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
TBA

Other spelling matters

 * An explicit deviation from usual Hepburn: ぢ/ヂ and づ/ヅ may be represented as dzi 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.