Kunrei-shiki rōmaji (訓令式ローマ字) is a Cabinet-ordered romanization system to
transcribe the Japanese language into the Latin alphabet.
It is abbreviated as Kunrei-shiki.
Its name is rendered Kunreisiki using Kunrei-shiki itself.
Kunrei-shiki is sometimes known as the Monbushō system in English because it is taught in
the Monbushō-approved elementary school curriculum.
The ISO has standardized Kunrei-shiki, under ISO 3602.
Kunrei-shiki is based on the older Nihon-shiki romanization, which was modified for modern
standard Japanese.
For example, the word かなづかい, romanized kanadukai in Nihon-shiki, is pronounced kanazukai
in standard modern Japanese and is romanized as such in Kunrei-shiki.
Kunrei-shiki competes with the older Hepburn romanization system, which was promoted by
the authorities during the Allied occupation of Japan, after World War II.
== History == Before World War II, there was a political
conflict between supporters of Hepburn romanization and supporters of the Nihon-shiki romanization.
In 1930, a board of inquiry, under the aegis of the Minister of Education, was established
to determine the proper romanization system.
The Japanese government, by cabinet order (訓令 kunrei), announced on September 21,
1937 that a modified form of Nihon-shiki would be officially adopted as Kunrei-shiki.
The form at the time differs slightly from the modern form.
Originally, the system was called the Kokutei (国定, government-authorized) system.The
Japanese government gradually introduced Kunrei-shiki, which appeared in secondary education, on
railway station signboards, on nautical charts, and on the 1:1,000,000 scale International
Map of the World.
While the central government had strong control, from 1937 to 1945, the Japanese government
used Kunrei-shiki in its tourist brochures.
In Japan, some use of Nihon-shiki and Modified Hepburn remained, however, because some individuals
supported the use of those systems.J. Marshall Unger, the author of Literacy and Script Reform
in Occupation Japan: Reading between the Lines, said that the Hepburn supporters "understandably"
believed that the Kunrei-shiki "compromise" was not fair because of the presence of the
"un-English-looking spellings" that the Modified Hepburn supporters had opposed.
Andrew Horvat, the author of Japanese Beyond Words: How to Walk and Talk Like a Native
Speaker, argued that "by forcing non-native speakers of Japanese with no intentions of
learning the language to abide by a system intended for those who have some command of
Japanese, the government gave the impression of intolerant language management that would
have dire consequences later on."After the Japanese government was defeated in 1945,
General Douglas MacArthur, the Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers issued a directive,
dated September 3, 1945, that stated that Modified Hepburn was the method to transcribe
Japanese names.
Some editorials printed in Japanese newspapers advocated for using only Hepburn.
Supporters of Hepburn denounced pro-Kunrei-shiki and pro-Nihon-shiki advocates to the SCAP
offices by accusing them of being inactive militarists and of collaborating with militarists.
Unger said that the nature of Kunrei-shiki led to "pent-up anger" by Hepburn supporters.
During the postwar period, several educators and scholars tried to introduce romanized
letters as a teaching device and possibility later replacing kanji.
However, Kunrei-shiki had associations with Japanese militarism, and the US occupation
was reluctant to promote it.
On December 9, 1954, the Japanese government re-confirmed Kunrei-shiki as its official
system but with slight modifications.
Eleanor Jorden, an American linguist, made textbooks with a modified version of Kunrei-shiki,
which were used in the 1960s in courses given to US diplomats.
The use of her books did not change the US government's hesitation to use Kunrei-shiki.As
of 1974, according to the Geographical Survey Institute (now the Geospatial Information
Authority of Japan), Kunrei-shiki was used for topographical maps, and Modified Hepburn
was used for geological maps and aeronautical charts.As of 1978, the National Diet Library
used Kunrei-shiki.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of International Trade and Industry, and many
other official organizations instead used Hepburn, as did The Japan Times, the JTB Corporation,
and many other private organizations.
== Legal status == The system was originally promulgated as Japanese
Cabinet Order No. 3 as of September 21, 1937.
Since it had been overturned by the SCAP during the occupation of Japan, the Japanese government
repealed it and decreed again, as Japanese Cabinet Order No.1 as of December 29, 1954.
It mandated the use of Kunrei-shiki in "the written expression of Japanese generally".
Specific alternative spellings could be used in international relations and to follow established
precedent.
See Permitted Exceptions for details.[1] Kunrei-shiki has been recognized, along with
Nihon-shiki, in ISO 3602:1989.
Documentation—Romanization of Japanese (kana script) by the ISO.
It was also recommended by the ANSI after it withdrew its own standard, ANSI Z39.11-1972
American National Standard System for the Romanization of Japanese (Modified Hepburn),
in 1994.
