User:Chubby Bub/Proposed romanization guidelines

This is currently a WIP. Note as the author of this, I myself am only familiar with reading Japanese and Russian.

Spelling
is primarily used, with the following clarifications and/or exceptions. Note also that these rules should not be prioritized for commonly used or preferred spellings of the names of people, places, companies, etc., though a Hepburn spelling may still be provided for reference in the context of the original name.

Long vowels

 * Long vowels, where a kana is followed by a vowel of the same grade (row) or followed by a chōonpu (ー) are usually marked with a macron. This also applies to the long ou as ō.
 * The exception to this is ii, which should always be rendered separately if two i-grade kana, but still as ī with a macron if followed by a chōonpu.
 * Ex: 魂 ("soul") is tamashii, not tamashī, but グリーン ("green") is gurīn, not guriin.
 * Vowels that are part of separate morphemes are not elongated.
 * Ex: 風穴 is kazaana, not kazāna; 湖 is mizuumi, not mizūmi; 思う is omou, not omō.
 * Adjacent vowels are also not given macrons in loanwords and katakana names that are not representing real words usually written in hiragana or kanji, or to emphasize the kana spelling for context.
 * Ex: Juannelle's Japanese name イチヨウ is a katakana spelling of a name usually written in kanji, so it is still Ichiyō, not Ichiyou. But Boraa's name ブロウ is derived from the English word "brow", so it is Burou, not Burō.

Syllabic n

 * ん/ン is always n, not m as is sometimes done when preceding m, b or p sounds.
 * Ex: マンボ is Manbo, not Mambo (even if the meaning is "mambo", the romanization is not).
 * An apostrophe is used to separate the syllabic n kana from vowels and ya-column kana, in order to differentiate these from na-row kana.
 * Ex: んお (n'o) vs の (no); んや (n'ya) vs にゃ (nya).

Sokuon

 * A sokuon or "small tsu" っ/ッ doubles the following letter, e.g. って is tte, っしょ is ssho. The exception is when geminating chi, in which case it should be tchi, not cchi.
 * A sokuon at the end of the word or before a vowel, which represents a glottal stop, should be represented with an apostrophe. e.g. あっあ (a'a)

Small vowel kana and tokushuon
Generally, the small versions of the vowel kana should be considered separate from the preceding syllable. These are usually used for sound effects or elongated speech, e.g. an exclamation うぉぉぉぉぉ！ (Wooooo!, "Wooooah!") or quiet trailing off, e.g. an exhale sound ふぅぅぅ｡｡｡ (fuuuu…). However sometimes they are used in things like names: for example, whereas in earlier games the name of Poes was spelled as ポウ, in it is spelled ポゥ. Both should be romanized as Pou. (Note that it is not Pō due to usage of katakana not definitively spelling a native Japanese word, as described in the long vowels section.)

Some combinations using these kana, known as tokushu-on (特殊音, lit. "special sounds"), are used to represent foreign sounds; while some are common, most are very rare in practice, though they can appear. Typically, these are meant to indicate of consonant-vowel combinations that don't have their own kana, or sometimes additional -y- or -w– sounds. A comprehensive list can be found on at /Katakana.


 * Examples of common tokushu-on:
 * ウォ for wo: ウォルナ (Woruna), name of Drona; derived from ウォルナット (worunatto, "walnut")
 * ヴァ for va: 神獣 ヴァ・ルッタ (Shinjū Va Rutta, Divine Beast Va Rutta), name of Divine Beast Vah Ruta
 * トゥ for tu: トゥーンリンク (Tūn Rinku, "Toon Link")
 * ディ for di: ディン (Din, "Din")
 * フォ for fo: トライフォース (Toraifōsu, "Triforce")


 * Examples of less common tokushu-on:
 * クィ for kwi: クィンギブド (Kwin Gibudo, "Queen Gibdo")
 * ズィ for zi: ダズィー	(Dazī), name of Daz
 * ツァ for tsa: ツァボ雪原 (Tsabo Setsugen, "Tsavo Snowfield"), name of Vatorsa Snowfield; derived from ツァボライト (tsaboraito, ""))
 * デュ for dyu: デューク (Dyūku, "Duke"), name of Carban
 * ミィ for myi: 導師ミィズ‧キョシア (Dōshi Myizu Kyoshia), name of Monk Maz Koshia

Note, however, that some instances of kana combinations used for foreign sounds in the tokushu-on may still be stylizations of the first type, particularly with vowels. Care should be taken using context to determine whether the intent is a foreign sound or just an emphasized pronunciation. Some combinations are more likely to be used for one or the other (typically it is the latter case if the small vowel could be seen as a making a long vowel.)
 * While ビィ could represent the sound byi, it commonly represents bii such as in カービィ (Kābii, "Kirby").
 * While ホゥ could represent hu (as opposed to fu, though these are generally considered the same), it is probably more likely to simply represent a hou or hō sound that trails off.

Other spelling matters

 * An explicit deviation from usual Hepburn: ぢ/ヂ and づ/ヅ may be represented as dji and dzu to differentiate them from じ/ジ and ず/ズ (ji and zu).
 * When used as particles, は, へ and を are written as typically pronounced: wa, e and o, not ha, he and wo, respectively.

Capitalization
Generally, sentence case should be used, where only the first letter is capitalized (aside from proper nouns within such a phrase). Title case should be used for proper nouns (individuals, groups, locations) and of course actual titles (for individuals or media). In title case, every word is capitalized except prepositions and particles.


 * Example: 's Japanese name, being the title of a work, is ゼルダの伝説 神々のトライフォース (Zeruda no Densetsu: Kamigami no Toraifōsu, "The Legend of Zelda: Triforce of the Gods") The particle の no remains lowercase.

Hyphens
Hyphens can be used to join connected morphemes that are not traditional "words", but are still meant to be read together. The letter after the hyphen should generally not be capitalized.
 * Particularly when rendaku is being used for new compounds that aren't common terms:
 * ハイラルダケ (Hairaru-dake), the name for the Hylian Shroom, is a compound of ハイラル (Hairaru, "Hyrule") and タケ (take), a word for "mushroom" commonly used as a suffix for mushroom species. Hairarudake obscures this compound into a single word, and Hairaru dake does not make clear that there is a compound
 * 馬 (uma, "horse") + 神 (kami, "god") + 橋 (hashi, "bridge")→ 馬神橋 (Uma-gami-bashi, "Horse God Bridge")
 * For location names, hyphens should be used for location suffixes that use a single kanji, whereas those using two or more kanji are considered a separate word. (Note again, location names are typically capitalized due to being proper nouns, but hyphenated suffixes are not.’
 * プロロ島 (Outset Island) is Puroro-shima, not Puroro Shima.
 * カカリコ村 (Kakariko Village) is Kakariko-mura, not Kakariko Mura.
 * ハイラル平原 (Hyrule Field) is Hairaru Heigen, not Hairaru-heigen

Chinese
For Simplified Chinese, is used. Spacing should reflect word boundaries, not individual syllables.

For Traditional Chinese, we may want to look into providing additional systems of romanization for dialects used in Taiwan and Hong Kong, though I am unsure which dialect the games are intended to be read in.

Korean
The should be used.

Russian
The system should be used, with the following modifications:
 * Ё should always be yo, not ë or yë
 * The soft sign Ь is typically rendered with the character ʼ, but a typical apostrophe ' or right single quote ’ is also acceptable.
 * The hard sign ъ is typically rendered with the character ˮ, but a typical quotation mark " or right double quote ” is also acceptable.