Romaji has no "n"

A small but annoying bugbear - the romanisation of Japanese, ie the use of the Latin alphabet to represent Japanese words, is called ROMAJI. Let me spell it out R-O-M-A-J-I.

There is no "n" in it. The deformity "romanji" - is simply an error perpetuated by people too lazy to open up/turn on their dictionary and look up the original Japanese: ローマ字.

ローマ　    =    Roma     - what Italians call their capital city.
字              =    ji           - a letter

roma + ji    = romaji   

Not an "n" in sight. (And yes, strictly there should be a macron above the "o" to signify the long sound....)

The only way you can come up with "romanji" is by sticking "Roman" - an English word, onto "ji" a Japanese word, which makes no sense at all. This illogic used to piss me off until I took my own advice and flipped through the dictionary. It turns out that Japanese has absorbed the word "roman" and spawned words such as:

ロマン                             roman.
ロマンス                         romance.
ロマンスカー                     romance car, deluxe train
ロマンスグレー                 silver-gray hair (lit: romance gray)
ロマンスシート                 romance seat, love seat
ロマンス語 [ロマンスご]     Romance languages
ロマンチシスト                 romanticist
ロマンチシズム                 romanticism

So, OK, I see how some people may have become confused. Some people. People who took the time to look up the word "Roman" and then extrapolated to the nth degree. But most people who inserted the phantom "n" simply didn't bother to check. To them I say:

1. Don't assume - look it up.
2. Stop relying on romaji - it will retard your reading and confuse your understanding of how Japanese words are put together. Romaji exists to help tourists get around Japan, not as a crutch for students of Japanese too lazy to learn the kana.
3. There is no "n" in R-O-M-A-J-I!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Tags learning Japanese　| romaji | kana |

Comments

[mayu]

Hi,

it is interesting.

I often hear some foreigners say not "ローマ字" but "ロマ字". It is because ローマ字 is wrriten in Roman as "Romaji".

http://discover-jp.blogspot.com/

[Will]

Dear Mayu

Thanks for the comment. I think that some people say ロマ字 and not ローマ字 because the word is normally romanised as "romaji" with no indication that the "o" is actually a long sound - precisely why students of Japanese should avoid using ローマ字 where possible. I was lazy in not adding the macron - I should have written "rōmaji", but adding the macron is irritatingly complex and involves delving into the Programs » Accessories » System Tools » Character Map in Windows XP (the office computer) If anyone knows a simple method please let me know.

Will

[justin]

also do you ever notice a problem with 世界？ i hear alot of people pronouncing as せいかい　and not せかい?

[alan]

how to differentiate long sound of O is OU or OO??
tq