Basic rules for producing a honkoku

A honkoku 翻刻 intends to: 原本を忠実に伝えること. From this point of view, it is not dissimilar to the ideaof ‘diplomatic transcription’ as defined in Western palaeography.
In our summer school we apply the following rules. You must treat these as our hanrei 凡例. The following rules
are for texts written in wabun (vernacular Japanese) and to a certain extent sōrōbun. They do not apply for text inkanbun.
1. Hiragana variants are to be transcribed using the hiragana shapes used in contemporary Japanese.
It is important to keep in mind the following points:
1.1. Katakana-looking ハ・ミ・ニ are to be transcribed as hiragana は・み・に (deriving from the jibo 字母: 八・三・ニ). You need to be mindful that this rule is not shared by everyone, particularly in historicalfields, so in other transcriptions these same hiragana can be transcribed as katakana. Needless to say, when
they are clearly used as katakana (i.e., in onomatopoeia, loan words, etc.) they should be transcribed askatakana.
1.2. Hiragana ゑ・ゐ and katakana ヱ・ヰ need to be kept as such.
1.3. The や・ゆ・よ in compounds such as しや・しゆ・しよ must be kept as full-size hiragana. Forexample: いしや should remain like this despite the fact that the word in modern script would be 医者＝いしゃ.
1.4. つ must be kept full size at all times. For example: ひつそり (with the meaning of ひっそり).
2. Transcribing kanji presents a number of challenges and rules to bear in mind:
2.1. You must transform kyūji 旧字 (old variants) into shinji 新字 (modern variants). For example: 佛→仏醫→医 賣→売2.2. Transform itaiji 異体字 (alternative variants) into mainstream shapes. For example: 枀→松Making decisions around itaiji is complicated as different dictionaries label the same shape in different
ways (itaji, zokuji, etc.). There are no hard rules about how to treat these variants, so you will need to makedecisions on a case by case basis. For example, the following variant shapes are retained in transcriptions:躰 (normally classified as an itaiji of 体), 脉 (normally classified as an itaiji of 脈) 迠 (normally classified
as an itaiji of 迄)
There are also shapes that might appear as itaiji but are not. They often appear in dictionaries as dōji 同字. They must be retained.. For example, 嶋 as compared to 島.

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You can use a number of online materials in your decision-making process:https://jigen.net/

http://en.glyphwiki.org/wiki/GlyphWiki:MainPage
Please be careful in using this site as it is not clear what dictionaries it uses as main references.

You can also use any 漢和辞典 that you are familiar with.

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Be mindful that the above rules regarding the transcription of kanji are not universally agreed upon and may
differ depending on the field you work in or the series you are transcribing for.
3. Okurigana remain unaltered. For example, if the text we have contains 云ける (where clearly the okurigana ひis missing) we must retain what is in the original document. Needless to say, when reading the text aloud wemust reconstruct and vocalize the okurigana: we read as if the okurigana were there but we do not transcribethem.
4. Dakuten 濁点 are to be displayed as they are in the original text. For example: わか身. Even if the context tells
us that the meaning if 我が身, we cannot transcribe it as わが見. We need to retain the か without dakuten.
Of course when we read the text aloud we need to vocalize this as wagami. Another common example is べからす - we know that it is supposed to be べからず but if the final hiragana does not have a dakuten in the text,
it doesn’t have one in our transcription. If the dakuten appears on the wrong syllable, please retain where it is.
If you want to signal that it is a mistake, please see point 8 below.
5. Diacritics remain unaltered. Please refer to the following chart:

ゟ for より should be transcribed as ゟ.
When こと or さま appears in highly abbreviated forms that look like one character, they need to betranscribed as こと and さま.

6. When transcribing furigana you must follow the rules explained for converting hiragana variants. In addition,
remember the following.
36.1. If you are using Word, you would normally click the following button:

When inputting furigana in Word, the danger is that you go with the suggestions given by the software. That canぐ しやlead to all sorts of mistakes. For example, let’s say that in the original you have 愚 者 . When you input thiscompound in Word, the software will give you the following:This is incorrect on two accounts: 1) しゃ should be transcribed as しや (see above point 1.3.); 2) the furigana
ぐ し ゃ

gets distributed unevenly on the two characters: 愚者 . To avoid these problems, follow these two steps.
Step 1: click on “Mono”.

4Step 2: amend the hiragana as required.

You can also decide to click on “clear readings” in Step 2 and insert the furigana anew. Please note, publishers
are very picky about furigana placement, so you must get it right first time or you will be spending hours redoingit all.
6.2. For compounds that work as ateji 当て字, the furigana needs to be spread on both characters. For example:
い な かく す し

い しや

田舎 、医者 (but 医 者 ). This applies also when unconventional readings are given to kanji compounds.

いひいひ6.3. Be careful about the combination of okurigana and furigana. For example you could have: 云 ける or 云ひける. Any of this, albeit incorrect from the point of view of contemporary Japanese, needs to be retained.
The okurigana can be part of the furigana only or repeated both in the furigana and in the okurigana.
6.4. When there is furigana on both sides of characters, they need to be retained as in the original.

7. Punctuation (kutōten 句読点) is left as it appears in the original. 〇 remain as such, even if they indicate acomma and not a period. When you have ● you must transcribe them as 〇. No research suggests that theseblack ● had a specific meaning. They were simply not cut inside by the woodcutter. On some occasions you
may find something akin to this shape:

Unfortunately there is no way to retain this in Word. There areoptions on Minna de honkoku.
（ママ）

8. Errors are not amended and are indicated by（ママ） (positioned in the furigana). For example 云 は ける.
5If you are not sure that it is a mistake, it is advisable to just transcribe what is in the original without adding（ママ）.
9. You must start a new line whenever the original text starts a new one. Where possible try to align the text inyour transcription with the text in the original, for example if there is a space at the start of a line then try toretain it.
10. At the end of each half folio indicate that the text ends for that half folio by putting the number of the folio
in Japanese numbers and the indication whether it is the recto or the verso (e.g. 九ウ). Recto must be renderedas オ and verso as ウ.
11. When a passage cannot be read because physical damage, please use □. If multiple kanji or hiragana aremissing, please add multiple □. If you are able to infer what is missing, please add this in furigana. For（読むカ）example: □ □ .
12. If there are kunten marks, please make sure to insert them.

For ways of inputting your honkoku in the platform Minna de honkoku please refer to the “Input rules” on thesystem.

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