Nihon-shiki
romanization system for transliterating the Japanese language into the Latin alphabet
Nihon-shiki (Japanese: 日本式ローマ字, Hepburn: Nihon-shiki rōmaji; lit. 'Japan-style Roman letters') is a romanization system for transliterating the Japanese language into the Latin alphabet. Among the major romanization systems for Japanese, it is the most regular one and has an almost one-to-one relation to the kana writing system. Its name is rendered Nihonsiki in the system itself.
History
Nihon-shiki was invented by physicist Aikitsu Tanakadate in 1885, with the intention to replace the Hepburn system of romanization. Tanakadate's intention was to replace the traditional kanji and kana system of writing Japanese completely by a romanized system, which he felt would make it easier for Japan to compete with Western countries. Since the system was created by a native Japanese speaker and was intended for Japanese people to use to write their own language, it is much more regular than Hepburn romanization, and unlike Hepburn's system, it makes no effort to make itself easier to pronounce for English-speakers.
Nihon-shiki was followed by Kunrei-shiki, which was adopted in 1937, after a political debate over whether Nihon-shiki or Hepburn romanization should be used by the Japanese government. Kunrei-shiki is nearly identical to Nihon-shiki, but it merges syllable pairs di/zi ぢ/じ, du/zu づ/ず, dya/zya ぢゃ/じゃ, dyu/zyu ぢゅ/じゅ, dyo/zyo ぢょ/じょ, wi/i ゐ/い, we/e ゑ/え, kwa/ka くゎ/か, and gwa/ga ぐゎ/が, whose pronunciations in Modern Standard Japanese are now identical. For example, the word かなづかい, rendered kanadukai in Nihon-shiki, is pronounced as kanazukai in modern Japanese, and is romanized as such in kunrei-shiki. The International Organization for Standardization has standardized kunrei-shiki, under ISO 3602.
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