The first who tried to write down Japanese sounds in Latin were Portuguese missionaries who appeared in Japan at the end of the 16th century [2, p. 275]. In 1591, the first records of Japanese texts in Latin appeared, and a little later – bilingual dictionaries, also based on the Latin alphabet. The second were the Dutch [1, p. 438]. Since contacts with the Dutch and Portuguese were very short, they did not leave a noticeable mark on the Latinization of Japanese writing.

In the second half of the 19th century, with the end of the policy of isolationism that had lasted for two and a half centuries, some Japanese thinkers and teachers proposed a complete transition to Latin writing. They saw a simple and logical writing system based on the Latin script as a path to economic well-being and rapid development of science [2, p. 86]. At the turn of the 18th-19th centuries, the Japanese “scholar” Honda Toshiaki advocated for the complete Latinization of Japanese writing, at the turn of the 19th-20th centuries – physicist professor Tanakadate Aikitsu and his like-minded people, throughout the 20th century – many Japanese and foreign scientists [3, p. 4].

Some modern researchers still agree that hieroglyphic writing slows down the further development of the country [3]. In particular, in the 90s of the 20th century, the main ideologist of the abolition of hieroglyphs was the famous Japanese Mongolist and sociolinguist Katsuhiko Tanaka. He believed that hieroglyphics seriously hampered Japan’s entry onto the world stage. A modern person requires a variety of knowledge, and he cannot spend all his time only studying the Japanese language and hieroglyphs [5].

The first draft of a Latinized alphabet for Japanese writing was developed in 1885 by Japanese and foreign scientists. According to some sources, James Curtis Hepburn (1815 – 1911) became the popularizer of this alphabet, using it in his Japanese-English dictionary [1, p. 201]. According to other sources, Japanese scientists belonging to the Romajikai society (Union of Latin Signs) borrowed and slightly modified the English transcription of Japanese words from the second edition of the best Japanese-English dictionary of that time, J. Hepburn [1, p. 11].

Hepburn’s system conveys Japanese phonemes from the point of view of an English speaker, without taking into account how these sounds are reflected in the perception of the Japanese, that is, it is aimed at speakers of English, not Japanese speakers. According to some authors, such a Latin alphabet is not an ideal option for transcribing Japanese words. It is based on English consonants, Latin/Italian, German vowels.

Other projects for the Latinization of Japanese writing, based on the Latin script, began to appear around the same time, that is, at the end of the 19th century. In 1874, Nishi Amane proposed a new version of roma-zi. In 1876, the Ministry of Education published a draft Latin script for Nabu Yoshikazu. In 1883, Baba Tatsui in his work “Elementary Grammar of the Japanese Language” also gives his version of the new Latinized Japanese alphabet [3, p. 13]. The final version of the new system for writing Japanese words in Latin letters was developed by Professor Tanakadate Aikitsu [2, p. 438], who founded the “Society for Romanization of the Japanese Alphabet” in 1921 [5].

New Romaji differs from old Romaji in being more phonemic. Soft consonants, expressed in old Romaji by the combinations sh, tsu, j, began to be denoted by s, x; and replaced with hu. For example, ShpoY – ApoSh (large coniferous tree); toshf – romazi (romadzi). The length of a vowel is conveyed by only one sign (L), the macron ( ) is canceled; the nasal consonant before b, p, t is indicated only through p, not t. For example, temmoku – tenmoku (Japanese name for one of the types of Chinese porcelain). The final n is separated from the initial vowel of the second syllable by a hyphen rather than an apostrophe. Thus, the new romaji began to convey the sounds of the Japanese language as they are perceived by a native speaker of this language.

Beginning in 1913, many government agencies that used the Latin alphabet to communicate with the Western world switched to the new romaji: the Central Meteorological Observatory, the Survey Department, the Ministry of the Navy, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and so on.

In 1954, supporters of Kunrei-Romaji tried to switch again to this Latin writing system, but were unable to displace Hepburn’s system.

Now both of these transcriptions are used: the Hepburn system and the Kunrei-Romaji. Hepburn’s system is studied in school, used in textbooks, dictionaries, passports, and in inscriptions on road signs. Kunrei-Romaji is used in cartography and technical dictionaries. Interestingly, even different ministries use different transcriptions.

In the 80s of the 20th century, a new Latin transcription of Japanese writing was developed in Japan, which was discussed in May 1987 at the International Organization for Standardization [1, p. 53].

However, despite the existence of several Latin writing systems developed for the Japanese language, the Japanese do not write in Latin.

The Japanese writing system is quite complex and difficult to master. It is a combination of verbal and syllabic writing. The stems of significant words are expressed in Chinese characters (kanji), and inflections and functional parts of speech are expressed in Japanese syllabic characters (kana). The required hieroglyphic minimum has 1945 characters, a more expanded list containing technical and scientific terms includes 6355 characters [1, p. 11]. The total number of syllabic characters was small (51 characters), then reduced to 48 characters, and after the writing reform of 1948 – to 45.

In English-speaking countries, the Hepburn system is used everywhere to transcribe Japanese words, because it is easier for a native English speaker to read and understand words written [5]. However, some loanwords transferred by the Hepburn system upon entry into the language subsequently acquire graphical variants corresponding to the new Romaji or Kunrei-Romaji, perhaps because the latter two roman scripts more accurately reflect Japanese syllables. The second reason, more likely, may be that English speaking authors, especially those who live in Japan, use in their works the spelling of the Japanese word that is more often used in the country.

1. Coulmas F. The Blackwell Encyclopedia of Writing Systems. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1996.
2. Griffiths M. When In Romaji… An Examination of Romanization. URL: http://www. tigercow.fateback.com/ guide/articles/wir/wir01.html (Retrieved 10 Mar. 2003).
3. Hadamitzky W. Romanization systems. URL: http://www.hadamitzky.de/english/ lp_romanization_sys.htm (Retrieved 01 May 2014).
4. Japanese Language. A rich blend of outside influence and internal innovation. URL: http://www.sg.emb-japan.go.jp/JapanAccess/language.htm (Retrieved 25 Feb. 2003).
5. Sibata T. Sociolinguistic surveys in Japan: approaches and problems / / International Journal of the Sociology of Language, 1985.
6. The Language of Japan URL: http://www.asianinfo.org/asianinfo/japan/ japanese_language.htm (Retrieved 02 May 2014).

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