Hepburn (Jp.
hebon-shiki ヘボン式),
named after its creator Dr.
James Curtis Hepburn
(1815-1911), is the most popular system of
Japanese romanization.
First used in Hepburn's 1867
Japanese-English Dictionary and
codified in its present form in 1885, Hepburn is the system of choice of
both the
Library of Congress and
Everything2.
It is also occasionally known as the
hyôjun (標準) or "
standard" system, although the
official government-recommended romanization system is not Hepburn but
Kunrei. (Not that this has stopped
JR
and the Japanese
Foreign Ministry, among others, from sticking with Hepburn.)
While slightly less regular than Kunrei system, making it more difficult for the Japanese themselves to use,
it corresponds better to the sounds of English and allows the foreign
non-speaker to make a decent stab at pronouncing Japanese. An
actual (if extreme) example would be Hepburn jûjutsu
instead of Kunrei's zyûzyutu for the martial art of 柔術.
Here is a complete table for mapping hiragana to Hepburn:
あ a か ka さ sa た ta な na は ha ま ma や ya ら ra わ wa ん n
い i き ki し shi ち chi に ni ひ hi み mi り ri ゐ(i)
う u く ku す su つ tsu ぬ nu ふ fu む mu ゆ yu る ru
え e け ke せ se て te ね ne へ he め me れ re ゑ(e)
お o こ ko そ so と to の no ほ ho も mo よ yo ろ ro を o
が ga ざ za だ da ば ba ぱ pa
ぎ gi じ ji ぢ ji び bi ぴ pi
ぐ gu ず zu づ zu ぶ bu ぷ pu
げ ge ぜ ze で de べ be ぺ pe
ご go ぞ zo ど do ぼ bo ぽ po
きゃkya しゃsha ちゃcha にゃnya ひゃhya みゃmya りゃrya
きゅkyu しゅshu ちゅchu にゅnyu ひゅhyu みゅmyu りゅryu
きょkyo しょsho ちょcho にょnyo ひょhyo みょmyo りょryo
ぎゃgya じゃja びゃbya ぴゃpya
ぎゅgyu じゅju びゅbyu ぴゅpyu
ぎょgyo じょjo びょbyo ぴょpyo
NB: The characters in parentheses are obsolete.
Some additional rules worth noting:
- Long vowels are denoted with macrons above the vowel in question,
ie. o for a short vowel and ō for a long vowel. This is followed
both for Japanese words and imports in katakana
(e.g. byûtî "beauty").
These can also
be fudged with circumflexes (like ô) since typesetting macrons can
be a little hairy.
- In Japanese words, the long vowel ee is written as ei, retaining kana spelling (example: sensei)
- In foreign words, the long e is written ê and the long i should be written î (pâtî), although ee and ii are often seen (pâtii)
- On E2, long vowels are completely omitted from node titles, but
should be marked Hepburn-style within the content.
- Geminate consonants (denoted in kana with a small tsu) are
written by doubling the consonant in question: kokkai for 国会
"parliament", tosshin for 突進 "rush".
- However, geminate consonants in the "ch-" series (chi, cha, chu, cho)
are written "tch", eg. netchû for 熱中 "enthusiasm".
- A syllabic n followed by a vowel should
be followed by an apostrophe. This allows distinguishing between eg.
kin'en 禁煙 "no smoking" and kinen 記念 "commemoration".
- When used as grammatical particles, e is written he,
ha is written wa and o is written wo. These are the sole
surviving exceptions left after Japan's post-WW2 kana reform.
Modified Hepburn
These days, the standard romanization is often called "modified
Hepburn" because of a single change: according to original
Hepburn, the
combinations 'np', 'nb', and 'nm' should be written 'mp', 'mb' and
'mm' respectively.
This is phonetically more accurate but obscures the original syllables,
so the
modern convention is to retain the n and write eg.
kinpatsu
and
shinbun instead of
kimpatsu and
shimbun for
金髪 "blonde" and 新聞 "newspaper". This change is relatively recent
(the Library of Congress switched in 1983) and the older forms are
still often seen, especially in better-known place names like
Namba and
Gumma.
References
sci.lang.japan AFAQ 5.3.2
www.library.ucla.edu/libraries/eastasian/jpntable.htm
Thanks to Cogito and bakufu for comments