Revised request: Japanese transliteration variants
Frank Bennett
biercenator at gmail.com
Wed Sep 2 05:49:00 CEST 2009
On Wed, Sep 2, 2009 at 10:33 AM, Peter Constable<petercon at microsoft.com> wrote:
> In terms of inherent mnemonics, the subtag "strict" has a generic meaning. (There could be lots of other scenarios involving sub-variants that could be called "strict".) There have been debates here in the past over generic tags. If you look in the list of registration forms
>
> http://www.iana.org/assignments/lang-subtags-templates/index.html
>
> you'll see that we have managed to avoid generic subtags. (IIRC, "western" and "eastern" were proposed for Armenian variants, and alternatives were chosen instead.)
>
> So, what about something like "nihonshi" or "nihon"? (Prefix would still be "ja-Latn-kunrei"
I can see the benefit in that. If the name is not to be generic, it
can immediately follow the ja-Latn prefix, and that would be safer all
around, actually. Kunrei and Nihon-shiki were installed as ISO
standards in 1994, but we don't know what the future holds, it might
not have official status as "the strict version of Kunrei"
indefinitely. Nihon-shiki does have a history in its own right (it
was first published in 1885, I believe, more than half a century
before Kunrei), so there is justification for treating it as an
independent variant.
Concerning the specific name, "nihon" is preferable, as "nihonshi"
would be immediately understood by a native speaker of the language to
mean "Japanese history", and would not bring "nihon-shiki" to mind.
[I thought the contraction "nisshiki" (derived from the leading Han
characters in the two words composing "nihon-shiki" might be possible,
but I just did a Net check of the term, and it apparently signifies a
hybrid cooking style that was exported to Korea and Taiwan under
Japanese occupation. Probably not a good choice.]
Frank's third revised proposal runs therefore as follows:
Type: variant
Subtag: hepburn
Description: Revised Hepburn romanization.
Prefix: ja-Latn
Type: variant
Subtag: kunrei
Description: Kunrei-shiki romanization, as defined in ISO-3602.
Prefix: ja-Latn
Type: variant
Subtag: nihon
Description: Nihon-shiki romanization, as defined in ISO-3602 Strict.
Prefix: ja-Latn
>
>
> Peter
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: ietf-languages-bounces at alvestrand.no [mailto:ietf-languages-bounces at alvestrand.no] On Behalf Of Frank Bennett
> Sent: Tuesday, September 01, 2009 2:38 PM
> To: Phillips, Addison
> Cc: ietf-languages at iana.org
> Subject: Re: Revised request: Japanese transliteration variants
>
> On Tue, Sep 1, 2009 at 11:46 PM, Phillips, Addison<addison at amazon.com> wrote:
>> Hello Frank,
>>
>> Please note that "nihonshiki" is too long to be a valid subtag (the limit is eight characters). You should propose a shorter alternative.
>
> Thank you, and my apologies for the back-and-forth over this.
>
> As "Nihon-shiki" transliteration is formally registered with the ISO as a variant of "Kunrei", it should be treated as a sub-variant of that transliteration method. I would like to revise the proposal as follows. To avoid confusion, please refer to this as "Frank's second revised proposal":
>
> Type: variant
> Subtag: hepburn
> Description: Revised Hepburn romanization.
> Prefix: ja-Latn
>
> Type: variant
> Subtag: kunrei
> Description: Kunrei-shiki romanization, as defined in ISO-3602.
> Prefix: ja-Latn
>
> Type: variant
> Subtag: strict
> Description: Nihon-shiki romanization, as defined in ISO-3602 Strict.
> Prefix: ja-Latn-kunrei
>
> Frank Bennett
>
>
>>
>> Regards,
>>
>> Addison
>>
>> Addison Phillips
>> Globalization Architect -- Lab126
>>
>> Internationalization is not a feature.
>> It is an architecture.
>>
>>
>>> -----Original Message-----
>>> From: ietf-languages-bounces at alvestrand.no [mailto:ietf-languages-
>>> bounces at alvestrand.no] On Behalf Of Frank Bennett
>>> Sent: Tuesday, September 01, 2009 6:25 AM
>>> To: ietf-languages at iana.org
>>> Subject: Revised request: Japanese transliteration variants
>>>
>>> Thanks to everyone for their feedback on the earlier request.
>>> Hepburn
>>> is what I know, but the comments reminded me of the importance of
>>> precision and authority, and I have revised the request to provide
>>> more background, and added tags for two systems that some persons
>>> locally are likely to demand receive equal billing with Hepburn.
>>>
>>>
>>> Request for variant registration
>>>
>>> 1. Name of requester: Frank Bennett
>>> 2. E-mail address of requester: bennett at law.nagoya-u.ac.jp
>>> 3. Records Requested:
>>>
>>> Type: variant
>>> Subtag: hepburn
>>> Description: Revised Hepburn romanization.
