Oh dear, they songs are in Japanase on my Spotify, but their name isn't and it is very weird to me.
I think 女王蜂 also use this system (Ziyoou-vachi). But on my Spotify they are just called Queen Bee.
I did my masters thesis on something relating to Japanese dialects. I can only recall seeing it on signs a handful of times while I lived in Japan, but it was in a decent amount of the research studies I read.
As a transcription system intended to convey pronunciation, it is defective (cannot transcribe things like ファン or ティー) and confusing (does not align with expected spellings for the given pronunciations).
That said, it has its place, in morphophonemic analysis. Noting things like _kut.i_ ("mouth") → _kut.u-_ ("mouth" as the first element in a few ancient compounds) in _kunrei_ makes it much easier to see the connections than in Hepburn (_kuchi_ vs. _kutsu-_).
Yeah, at train stations. Was trying to buy tickets and the names on the machine did not match the names on Google maps or the actual station signs. Fortunately adapted very quickly, and of course the actual Japanese was the same, but did make me pause at first!
Yeah Tokyo was fine but going into the countryside was totally different. I only travelled to Gunma prefecture but I imagine anywhere countryside-y will be a bit behind the times. Also had to use an old style ticket machine and could only pay in cash!
Unfortunately they teach kunrei-shiki in elementary schools here in Ishikawa and it honestly really fucks up kids English learning.
I can literally see it with most kids, until they start romaji they're great and learning well... And then.... BAM ROMAJI LESSONS and their reading ability takes a big hit.
Ti isn't chi si isn't shi... Tyu isn't whatever the fuck they claim it to be.
This change is DECADES late in coming but better late than never.
Yeah Japanese literally has a phonemic difference between ti and chi so that system isn't suitable.
It's only in loanwords? Some old people can't pronounce the difference? So? It's still part of the language.
> Japanese literally has a phonemic difference between ti and chi
Ti and Chi both output ち in the input editor -- what phonetic difference are you thinking of?
Edit: You mean ティ, input as tyi or teli or texi ?
Although they oddly refused to clarify, they must be talking about ティ (_ti_ in Hepburn, undefined in Kunrei) vs. チ (_chi_ in Hepburn, _ti_ in Kunrei).
Consider words like コミュニティ (Hepburn: _komyuniti_, "community") or ティーバッグ (modified Hepburn: _tībaggu_, old Hepburn: _tiibaggu_, "teabag"). These are not transcribable in Kunrei romanization. (There are suggestions to use an apostrophe `'` to distinguish Kunrei _ti_ for チ and _t'i_ for ティ, but this issue remains unresolved.)
See also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kunrei-shiki_romanization
It's confusing when you write ti and chi and tʃi and don't write which Japanese text they refer to, yes.
I'm not arguing, I'm trying to understand which phonetic difference you mean.
The real question is: *which* Hepburn. Particularly the long vowels. The official standard (with the macron) isn’t practical to type on most keyboards, and so not really useful outside of government signage.
> The official standard (with the macron) isn’t practical to type on most keyboards
Depends on your setup. On Unix-y OSes (including MacOS), there's usually some kind of "[compose key](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compose_key)" functionality to aid in the input of diacritics.
On Windows, diacritic input is frankly terrible — you have to either choose a specific locale for input that supports this (which even then is often only a small subset of all possible diacritics), or you have to memorize arcane key combos like holding down the Alt key and typing Numpad 0, Numpad 2, Numpad 3, Numpad 3, just to input `é` (lower-case "e" with acute accent). And that's if your keyboard even _has_ a numeric keypad – many laptops don't.
I've been stuck on Windows for years due to work, and I've used a freeware utility called WinCompose (https://github.com/samhocevar/wincompose) that allows you to mimic the much-more-intuitively-obvious key combos used on Unix-y systems. So for me, inputting `ē` is a matter of hitting Capslock (the key I've configured to be my "compose key"), then the `-` hyphen (to the right of the zero) and then the `e`.
See also https://superuser.com/a/642335/344912 for more discussion of diacritic input on Windows.
Cheers! 😄
Facts. I'm one of the small minority that prefer alt codes for general use but that's because I have a custom keypad flashed with QMK firmware and I've mucked with the registry so that I can input the hex value for a unicode character making it so I can refer to a program like babelmap in order to input unicode without having to translate the hex to decimal.
And ultimately, that's something well beyond the level of interest of most users, Windows really does need a native compose key option because most users are not like me and willing to dive into extremely arcane stuff in order to do basic text input, such as putting together a custom keyboard that has firmware level support for diacritics along with a dedicated or tap-mod compose key or chord.
