Status of Japanese requests
Mark Crispin
mrc+ietf at Panda.COM
Sat Sep 26 07:18:00 CEST 2009
On Fri, 25 Sep 2009, John Cowan wrote:
> Well, straightening up the di/du is the main reason to distinguish
> between Nippon on the one hand and Hepburn and kunrei on the other.
But my point is that there are many variants or combinations that don't
easily fit.
> Anyhow, even if conversion software doesn't map ee to ei, it *could*
> do so without knowing the exact romanization style.
I don't see how. The difference between ee and ei result in different
words in the written language even if they are homonyms in the spoken
language. Conversion software would have to have some AI-style context
recognition.
きれい (kirei) is "pretty". 切れ絵 (kiree) is a scrap of a picture. OK,
this is a rather contrived example but it was what came to mind. I'm sure
that one of the linguists could come up with something better.
> Just so. Nippon's the only one that's mindlessly reversible.
Of the formally defined romanizations, yes.
Word processor romanization is mindlessly reversible (duh!), and doesn't
completely fit into any of the three categories. It's sort of a fusion
albeit one that abolishes ambiguities.
IMHO, most people who write in romanization (whether by pen or keyboard)
use a flavor of word processor romanization. Long vowels are doubled, but
use ei and ou following kana. "shi" is preferred to "si", "ja" to "zya",
etc. First first processors in the 1980s, then personal computer input
methods in more recent times, have shifted word processor romanization to
the forefront.
That's what I do. For the d-line, I personally prefer
だ ぢ づ で ど ぢゃ ぢゅ ぢょ
--- --- --- --- --- ---- ---- ----
Mark da jhi tzu de do jha jhu jho
Hepburn da ji zu de do ja ju jo
Nihon da di du de do dya dyu dyo
kunrei da zi zu de do zya zyu zyo
since it corresponds to pronunciation (like Hepburn) but is mindlessly
reversible (like Nihon). Kunrei is a worst-case in both respects. My
forms also corresponds nicely to Hepburn's t-line:
た ち つ て と ちゃ ちゅ ちょ
--- --- --- --- --- ---- ---- ----
Mark/Hepburn ta chi tsu te to cha chu cho
Nihon/kunrei ta ti tu te to tya tyu tyo
Fortunately, the oddball d-line mora are all quite rare, although they do
trip up people who spent too much time with romanization (such as Jorden's
victims) without learning kana.
Romanization is a mess in Japanese. I heard that it's far worse in
Korean.
Anyway, I'm not advocating any specific course of action other than to
leave some expansion and not assume that a three-way Hepburn/Nihon/kunrei
addresses Japanese romanization as it is actually used.
-- Mark --
http://panda.com/mrc
Democracy is two wolves and a sheep deciding what to eat for lunch.
Liberty is a well-armed sheep contesting the vote.
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