4 ms·

I was ready to say "oh no!" but the proposal is actually to use (a slightly modified form of) Hepburn which isn't that different from the current standard Kunre

I was ready to say "oh no!" but the proposal is actually to use (a slightly modified form of) Hepburn which isn't that different from the current standard Kunrei-Shiki and most importantly makes phonetic sense. When I read "English-friendly", I thought they'd use something trying to use actual English spellings, similar to the way many people write Thai (e.g. "yum" instead of "yam"), which usually make no sense to Europeans whose main language is not English. The main difference between the two is that Kunrei-Shiki is closer to a transliteration and captures Japanese phonology better (t->ch before i etc. being a regular sound change) while Hepburn is closer to the actual pronunciation. The latter is probably more important to tourists that don't actually plan to learn the language.

DemocracyFTW2 2y ago
> captures Japanese phonology better (t->ch before i etc. being a regular sound change) This I can not let go uncommented, all the more since I wrote something to the same effect myself, and it may, left unqualified, mislead aimlessly wandering souls. So the classical—'core' if you will—Japanese phonology (i.e. 'speech sound systematics') has it that in the consonantal series like ka-ki-ku-ke-ko, na-ni-nu-ne-no and so on there are some predictable very obvious (and some less obvious, but still very natural) sound changes. In the 't' series which could be *ta-ti-tu-te-to we have, in fact, ta-[ci]-[tsu]-te-to, with the high vowels causing a 'melting', as it were, of the pure stop into sibilant affricates (stop + 's'-class sound). Now, because these articulatory variants are a 100% predictable it doesn't matter—one should think!—whether one writes "Tusima" or "Tsushima" for つしま (対馬, island bw Jp & ROK), a native speaker will always say [tsuɕima] and actually have difficulties to say [tusima]. However that is not true anymore. It used to be true for 100% of the vocabulary before the 20th c, but when after the war English vocabulary came to Japan like rushing down from opened floodgates it left its mark on Japanese phonology: Now you have a language with a phonological 'core' system and a system for "new words". The 'core system' applies to almost all words, and certainly all words that were used, say, before the war, no matter whether a given word is classified as Yamato, Kango or some flavor of Gairaigo—they all submitted to the established rules and did not (within the last 200 years anyway) influence the system. The 'newcomers system' added to that everyday words like je-aru じぇある (JR, Japanese Railways), sumātofon スマートフォン (smartphone), tīn'ējā ティーンエージャー (teen-ager) and so on all of which violate the 'core' system. Observe that next to sumātofon スマートフォン there's also the older loan terehon テレホン (not much used anymore, it's denwa でんわ電話 most of the time) that does still adhere to the 'core' system, and the same is true to some other words that come in two phonological flavors, not unlike words like "champagne" and "campagne" co-existing in French. It then becomes preferable to sacrifice the systematic orthographic simplicity for phonetic fidelity. "Hukusima" was an OK spelling and 100% unambiguous only until the latter part of the 20th c, but that has changed.
- Tainnor 2y ago
  I mean the same is true pretty much for most languages once English (or sometimes other) loanwords come into the picture. German for example doesn't technically have a "j" sound like in "John", but it's nowadays used all the time in English loanwords (some speakers might substitute "ch", which does exist in native German words, but most especially younger people don't). The letter "j" is otherwise pronounced like English "y".

DemocracyFTW2 2y ago

> captures Japanese phonology better (t->ch before i etc. being a regular sound change) This I can not let go uncommented, all the more since I wrote something to the same effect myself, and it may, left unqualified, mislead aimlessly wandering souls. So the classical—'core' if you will—Japanese phonology (i.e. 'speech sound systematics') has it that in the consonantal series like ka-ki-ku-ke-ko, na-ni-nu-ne-no and so on there are some predictable very obvious (and some less obvious, but still very natural) sound changes. In the 't' series which could be *ta-ti-tu-te-to we have, in fact, ta-[ci]-[tsu]-te-to, with the high vowels causing a 'melting', as it were, of the pure stop into sibilant affricates (stop + 's'-class sound). Now, because these articulatory variants are a 100% predictable it doesn't matter—one should think!—whether one writes "Tusima" or "Tsushima" for つしま (対馬, island bw Jp & ROK), a native speaker will always say [tsuɕima] and actually have difficulties to say [tusima]. However that is not true anymore. It used to be true for 100% of the vocabulary before the 20th c, but when after the war English vocabulary came to Japan like rushing down from opened floodgates it left its mark on Japanese phonology: Now you have a language with a phonological 'core' system and a system for "new words". The 'core system' applies to almost all words, and certainly all words that were used, say, before the war, no matter whether a given word is classified as Yamato, Kango or some flavor of Gairaigo—they all submitted to the established rules and did not (within the last 200 years anyway) influence the system. The 'newcomers system' added to that everyday words like je-aru じぇある (JR, Japanese Railways), sumātofon スマートフォン (smartphone), tīn'ējā ティーンエージャー (teen-ager) and so on all of which violate the 'core' system. Observe that next to sumātofon スマートフォン there's also the older loan terehon テレホン (not much used anymore, it's denwa でんわ電話 most of the time) that does still adhere to the 'core' system, and the same is true to some other words that come in two phonological flavors, not unlike words like "champagne" and "campagne" co-existing in French. It then becomes preferable to sacrifice the systematic orthographic simplicity for phonetic fidelity. "Hukusima" was an OK spelling and 100% unambiguous only until the latter part of the 20th c, but that has changed.

Tainnor 2y ago
I mean the same is true pretty much for most languages once English (or sometimes other) loanwords come into the picture. German for example doesn't technically have a "j" sound like in "John", but it's nowadays used all the time in English loanwords (some speakers might substitute "ch", which does exist in native German words, but most especially younger people don't). The letter "j" is otherwise pronounced like English "y".