山形大学人文学部研究年報

第 8 号 (2011. 3 ) 39−57

JAPANESE LOANWORD ORTHOGRAPHY FROM 1955

Mark Irwin
The Japanese government began issuing guidelines on gairaigo (loanword) orthography in 1902, although recommendations on standardization (Monbusho 1902) were initially limited to names. Further guidelines were announced later (RKC 1926), but thenrescinded ― the focus of Japanese government language policy in the first half of the20th century was rather on the reform of kana usage in general, along with setting limits
on kanji use (Twine 1988: 453-454; Gottlieb 1995: 54-85). It was two major reports published in the second half of the century, Monbusho (1955) and Bunkacho (1991), that
had the most impact on how loanwords are written today. These I discuss in detail in thispaper.


Monbusho (1955) was the result of two years of deliberation, from 1952 to 1954, by theTechnical Terms and Orthography Joint Subcommittee (Jutsugo Hy
oki G
od
o Bukai) of
the Second National Language Council (Kokugo Shingikai). 1 Given centuries of instability, 2 it was probably inevitable that no overall agreement on a standardized loanword
orthography was reached (opus cit.: 1) and that the fruits of the Subcommittee’s deliberations presented to the Council in March 1954 were contained in a report (報告)rather than a formal recommendation (建議).

1

The Technical Terms Subcommittee had 13 members and was chaired by Dr. Satta Kotoji 颯田
琴次, author of books on psychology and phonetics and Professor at Tokyo University of the Arts.
The Orthography Subcommittee had 15 members and was chaired by Dr. Hoshina Koichi 保科孝
一, author of numerous books on the Japanese language and Professor Emeritus at Tokyo Bunrika
University (later to become part of Tokyo University of Education). The Second National
Language Council’s 62 members were chaired by Dr. Toki Zenmaro 土岐善麿, poet, head of Tokyo
Hibiya Metropolitan Library, and active in both the romanization and Esperanto movements.
2
To take just a relatively recent example, Umegaki (1963: 132) and Ishiwata (2001: 151) bothquote a survey by Kojiro Tanesuke 神代種亮 which cites 29 different kana spellings for Goethe recorded in a 56-year period between 1872 and 1928. These include げえて, ギョーツ, グォエテ, ゴヱ
テ and ギューテ. Another example of extreme orthographic instability is the word for ‘whisk(e)y’:
NKD records ウヰスキー, ヰスキー, ヰスキ, ウイスキ, ウイスケ, ウヰスケ and ウスケ, as well as the stable modern form ウイスキー.

― 39 ―JAPANESE LOANWORD ORTHOGRAPHY FROM 1955

Mark Irwin

Before listing 19 ‘General Rules’ (原則) for loanword orthography, the preface to thereport (opus cit.: 3-4) makes clear some of the reasons for the lack of consensus achievedon standardization. The Subcommittee considered there to be three types of gairaigo:()Those with a long history, which have ‘fused’ with native Japanese and which
the average speaker does not feel to be gairaigo. Examples cited include tabako‘cigarette, tobacco’ and kaQpa ‘raincoat’.

()Those which are probably felt to be gaikokugo rather than gairaigo. Examples
cited include oosoritii ‘authority’ and fiaNse ‘fiance(e)’.

() The remainder, i.e. those which are in widespread use and are felt to be gairaigo.
Examples cited include oobaa ‘overcoat’ and rajio ‘radio’.

It is noted that, although for (i) spellings have been largely fixed, for (iii) nativization
has meant spellings are frequently divorced from donor spelling or pronunciation, whilefor (ii) spellings close to donor spelling or pronunciation are still being sounded out. In
these references to ‘donor spelling or pronunciation’ (note the order), the power of donor
orthography is made clear.
The first two General Rules concern themselves with overarching issues. Rule 1 statesthat gairaigo should be written in katakana and specifically recommends the 113(di)graphs coded M in Table 2. While デュ <dyu> is recommended, its voiceless counterpart テュ <tyu> is not. A further 12 digraphs, including the bulk of the c-row but, oddly,
some traditional kana (Table 1) such as ニョ <nyo> and ヒャ <hya>, appear in parentheses. These are coded as M＊ in Table 2. Rule 2 urges following accepted spellings
where these exist (e.g. ケーキ keeki ‘cake’), although this is often contradicted by subsequent rules recommending standardization. No attempt is made at defining what an‘accepted spelling’ might actually be.
Rules 3 to 5 deal with the mora consonants /N/ and /Q/. Rule 3 states that the mora
nasal /N/ be written ン. Contemporary spellings with ム can be found: e.g. シムポジウ
simupojiumu ‘symposium’. Rule 4 recommends the mora obstruent /Q/ be written reム
duced, as ッ. Before gendai kanazukai, 3 standard size ツ was common, not only in gairaigo
spelling but across all vocabulary strata. Rule 5 states that neither of the mora consonants should be inserted on the basis of double letters found in donor word spelling: e.g.

