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This website makes use of Touhou-shiki Roomaji, a Romanization derived from waapuro roomaji. Touhou-shiki preserves the close equivalence to English consonantal digraphs of Hepburn romanization, but the vowels are written with close kana-roomaji mapping as in waapuro romaaji. Thus, both pronunciation and spelling are better preserved. This is useful for readers who are unfamiliar with kanji, because it allows them to pronounce a new word as well as type it into an electronic dictionary or computer.
Touhou-shiki provides the additional benefit of lacking macrons and circumflexes. These marks are not always properly understood and are sometimes omitted when copying text, which leads to an inaccurate spelling. If a copier does not reproduce the original kanji and kana, an inaccurately transmitted romanization can render a name or word ambiguous.
Touhou-shiki is not quite waapuro roomaji, but with a few changes it can be easily entered into an IME. The major change is the replacement of the dash used in katakana with the vowel represented by that dash for easier reading. In the secondary rules some other changes that break IME usage are also described.
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Rules for Touhou-shiki
Decided December 4, 2008
- Youon are written as in Hepburn romanization.
- Long vowels are spelled out exactly as they are in hiragana.
- The symbol ー indicates a long vowel in katakana. This is normally written by doubling the preceding vowel.
- Geminate consonants are romanized with a double consonant as in Nihon-siki.
- Syllabic ん is always romanized n or n' as in Nihon-siki and is never m.
- Voiced じ is written ji as in Hepburn.
- ふ is written fu as in Hepburn.
Suggestions for adaption
When adopting Touhou-shiki to your own project please keep in mind the difficult choices here.
- Irregular particles
- Official rule: The irregular particles are romanized wa, o, and e as in Hepburn.
- Alternative proposal: ha, wo, and he as in Nihon-siki. (Either alternative is acceptable, assuming basic knowledge of Japanese by a transcriber.)
- Voiced づ and ぢ
- Official rule: Voiced づ and ぢ are written dzu and dji. For example, kidzuku 気付く "to perceive".
- Alternative proposal: du and di are also acceptable. (They are slightly less readable but more useful when typing into an IME. Zu and ji are clearly unacceptable for reproducing kana.)
- Misleading mora
- Official rule: When a single vowel mora is used in an apparent long-vowel combination (xa+a, xe+e, xi+i, xo+o, xo+u, xu+u) but without the intention of a long vowel, it is preceded with an apostrophe. For example, o'u 追う "to pursue".
- Alternative proposal: Ignore the distinction, because the pronunciation difference is nitpicking.
- Edgy Japanese use of dashes
- In modern Japanese, the ー following an /e/ sound is sometimes creates an /ei/ dipthong (e.g. ゲー "gay" is pronounced gei). I suggest the Romanization of this follow speech patterns: すげー suggests "sugee", but えーじ is clearly "eiji". This is a non-standard, albeit common, use of the Japanese writing system and Romanization should be accompanied by the original text.
Examples of improvement
- Japanese: 不動明王
- Hepburn: Fudō Myōō
- Resulting mistake: Fudo Myoo, suggests ふどみょう
- Why this causes problems: The pair of long vowels resembles an attempt to write a single long vowel.
- Touhou: Fudou Myouou
- Japanese: 神道
- Hepburn: Shintō
- Resulting mistake: Shinto, suggests しんと
- Why this causes problems: Widespread use of "Shinto" reinforces the idea that to is some other kanji, resisting identification with the dou in aikidou, chadou, and so forth.
- Touhou: Shintou
- Japanese: 新聞
- Hepburn: Shimbun or Shinbun
- Resulting mistake: Shimbum or Shim Bum
- Why this causes problems: Why was it decided that "n" can turn into "m" sometimes? Should we interchange "r" with "l" as we please?
- Touhou: Shinbun