Kunrei-siki (訓令式) is the official system of
Japanese romanization,
as enshrined in
ISO 3602 (1989).
The name is taken from the two
Cabinet Orders (Jp.
kunrei)
that decreed it, the first in
September 21, 1937, the second
repeating the same decree on
December 29, 1954. However, despite
this official status and the fact that most Japanese are more
comfortable in Kunrei, the
de facto standard -- especially in any
publications geared towards foreigners -- remains
Hepburn. This is
partly since
General
Douglas MacArthur, head of the post-WW2
occupation, considered
Kunrei tainted by the
militarism of the era, being entirely
Japanese-crafted and also employed by the
Imperial Japanese Army and Navy.
Kunrei is at heart a slightly modified version of the older Nippon-siki
romanization. While broadly similar to Hepburn, it values regularity
over English pronunciation and reduces all the 3-letter syllables
of Hepburn back into line with the other 2-letter syllables. This
makes the conversion easy for the Japanese, who can just mentally
map the kana table to Roman letters, but makes the pronunciation
of many words impossible for the uninitiated with renderings like
Huzi for Fuji 富士 and zyûzyutu for jujutsu 柔術.
Another problem with Kunrei is that it is difficult to use for
some newly created kana like ティ and フィ, as used in loanwords like
パーティ "party" and フィルム "film". In Hepburn these would be
logically represented as pâti and firumu, accurately
reflecting the pronunciation, but Kunrei already has a "ti" reserved for
the Hepburn sound chi and doesn't believe in the existence of "f";
for ティ the only solution is to use an apostrophe, pât'i,
and for フィ it's the even more bizarre hwirumu.
(Then again, a better solution might be to just use the original English
form and stick with party and film.)
At any rate, here is a complete table for mapping hiragana to Kunrei:
あ a か ka さ sa た ta な na は ha ま ma や ya ら ra わ wa ん n
い i き ki し si ち ti に ni ひ hi み mi り ri ゐ(i)
う u く ku す su つ tu ぬ nu ふ hu む mu ゆ yu る ru
え e け ke せ se て te ね ne へ he め me れ re ゑ(e)
お o こ ko そ so と to の no ほ ho も mo よ yo ろ ro を o
が ga ざ za だ da ば ba ぱ pa
ぎ gi じ zi ぢ(zi) び bi ぴ pi
ぐ gu ず zu づ(zu) ぶ bu ぷ pu
げ ge ぜ ze で de べ be ぺ pe
ご go ぞ zo ど do ぼ bo ぽ po
きゃkya しゃsya ちゃtya にゃnya ひゃhya みゃmya りゃrya
きゅkyu しゅsyu ちゅtyu にゅnyu ひゅhyu みゅmyu りゅryu
きょkyo しょsyo ちょtyo にょnyo ひょhyo みょmyo りょryo
ぎゃgya じゃzya びゃbya ぴゃpya
ぎゅgyu じゅzyu びゅbyu ぴゅpyu
ぎょgyo じょzyo びょbyo ぴょpyo
Characters in
bold differ from those in
Hepburn.
Characters in (parentheses) are
obsolete.
Note that the "new" kana discussed above are not included, as they are
not covered by any of the official standards.
The other rules of Kunrei match those of Hepburn with the following
minor exceptions:
- The indicator of a long vowel is the circumflex (ô), not
the macron (ō).
- Capital letters may be doubled instead of using the circumflex.
- Syllabic n is always written as such, even the cases "np", "nb", "nm".
(This matches modified Hepburn, but not the original.)
References
sci.lang.japan AFAQ 5.3.2
www.library.ucla.edu/libraries/eastasian/jpntable.htm
http://xembho.tripod.com/siryo/cabinet_order.html
http://xembho.tripod.com/iso3602/iso3602_unicode.html (Japanese)