Hepburn romanization

File:Kana & Romaji Chart.svg

Chart of kana and their Hepburn romanizations, including both hiragana (roman) and katakana (italicized)

Hepburn (Template:Langx, Template:Lit) is the main system of romanization for the Japanese language. The system was originally published in 1867 by American Christian missionary and physician James 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 of English orthography to phonetically transcribe sounds: for example, the syllable () is written as Template:Transliteration and () is written as Template:Transliteration, reflecting their spellings in English (compare to Template:Transliteration and Template:Transliteration in the more systematic Nihon-shiki and Kunrei-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.

Although Kunrei-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 the Japanese 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.

History

File:James Curtis Hepburn.jpg

James Curtis Hepburn, creator of the system

In 1867, American Presbyterian missionary doctor James Curtis Hepburn published the first Japanese–English dictionary, in which he introduced a new system for the romanization of Japanese into Latin script. He published a second edition in 1872 and a third edition in 1886, which introduced minor changes. The third edition's system had been adopted in the previous year by the Template:Nihongo3, a group of Japanese and foreign scholars who promoted a replacement of the Japanese script with a romanized system.

Hepburn romanization, loosely based on the conventions of English orthography (spelling), stood in opposition to Nihon-shiki, which had been developed in Japan in 1881 as a script replacement. Compared to Hepburn, Nihon-shiki is more systematic in its representation of the Japanese syllabary (kana), as each symbol corresponds to a phoneme. However, the notation requires further explanation for accurate pronunciation by non-Japanese speakers: for example, the syllables and , which are written as Template:Transliteration and Template:Transliteration in Hepburn, are rendered as Template:Transliteration and Template:Transliteration in Nihon-shiki. After Nihon-shiki was presented to the Template:Transliteration 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.

After the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–1905, the two factions resurfaced as the Template:Nihongo3, which supported Hepburn's style, and the Template:Nihongo3, which supported Nihon-shiki. In 1908, Hepburn was revised by educator Kanō Jigorō and others of the Template:Transliteration, which began calling it the Template:Nihongo3 or Template:Nihongo3.

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. The Commission eventually decided on a slightly modified "compromise" version of Nihon-shiki, which was chosen for official use by cabinet ordinance on September 21, 1937; this system is known today as Kunrei-shiki. On September 3, 1945, at the beginning of the occupation of Japan after World War II, Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers Douglas MacArthur issued a directive mandating the use of modified Hepburn by occupation forces. The directive had no legal force, however, and a revised version of Kunrei-shiki was reissued by cabinet ordinance on December 9, 1954, after the end of occupation.

Although it lacks de jure status, Hepburn remains the de facto standard for multiple applications in Japan. As of 1977, many government organizations used Hepburn, including the Ministry of International Trade and Industry; the Ministry of Foreign Affairs requires the use of Hepburn on passports, and the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport requires its use on transport signs, including road signs and railway station signs. According to a survey by the Japanese Agency for Cultural Affairs in 2022, the Japanese primarily use Hepburn to spell place names. Hepburn is also used by private organizations, including The Japan Times and the Japan Travel Bureau.

American National Standard System for the Romanization of Japanese (ANSI Z39.11-1972), based on modified Hepburn, was approved in 1971 and published in 1972 by the American National Standards Institute. In 1989, it was proposed for International Organization for Standardization (ISO) standard 3602, but was rejected in favor of Kunrei-shiki. ANSI Z39.11-1972 was deprecated as a standard in 1994.

In January 2024, the Cultural Affairs Agency proposed revising the 1954 Cabinet ordinance to make Hepburn the standard romanization system of Japan.

Variants

File:Toyooka Station Sign (cropped).jpg

Former Japan National Railways–style board of Toyooka Station. For the two adjacent stations, "GEMBUDŌ" follows the Hepburn romanization system, but "KOKUHU" follows both the Nihon-shiki and Kunrei-shiki systems.

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) often considered authoritative (although changes in kana usage must be accounted for). It is characterized by the rendering of syllabic Template:Transliteration as Template:Transliteration before the consonants b, m and p: for example, Template:Transliteration for Template:Category handler.
• Modified Hepburn, also known as Revised Hepburn, in which (among other changes) the rendering of syllabic Template:Transliteration as Template:Transliteration before bilabial consonants is no longer used: Template:Transliteration for Template:Category handler. The version of the system published in the third (1954) and later editions of Kenkyusha's New Japanese-English Dictionary are often considered authoritative; it was adopted in 1989 by the Library of Congress as one of its ALA-LC romanizations, and is the most common variant of Hepburn romanization used today.