== Usage == Despite its official recognition, Japanese
commonly choose between Nihon-shiki/Kunrei-shiki and Hepburn for any given situation.
However, the Japanese government generally uses Hepburn, especially for passports, road
signage, and train signage.Otherwise, most Western publications and all English-language
newspapers use some form of Hepburn.Because Kunrei-shiki is based on Japanese phonology,
it can cause non-native speakers to pronounce words incorrectly.
John Hinds, the author of Japanese: Descriptive Grammar, describes that as "a major disadvantage."Additional
complications appear with newer kana combinations such as ティーム(チーム) team.
In Hepburn, they would be distinguished as different sounds and represented as tīmu
and chīmu respectively.
That gives better indications of the English pronunciations.
For some Japanese-speakers, however, the sounds ティ "ti" and チ "chi" are the same phoneme;
both are represented in Kunrei-shiki as tîmu.
Such complications may be confusing to those who do not know Japanese phonology well.
Today, the main users of Kunrei-shiki are native speakers of Japanese, especially within
Japan, and linguists studying Japanese.
The main advantage of Kunrei-shiki is that it is better able to illustrate Japanese grammar,
as Hepburn preserves the irregularity of certain conjugations (see table, right).
The most serious problem of Hepburn in this context is that it may change the stem of
a verb, which is not reflected in the underlying morphology of the language.
One notable introductory textbook for English-speakers, Eleanor Jorden's Japanese: The Spoken Language,
uses her JSL romanization, a system strongly influenced by Kunrei-shiki in its adherence
to Japanese phonology, but it is adapted to teaching proper pronunciation of Japanese
phonemes.
=== Kunrei-shiki spellings of kana ===
=== Notes === Characters in red are obsolete in modern Japanese.
When he (へ) is used as a particle, it is written as e, not he (as in Nihon-shiki).
When ha (は) is used as a particle, it is written as wa, not ha.
wo (を/ヲ) is used only as a particle, written o.
Long vowels are indicated by a circumflex accent: long o is written ô.
Vowels that are separated by a morpheme boundary are not considered to be a long vowel.
For example, おもう (思う) is written omou, not omô.
Syllabic n (ん) is written as n' before vowels and y but as n before consonants and at the
end of a word.
Geminate consonants are always marked by doubling the consonant following the sokuon (っ).
The first letter in a sentence and all proper nouns are capitalized.
ISO 3602 has the strict form; see Nihon-shiki.
=== Permitted exceptions === The Cabinet Order makes an exception to the
above chart:
In international relations and situations for which prior precedent would make a sudden
reform difficult, the spelling given by Chart 2 may also be used:The exceptional clause
is not to be confused with other systems of romanization (such as Hepburn) and does not
specifically relax other requirements, such as marking long vowels.
== See also ==
List of ISO transliterations
== Sources == Geographical Survey Institute (Kokudo Chiriin).
Bulletin of the Geographical Survey Institute, Volumes 20-23.
1974.
Gottlieb, Nanette.
"The Rōmaji movement in Japan."
Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society (Third Series).
January 2010.
Volume 20, Issue 1.
p. 75-88.
Published online on November 30, 2009.
Available at Cambridge Journals.
DOI doi:10.1017/S1356186309990320.
Hadamitzky, Wolfgang.
Kanji & Kana Revised Edition (漢字・かな).
Tuttle Publishing, 1997.
ISBN 0-8048-2077-5, 9780804820776.
Horvat, Andrew.
Japanese Beyond Words: How to Walk and Talk Like a Native Speaker.
Stone Bridge Press, 2000.
ISBN 1-880656-42-6, 9781880656426.
Hinds, John.
Japanese: Descriptive Grammar.
Taylor & Francis Group, 1986.
ISBN 0-415-01033-0, 9780415010337.
Kent, Allen, Harold Lancour, and Jay Elwood Daily (Executive Editors).
Encyclopedia of Library and Information Science Volume 21.
CRC Press, April 1, 1978.
ISBN 0-8247-2021-0, 9780824720216.
Unger, J. Marshall.
Literacy and Script Reform in Occupation Japan : Reading between the Lines: Reading between
the Lines.
Oxford University Press.
July 8, 1996.
ISBN 0-19-535638-1, 9780195356380.
ローマ字のつづり方.
文部科学省 (in Japanese).
Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology.
Retrieved 2013-05-21.
== References ==
== External links == Horvat, Andrew.
"The Romaji (Roomaji) Conundrum."
(Archive) – Excerpt from Horvat's book: Japanese Beyond Words: How to Walk and Talk
Like a Native Speaker.
Hosted at the David See-Chai Lam Centre for International Communication of Simon Fraser
University.