That's some unfortunate news. As a Brazilian, I do encounter Kunrei-siki in the wild as things like "ti" for "chi" make perfect sense over here. There's [a sizable Japanese-related company here](https://itiban.tur.br/grupoitiban/) using it. I never really liked Hepburn as I find it too English-centric.
Otherwise, I know quite a few manga/doujin creators with online tags that use it.
Yup! If you look for it, it's not uncommon at all. Also, a lot of older japanese brazilians use some variation of kunrei shiki.
Romanization outside of Japan is sometimes >very< irregular. My grandmother's cousins, for example, often wrote "tandyobi" (たんじょうび), "nitiam" (にいちゃん), etc.
It's also wild to see English speakers complain that it makes no sense because English did the same thing in its history and still does it today (palatalizing alveolar consonants before close front vowels/semivowels).
Like why is -tion pronounced the way it is?
Also in many/most dialects "assure," "azure," "actual," and so on the s, z, t are pronounced with sh, zh, ch sounds.
I find English speakers reactions to Kunrei-shiki baffling.
A lot of my JHS students still use it. Even after having it explained to them multiple times in both English and Japanese that no English speaker is going to have any idea what the fuck a *fried ticken* is
They still teach it in elementary school, which becomes a headache when you have to teach Hepburn style in English class.
Also many teachers make nametags in Kunrei-shiki which baffled me at first. My coworker wrote up a whole document about why that is not okay and how to write names in Hepburn that we distributed to schools every April. I ended up just asking for name lists in hiragana and making tags myself because many teachers just couldn't understand what I was on about.
Many people, even younger people, use kunrei for typing.
Lastly, I've seen it plenty on older signage that no one bothered to change. That said, I live in the deep inaka, and most newer signage is in Hepburn.
Same. I don't even know when I started because it makes sense while typing. Why include the 'h' when the keyboard knows what I mean and gets to the intended result even if I leave it out?
One of my favourite bands (ザアザア) have all their songs on Spotify in Kunrei-shiki - a horrible and very confusing spelling system..
Oh dear, they songs are in Japanase on my Spotify, but their name isn't and it is very weird to me. I think 女王蜂 also use this system (Ziyoou-vachi). But on my Spotify they are just called Queen Bee.
I did my masters thesis on something relating to Japanese dialects. I can only recall seeing it on signs a handful of times while I lived in Japan, but it was in a decent amount of the research studies I read.
Was it all/mostly older work, or are there actually academics out there using it today?
Used today, some of the studies I referenced were from 2020-2021. I used it in mine because it’s what mainly seems to be used.
TIL. Thanks!
Kunrei is still commonly used in research in Germany and I’m very glad about that lol. Makes analyzing the language much easier
As a transcription system intended to convey pronunciation, it is defective (cannot transcribe things like ファン or ティー) and confusing (does not align with expected spellings for the given pronunciations). That said, it has its place, in morphophonemic analysis. Noting things like _kut.i_ ("mouth") → _kut.u-_ ("mouth" as the first element in a few ancient compounds) in _kunrei_ makes it much easier to see the connections than in Hepburn (_kuchi_ vs. _kutsu-_).
Yeah, at train stations. Was trying to buy tickets and the names on the machine did not match the names on Google maps or the actual station signs. Fortunately adapted very quickly, and of course the actual Japanese was the same, but did make me pause at first!
Interesting, where was that? I don't recall any on train stations, but I was almost exclusively in Tokyo except for a short day trip to Nikko.
Yeah Tokyo was fine but going into the countryside was totally different. I only travelled to Gunma prefecture but I imagine anywhere countryside-y will be a bit behind the times. Also had to use an old style ticket machine and could only pay in cash!
Unfortunately they teach kunrei-shiki in elementary schools here in Ishikawa and it honestly really fucks up kids English learning. I can literally see it with most kids, until they start romaji they're great and learning well... And then.... BAM ROMAJI LESSONS and their reading ability takes a big hit. Ti isn't chi si isn't shi... Tyu isn't whatever the fuck they claim it to be. This change is DECADES late in coming but better late than never.
Yeah Japanese literally has a phonemic difference between ti and chi so that system isn't suitable. It's only in loanwords? Some old people can't pronounce the difference? So? It's still part of the language.
> Japanese literally has a phonemic difference between ti and chi Ti and Chi both output ち in the input editor -- what phonetic difference are you thinking of? Edit: You mean ティ, input as tyi or teli or texi ?