In Japan itself, there are some variants officially mandated for various uses:

• , which mostly follows Modified Hepburn, except syllabic Template:Transliteration is rendered as in Traditional. Japan Railways and other major railways use it for station names.
• , used for road signs, which otherwise follows Modified Hepburn closely but specifies that macrons are not to be used.
• , a permissive standard that renders the syllabic Template:Transliteration as Template:Transliteration before b, m and p. Most of the long vowels are not rendered, and macrons are not used above the letter. Moreover, this standard explicitly allows the use of in personal names with special approval, notably for passports. In particular, the long vowel ō can be romanized Template:Transliteration, Template:Transliteration or Template:Transliteration (Template:Transliteration, Template:Transliteration or Template:Transliteration for Template:Category handler).

Details of the variants can be found below.

Obsolete variants

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:

Second version

• Template:Category handler and Template:Category handler were written as Template:Transliteration: Yedo
• Template:Category handler and Template:Category handler were written as Template:Transliteration: kudzu, tsudzuku
• Template:Category handler, Template:Category handler, and Template:Category handler were written as Template:Transliteration, Template:Transliteration and Template:Transliteration
• Template:Category handler (modern: Template:Category handler) was written as Template:Transliteration: Kuwannon, kuwaidan

First version

The following differences are in addition to those in the second version:

• Template:Category handler was written as Template:Transliteration.
• Template:Category handler was written as Template:Transliteration.
• Template:Category handler and Template:Category handler were written as Template:Transliteration.

Features

The main feature of Hepburn is that its orthography is based on English phonology. 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, Template:Category handler is written Template:Transliteration not Template:Transliteration. This transcription is thus only partly phonological.

Some linguists such as Harold E. Palmer, Daniel Jones and Otto Jespersen object to Hepburn, contending that the pronunciation-based spellings can obscure the systematic origins of Japanese phonetic structures, inflections, and conjugations. 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.

Long vowels

In Hepburn, vowel combinations that form a long sound are usually indicated with a macron (◌̄). Other adjacent vowels, such as those separated by a morpheme boundary, are written separately:

Vowels part of the same morpheme

	in traditional Hepburn	in modified Hepburn
A + A	aa: Template:Category handler – Template:Transliteration 'grandmother' (ba + a)	ā: Template:Category handler – Template:Transliteration 'grandmother' (ba + a)
I + I	ii: Template:Category handler – [[Niigata (city)|Template:Transliteration]] (ni + i)
U + U	ū: Template:Category handler – Template:Transliteration 'mathematics' (su + u)
E + E	ee: Template:Category handler – Template:Transliteration 'older sister' (ne + e)	ē: Template:Category handler – Template:Transliteration 'older sister' (ne + e)
O + O	ō: Template:Category handler – Template:Transliteration 'detour' (to + o)
O + U	ō: Template:Category handler – Template:Transliteration 'study' (kyo + u)

Vowels part of separate morphemes

	In traditional and modified Hepburn
A + A	aa: Template:Category handler – Template:Transliteration + Template:Transliteration – Template:Transliteration 'evil'
I + I	ii: Template:Category handler – Template:Transliteration + Template:Transliteration – Template:Transliteration 'grey' (also terminal adjectives: Template:Category handler – Template:Transliteration + Template:Transliteration – Template:Transliteration 'good')
U + U	uu: Template:Category handler – Template:Transliteration + Template:Transliteration – Template:Transliteration 'lake' (also terminal verbs: Template:Category handler – Template:Transliteration + Template:Transliteration – Template:Transliteration 'to eat')
E + E	ee: Template:Category handler – Template:Transliteration + Template:Transliteration – Template:Transliteration 'open veranda'
O + O	oo: Template:Category handler – Template:Transliteration + Template:Transliteration – Template:Transliteration 'dance of joy'
O + U	ou: Template:Category handler – Template:Transliteration + Template:Transliteration – Template:Transliteration 'calf' (also terminal verbs: Template:Category handler – Template:Transliteration + Template:Transliteration – Template:Transliteration 'to get lost')

All other vowel combinations are always written separately:

• E + I: Template:Category handler – Template:Transliteration + Template:Transliteration – Template:Transliteration 'uniform' (despite E + I often being pronounced as a long E)
• U + I: Template:Category handler – Template:Transliteration + Template:Transliteration – Template:Transliteration 'light (in weight)'
• O + I: Template:Category handler – Template:Transliteration – Template:Transliteration 'nephew'

Loanwords

In foreign loanwords, long vowels followed by a chōonpu (ー) are indicated with macrons:

• Template:Category handler: se + (ー) + ra + (ー) = Template:Transliteration 'sailor'
• Template:Category handler: ta + ku + shi + (ー) = Template:Transliteration 'taxi'
• Template:Category handler: ko + n + ku + (ー) + ru = Template:Transliteration 'competition'
• Template:Category handler: ba + re + (ー) + bo + (ー) + ru = Template:Transliteration 'volleyball'
• Template:Category handler: so + (ー) + ru = Template:Transliteration 'sole (of a shoe, etc.)'

Adjacent vowels in loanwords are written separately:

• Template:Category handler: ba + re + e – Template:Transliteration 'ballet'
• Template:Category handler: mi + i + ra – Template:Transliteration 'mummy'
• Template:Category handler: so + u + ru – Template:Transliteration 'soul', 'Seoul'

Variations

There are many variations on the Hepburn system for indicating long vowels with a macron. For example, Template:Category handler (Template:Category handler) is properly romanized as Tōkyō, but can also be written as:

• Template:Transliteration – not indicated at all. Common for Japanese words that have been adopted into English, and the de facto convention for Hepburn used in signs and other English-language information around Japan.
• Template:Transliteration – indicated with circumflex accents, as in the alternative Nihon-shiki and Kunrei-shiki romanizations.
• Template:Transliteration – indicated with an h (only applies after o). This is sometimes known as "passport Hepburn", as the Japanese Foreign Ministry has authorized (but not required) it in passports.
• Template:Transliteration – written using kana spelling: ō as ou or oo (depending on the kana). This is also known as Template:Transliteration style, as it reflects how text is entered into a Japanese word processor by using a keyboard with Roman characters. Template:Transliteration more accurately represents the way that ō is written in kana by differentiating between Template:Category handler (as in Template:Category handler (Template:Category handler), Template:Transliteration in Template:Transliteration) and Template:Category handler (as in Template:Category handler (Template:Category handler), Template:Transliteration in Template:Transliteration); however, it fails to differentiate between long vowels and vowels separated by a morpheme boundary.
• Template:Transliteration – written by doubling the long vowels. Some dictionaries such as the Pocket Kenkyusha Japanese Dictionary and Basic English Writers' Japanese-English Wordbook follow this style, and it is also used in the JSL form of romanization.

Particles

In traditional and modified:

• When Template:Category handler is used as a particle, it is written Template:Transliteration.

In traditional Hepburn:

• When Template:Category handler is used as a particle, Hepburn originally recommended Template:Transliteration. This spelling is obsolete, and it is commonly written as Template:Transliteration (Romaji-Hirome-Kai, 1974).
• When Template:Category handler is used as a particle, it is written Template:Transliteration.

In modified Hepburn:

• When Template:Category handler is used as a particle, it is written Template:Transliteration.
• When Template:Category handler is used as a particle, it is written Template:Transliteration.

Syllabic n

In traditional Hepburn:

Syllabic Template:Transliteration (Template:Category handler) is written as Template:Transliteration before consonants, but as Template:Transliteration before labial consonants: b, m, and p. It is sometimes written as n- (with a hyphen) before vowels and y (to avoid confusion between, for example, Template:Category handler n + a and Template:Category handler Template:Transliteration, and Template:Category handler n + ya and Template:Category handler Template:Transliteration), but its hyphen usage is not clear.

• Template:Category handler: Template:Transliteration – guide
• Template:Category handler: Template:Transliteration – Gunma
• Template:Category handler: Template:Transliteration – simple
• Template:Category handler: Template:Transliteration – trust

In modified Hepburn:

The rendering m before labial consonants is not used and is replaced with Template:Transliteration. It is written n' (with an apostrophe) before vowels and y.

• Template:Category handler: Template:Transliteration – guide
• Template:Category handler: Template:Transliteration – Gunma
• Template:Category handler: Template:Transliteration – simple
• Template:Category handler: Template:Transliteration – trust

Long consonants

Elongated (or "geminate") consonant sounds are marked by doubling the consonant following a sokuon, Template:Category handler; for consonants that are digraphs in Hepburn (sh, ch, ts), only the first consonant of the set is doubled, except for ch, which is replaced by tch.