>>> Prefix: ja-Latn
>>>
>>> Type: variant
>>> Subtag: kunrei
>>> Description: Kunrei-shiki romanization.
>>> Prefix: ja-Latn
>>>
>>> Type: variant
>>> Subtag: nihonshiki
>>> Description: Nihon-shiki romanization, as defined in ISO-3602
>>> Strict.
>>> Prefix: ja-Latn
>>>
>>> 4. Intended meaning of the subtag:
>>>
>>> Indicates the target content is Japanese text, romanized according to
>>> the rules set forth in the document cited in the relevant
>>> Description.
>>>
>>> 5. Reference to published description of the language (book or
>>> article):
>>>
>>> English (primary)
>>> Revised Hepburn: ALA-LC Romanization Tables (available for
>>> download)
>>> http://www.loc.gov/catdir/cpso/roman.html
>>> Kunrei-shiki: ISO-3602 (available for purchase)
>>>
>>> http://www.iso.org/iso/catalogue_detail.htm?csnumber=9029
>>> Nihon-shiki: ISO-3602 Strict (available for purchase)
>>>
>>> http://www.iso.org/iso/catalogue_detail.htm?csnumber=9029
>>>
>>> English (secondary)
>>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hepburn_romanization
>>> http://www.hadamitzky.de/english/lp_romanization_sys.htm
>>> http://www.kanji.org/cjk/samples/jnamevar.htm
>>>
>>> Japanese (primary)
>>> Revised Hepburn: Japan Transport Ministry Bulletin no.
>>> 490
>>> of 26 July 1947.
>>> Kunrei-shiki: ローマ字のづづり方 [Method of Romanization], Cabinet
>>> Notice no. 1 of 9 December 1954.
>>>
>>> Japanese (secondary)
>>> http://www.halcat.com/roomazi/doc/#SEC1
>>>
>>> 6. Any other relevant information:
>>>
>>> The immediate need for this is in the context of bibliography
>>> management, where alternate representations of a title, name or other
>>> field must be offered for sorting or display purposes. Japanese has
>>> a very orderly phonetic structure and native logographic
>>> representation, but there are several different methods of
>>> romanization, none of which have succeeded in dislodging the others.
>>>
>>> Broadly speaking, existing romanization methods fall into two camps.
>>> Revised Hepburn and its variants well exploit the latin script, to
>>> produce a representation from which it is easy to approximate
>>> Japanese pronunciation with a minimum of exposure to the language.
>>> Kunrei-shiki and Nihon-shiki adhere closely the logographic
>>> representation used in native Japanese writing. As a result, these
>>> methods require some training in order to learn how to map the roman
>>> character combinations used onto the spoken language.
>>>
>>> Apart from these relatively small practical differences, their
>>> differing origins (or, more precisely, the differing image of their
>>> origins) fuels a patriotic division of loyalties between the two
>>> camps: for Hepburn is named for a 19th century Christian missionary
>>> to Japan, and Kunrei-shiki is named for a government order issued
>>> during the period of direct Imperial rule, in 1937. The friction
>>> between the two camps will presumably persist indefinitely.
>>> Therefore, it is probably prudent to add representatives of both
>>> camps to the standard at this point, to avoid future controversy.
>>>
>>> =======
>>> hepburn
>>> =======
>>> Revised Hepburn is the most common Japanese romanization method in
>>> use. While there are several variants of Hepburn, the ALA-LC
>>> Romanization Tables provide clear and comprehensive guidelines likely
>>> to be acceptable to any consumer of text that expects Hepburn
>>> romanization.
>>>
>>> (The Traditional Hepburn system dates from the late 19th century, and
>>> has been superceded in modern publishing by Revised Hepburn. I am
>>> not aware of any publisher that requires it, and have therefore left
>>> it out of this submission.)
>>>
>>> (There is an "extended Hepburn" system, which avoids the use of
>>> macrons. This is not in common use, and is documented, as nearly as
>>> I can tell, only in journal papers published by a single academic. I
>>> have therefore left it out of this submission.)
>>>
>>> ======
>>> kunrei
>>> ======
>>> Kunrei-shiki is the officially recognized method for romanizing
>>> Japanese in the Cabinet Office and many government ministries,
>>> including the Ministry of Education. Most adults in Japan were
>>> taught Kunrei-shiki romanization in elementary school, before being
>>> exposed to Hepburn in later schooling or universitiy. Kunrei-shiki
>>> is definitely a minority method in real-world use, but as the
>>> successful campaign to have Hepburn dropped from the ISO standards,
>>> and Kunrei-shiki set up in its place, the proponents of Kunrei-shiki
>>> are eager partisans, and sensitive to the attitude of standards
>>> bodies.
>>>
>>> I'll be happy to address any questions or concerns that the group may
>>> have.
>>>
>>> Thank you for your time,
>>> Frank Bennett
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> Ietf-languages mailing list
>>> Ietf-languages at alvestrand.no
>>> http://www.alvestrand.no/mailman/listinfo/ietf-languages
>>
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