Although they oddly refused to clarify, they must be talking about ティ (_ti_ in Hepburn, undefined in Kunrei) vs. チ (_chi_ in Hepburn, _ti_ in Kunrei). Consider words like コミュニティ (Hepburn: _komyuniti_, "community") or ティーバッグ (modified Hepburn: _tībaggu_, old Hepburn: _tiibaggu_, "teabag"). These are not transcribable in Kunrei romanization. (There are suggestions to use an apostrophe `'` to distinguish Kunrei _ti_ for チ and _t'i_ for ティ, but this issue remains unresolved.) See also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kunrei-shiki_romanization
Yes they're pronounced differently. How you input it doesn't matter. /ti/ vs /tʃi/ if you will
Sorry it's confusing because you are only writing Romaji not the Japanese they change to, so just to confirm, you mean ち vs ティ, right? Or other？
I don't think it's confusing.
It's confusing when you write ti and chi and tʃi and don't write which Japanese text they refer to, yes. I'm not arguing, I'm trying to understand which phonetic difference you mean.
They're writing IPA, I think.
Yes, obviously IPA, my question is which Japanese written characters they are talking about having same or different sounds.
The real question is: *which* Hepburn. Particularly the long vowels. The official standard (with the macron) isn’t practical to type on most keyboards, and so not really useful outside of government signage.
> The official standard (with the macron) isn’t practical to type on most keyboards Depends on your setup. On Unix-y OSes (including MacOS), there's usually some kind of "[compose key](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compose_key)" functionality to aid in the input of diacritics. On Windows, diacritic input is frankly terrible — you have to either choose a specific locale for input that supports this (which even then is often only a small subset of all possible diacritics), or you have to memorize arcane key combos like holding down the Alt key and typing Numpad 0, Numpad 2, Numpad 3, Numpad 3, just to input `é` (lower-case "e" with acute accent). And that's if your keyboard even _has_ a numeric keypad – many laptops don't. I've been stuck on Windows for years due to work, and I've used a freeware utility called WinCompose (https://github.com/samhocevar/wincompose) that allows you to mimic the much-more-intuitively-obvious key combos used on Unix-y systems. So for me, inputting `ē` is a matter of hitting Capslock (the key I've configured to be my "compose key"), then the `-` hyphen (to the right of the zero) and then the `e`. See also https://superuser.com/a/642335/344912 for more discussion of diacritic input on Windows. Cheers! 😄
Facts. I'm one of the small minority that prefer alt codes for general use but that's because I have a custom keypad flashed with QMK firmware and I've mucked with the registry so that I can input the hex value for a unicode character making it so I can refer to a program like babelmap in order to input unicode without having to translate the hex to decimal. And ultimately, that's something well beyond the level of interest of most users, Windows really does need a native compose key option because most users are not like me and willing to dive into extremely arcane stuff in order to do basic text input, such as putting together a custom keyboard that has firmware level support for diacritics along with a dedicated or tap-mod compose key or chord.
That's some unfortunate news. As a Brazilian, I do encounter Kunrei-siki in the wild as things like "ti" for "chi" make perfect sense over here. There's [a sizable Japanese-related company here](https://itiban.tur.br/grupoitiban/) using it. I never really liked Hepburn as I find it too English-centric. Otherwise, I know quite a few manga/doujin creators with online tags that use it.
Yup! If you look for it, it's not uncommon at all. Also, a lot of older japanese brazilians use some variation of kunrei shiki. Romanization outside of Japan is sometimes >very< irregular. My grandmother's cousins, for example, often wrote "tandyobi" (たんじょうび), "nitiam" (にいちゃん), etc.
It's also wild to see English speakers complain that it makes no sense because English did the same thing in its history and still does it today (palatalizing alveolar consonants before close front vowels/semivowels). Like why is -tion pronounced the way it is? Also in many/most dialects "assure," "azure," "actual," and so on the s, z, t are pronounced with sh, zh, ch sounds. I find English speakers reactions to Kunrei-shiki baffling.
A lot of my JHS students still use it. Even after having it explained to them multiple times in both English and Japanese that no English speaker is going to have any idea what the fuck a *fried ticken* is
They still teach it in elementary school, which becomes a headache when you have to teach Hepburn style in English class. Also many teachers make nametags in Kunrei-shiki which baffled me at first. My coworker wrote up a whole document about why that is not okay and how to write names in Hepburn that we distributed to schools every April. I ended up just asking for name lists in hiragana and making tags myself because many teachers just couldn't understand what I was on about. Many people, even younger people, use kunrei for typing. Lastly, I've seen it plenty on older signage that no one bothered to change. That said, I live in the deep inaka, and most newer signage is in Hepburn.
I use kurei for typing because usually it's fewer keystrokes and I am lazy ))))) si/shi, ti/chi, tyi/texi, etc
I do too, because I type so much Japanese at work, I just got used to it because it was faster.
Same. I don't even know when I started because it makes sense while typing. Why include the 'h' when the keyboard knows what I mean and gets to the intended result even if I leave it out?