• Template:Category handler: Template:Transliteration – result
• Template:Category handler: Template:Transliteration – quickly
• Template:Category handler: Template:Transliteration – all the time
• Template:Category handler: Template:Transliteration – ticket
• Template:Category handler: Template:Transliteration – magazine
• Template:Category handler: Template:Transliteration – together
• Template:Category handler: Template:Transliteration (not Template:Transliteration) – this way
• Template:Category handler: Template:Transliteration (not Template:Transliteration) – matcha
• Template:Category handler: Template:Transliteration – three

Romanization charts

Gojūon					Yōon
あ ア Template:Transliteration	い イ Template:Transliteration	う ウ Template:Transliteration	え エ Template:Transliteration	お オ Template:Transliteration
か カ Template:Transliteration	き キ Template:Transliteration	く ク Template:Transliteration	け ケ Template:Transliteration	こ コ Template:Transliteration	きゃ キャ Template:Transliteration	きゅ キュ Template:Transliteration	きょ キョ Template:Transliteration
さ サ Template:Transliteration	し シ Template:Transliteration	す ス Template:Transliteration	せ セ Template:Transliteration	そ ソ Template:Transliteration	しゃ シャ Template:Transliteration	しゅ シュ Template:Transliteration	しょ ショ Template:Transliteration
た タ Template:Transliteration	ち チ Template:Transliteration	つ ツ Template:Transliteration	て テ Template:Transliteration	と ト Template:Transliteration	ちゃ チャ Template:Transliteration	ちゅ チュ Template:Transliteration	ちょ チョ Template:Transliteration
な ナ Template:Transliteration	に ニ Template:Transliteration	ぬ ヌ Template:Transliteration	ね ネ Template:Transliteration	の ノ Template:Transliteration	にゃ ニャ Template:Transliteration	にゅ ニュ Template:Transliteration	にょ ニョ Template:Transliteration
は ハ Template:Transliteration	ひ ヒ Template:Transliteration	ふ フ Template:Transliteration	へ ヘ Template:Transliteration	ほ ホ Template:Transliteration	ひゃ ヒャ Template:Transliteration	ひゅ ヒュ Template:Transliteration	ひょ ヒョ Template:Transliteration
ま マ Template:Transliteration	み ミ Template:Transliteration	む ム Template:Transliteration	め メ Template:Transliteration	も モ Template:Transliteration	みゃ ミャ Template:Transliteration	みゅ ミュ Template:Transliteration	みょ ミョ Template:Transliteration
や ヤ Template:Transliteration		ゆ ユ Template:Transliteration		よ ヨ Template:Transliteration
ら ラ Template:Transliteration	り リ Template:Transliteration	る ル Template:Transliteration	れ レ Template:Transliteration	ろ ロ Template:Transliteration	りゃ リャ Template:Transliteration	りゅ リュ Template:Transliteration	りょ リョ Template:Transliteration
わ ワ Template:Transliteration	ゐ ヰ Template:Transliteration †		ゑ ヱ Template:Transliteration †	を ヲ Template:Transliteration ‡
				ん ン Template:Transliteration /Template:Transliteration
が ガ Template:Transliteration	ぎ ギ Template:Transliteration	ぐ グ Template:Transliteration	げ ゲ Template:Transliteration	ご ゴ Template:Transliteration	ぎゃ ギャ Template:Transliteration	ぎゅ ギュ Template:Transliteration	ぎょ ギョ Template:Transliteration
ざ ザ Template:Transliteration	じ ジ Template:Transliteration	ず ズ Template:Transliteration	ぜ ゼ Template:Transliteration	ぞ ゾ Template:Transliteration	じゃ ジャ Template:Transliteration	じゅ ジュ Template:Transliteration	じょ ジョ Template:Transliteration
だ ダ Template:Transliteration	ぢ ヂ Template:Transliteration	づ ヅ Template:Transliteration	で デ Template:Transliteration	ど ド Template:Transliteration	ぢゃ ヂャ Template:Transliteration	ぢゅ ヂュ Template:Transliteration	ぢょ ヂョ Template:Transliteration
ば バ Template:Transliteration	び ビ Template:Transliteration	ぶ ブ Template:Transliteration	べ ベ Template:Transliteration	ぼ ボ Template:Transliteration	びゃ ビャ Template:Transliteration	びゅ ビュ Template:Transliteration	びょ ビョ Template:Transliteration
ぱ パ Template:Transliteration	ぴ ピ Template:Transliteration	ぷ プ Template:Transliteration	ぺ ペ Template:Transliteration	ぽ ポ Template:Transliteration	ぴゃ ピャ Template:Transliteration	ぴゅ ピュ Template:Transliteration	ぴょ ピョ Template:Transliteration

