vowels and ''y'' but as ''n'' before consonants and at the end of a word. * Geminate consonants 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, ...
(っ). * The first letter in a sentence and all proper nouns are capitalized. * ISO 3602 has the strict form; see Nihon-shiki.


Permitted exceptions

The Cabinet Order makes an exception to the above chart: * In international relations and situations for which prior precedent would make a sudden reform difficult, the spelling given by Chart 2 may also be used: The exceptional clause is not to be confused with other systems of romanization (such as Hepburn) and does not specifically relax other requirements, such as marking long vowels.


See also

* List of ISO transliterations


Sources

* Geographical Survey Institute (Kokudo Chiriin). ''Bulletin of the Geographical Survey Institute, Volumes 20-23''. 1974. * Gottlieb, Nanette.
The Rōmaji movement in Japan
" '' Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society'' (Third Series). January 2010. Volume 20, Issue 1. p. 75-88. Published online on November 30, 2009. Available at Cambridge Journals. DOI doi:10.1017/S1356186309990320. * Hadamitzky, Wolfgang. ''Kanji & Kana Revised Edition'' (漢字・かな).
Tuttle Publishing Tuttle Publishing, originally the Charles E. Tuttle Company, is a book publishing company that includes Tuttle, Periplus Editions, and Journey Editions.
, 1997. , 9780804820776. * Horvat, Andrew. ''Japanese Beyond Words: How to Walk and Talk Like a Native Speaker''. Stone Bridge Press, 2000. , 9781880656426. * Hinds, John. ''Japanese: Descriptive Grammar''. Taylor & Francis Group, 1986. , 9780415010337. * 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 techn ...
, April 1, 1978. , 9780824720216. * Unger, J. Marshall. ''Literacy and Script Reform in Occupation Japan : Reading between the Lines: Reading between the Lines''.
Oxford University Press Oxford University Press (OUP) is the university press of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world, and its printing history dates back to the 1480s. Having been officially granted the legal right to print book ...
. July 8, 1996. , 9780195356380. *


References


External links

* Horvat, Andrew.
The Romaji (Roomaji) Conundrum
"

 – Excerpt from Horvat's book: ''Japanese Beyond Words: How to Walk and Talk Like a Native Speaker''. Hosted at the David See-Chai Lam Centre for International Communication of Simon Fraser University. {{ISO standards Romanization of Japanese ISO 3602 Japanese writing system