• Each entry contains hiragana, katakana, and Hepburn romanization, in that order.
• † — The characters in red are historical characters and are obsolete in modern Japanese. In modern Hepburn romanization, they are often undefined.
• ‡ — The characters in blue are rarely used outside of their status as a particle in modern Japanese, and romanization follows the rules above.

Extended katakana

These combinations are used mainly to represent the sounds in words in other languages.

Digraphs with orange backgrounds are the general ones used for loanwords or foreign places or names, and those with blue backgrounds are used for more accurate transliterations of foreign sounds, suggested by the Cabinet of Japan's Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology. Katakana combinations with beige backgrounds are suggested by the American National Standards Institute and the British Standards Institution as possible uses. Ones with purple backgrounds appear on the 1974 version of the Hyōjun-shiki formatting.

	イィ Template:Transliteration		イェ Template:Transliteration
ウァ Template:Transliteration*	ウィ Template:Transliteration	ウゥ Template:Transliteration*	ウェ Template:Transliteration	ウォ Template:Transliteration
		ウュ Template:Transliteration
ヴァ Template:Transliteration	ヴィ Template:Transliteration	ヴ Template:Transliteration⁑	ヴェ Template:Transliteration	ヴォ Template:Transliteration
ヴャ Template:Transliteration		ヴュ Template:Transliteration	ヴィェ Template:Transliteration	ヴョ Template:Transliteration
			キェ Template:Transliteration
			ギェ Template:Transliteration
クァ Template:Transliteration	クィ Template:Transliteration		クェ Template:Transliteration	クォ Template:Transliteration
クヮ Template:Transliteration
グァ Template:Transliteration	グィ Template:Transliteration		グェ Template:Transliteration	グォ Template:Transliteration
グヮ Template:Transliteration
			シェ Template:Transliteration
			ジェ Template:Transliteration
	スィ Template:Transliteration
	ズィ Template:Transliteration
			チェ Template:Transliteration
ツァ Template:Transliteration	ツィ Template:Transliteration		ツェ Template:Transliteration	ツォ Template:Transliteration
		ツュ Template:Transliteration
	ティ Template:Transliteration	トゥ Template:Transliteration
		テュ Template:Transliteration
	ディ Template:Transliteration	ドゥ Template:Transliteration
		デュ Template:Transliteration
			ニェ Template:Transliteration
			ヒェ Template:Transliteration
			ビェ Template:Transliteration
			ピェ Template:Transliteration
ファ Template:Transliteration	フィ Template:Transliteration		フェ Template:Transliteration	フォ Template:Transliteration
フャ Template:Transliteration		フュ Template:Transliteration	フィェ Template:Transliteration	フョ Template:Transliteration
		ホゥ Template:Transliteration
			ミェ Template:Transliteration
			リェ Template:Transliteration
ラ゚ Template:Transliteration	リ゚ Template:Transliteration	ル゚ Template:Transliteration	レ゚ Template:Transliteration	ロ゚ Template:Transliteration
ヷ Template:Transliteration⁂	ヸ Template:Transliteration⁂		ヹ Template:Transliteration⁂	ヺ Template:Transliteration⁂

• * — The use of Template:Category handler in these two cases to represent w is rare in modern Japanese except for Internet slang and transcription of the Latin sound into katakana. E.g.: ミネルウァ (Mineruwa "Minerva", from Latin MINERVA ); ウゥルカーヌス (Wurukānusu "Vulcan", from Latin VVLCANVS, Vulcānus ). The wa-type of foreign sounds (as in watt or wipe) is usually transcribed to ワ (wa), while the wu-type (as in wood or woman) is usually to ウ (Template:Transliteration) or ウー (Template:Transliteration).
• ⁑ — Template:Category handler has a rarely used hiragana form in Template:Category handler that is also Template:Transliteration in Hepburn romanization systems.
• ⁂ — The characters in green are obsolete (out of date) in modern Japanese and very rarely used.

See also

• List of ISO romanizations

External links

• Preface of Hepburn's original dictionary, explaining romanization: First edition, Third edition