3

Literally, ‘modern kana usage’, a government promulgation of 1946.

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山形大学人文学部研究年報

第 8 号 (2011. 3 ) 39−57

Table 1 : The traditional kana
コミュニケ komyunike not コンミュニケ koNmyunike ‘communique’ and アクセサリー
akusesarii not アクセッサリー akuseQsarii ‘accessory’. Nevertheless, the rule goes on tolist exceptions, presumably based on accepted usage, where mora obstruent /Q/ insertion is acceptable. These include バッター baQtaa ‘batter (for cooking, in baseball)’, シャッsaQtaa ‘shutter’ and カッティング kaQtiNgu ‘cutting’. Rule 5 seems to have had noター 
effect on subsequent orthographic practice. Donor words with both double <mm> anddouble <nn> are still often spelt with an inserted mora nasal /N/, while the situation
with inserted mora /Q/ is still complex.
Rules 6 and 8 deal with palatal glides. Rule 6 recommends writing the palatal glide
portion of the katakana digraph reduced. Thus, ジャズ not ジヤズ jazu ‘jazz’. Rule 8 advises using ア <a> rather than ヤ <ya> after the front vowels /i/ and /e/. Thus, ピア― 41 ―JAPANESE LOANWORD ORTHOGRAPHY FROM 1955

Table 2 : The contemporary katakana series― 42 ―Mark Irwin

山形大学人文学部研究年報

第 8 号 (2011. 3 ) 39−57

ノ piano not ピヤノ piyano ‘piano’ and ヘアピン heapiN not ヘヤピン heyapiN ‘hairpin’.
A greater number of exceptions are listed (e.g. タイヤ taiya ‘tyre’, ベニヤ beniya ‘veneer’) than are illustrations of the rule, and spelling on this point is still unstable today.
oonpu ― should be used to indicate long vowels and that オ
Rule 7 states that the chウ and エイ should be avoided and オー and エー written instead. Exceptions are nevertheless cited for the latter (e.g. ペイント peeNto ‘paint’), presumably based on acceptedusage.
Rules 9 to 14 deal with the spelling of innovative pronunciations and all recommend
a conservative approach. The first of these, Rule 9, is difficult to interpret, however. It
recommends that ‘original’ トゥ /tu/ and ドゥ /du/ be written ト <to> and ド <do>.
None of the examples cited (ゼントルマン zeNtorumaN ‘gentleman’, ブレーントラストdΩΩbureeNtorasuto ‘brain trust’, ドライブ doraibu ‘drive’, etc.) actually have |ttu du|, oranything that may be construed as ‘original’ トゥ or ドゥ, in the donor word. In all cases,
the /u/ is epenthetic. What this rule presumably sought to recommend, then, was thatan epenthetic /o/ be employed after donor |t| and |d| rather than the epenthetic /u/often found in earlier gairaigo. 4 That this rule is based on an infelicitous analysis and isseriously confused is corroborated by the exceptions noted later: ツーピース cuupiisu‘two-piece (dress)’, ツリー curii ‘tree’, ズック zuQku ‘canvas, sackcloth’ from Du. doek,
and ズロース zuroosu ‘(women’s) drawers’. Only half of these, cuupiisu and doek, are adaptations of donor トゥ or ドゥ.
Rule 10 is clearer: f- and v-row kana should be written with h- and b-row kana, respectively. Thus, ビタミン bitamiN not ヴィタミン vitamiN ‘vitamin’, プラットホーム puraQtohoomu not プラットフォーム puraQtofoomu ‘platform’. Noted exceptions, where ‘there isan awareness of the donor sound’, include フェミニスト feminisuto ‘lady’s man’ and ヴォ
キャブラリー vokyaburarii ‘vocabulary’. Rule 10 is unusual in having an explanatoryfootnote which states that at the general meeting of the Second National Language
Council there was debate concerning variations in spelling such as フィルム firumu or
フイルム fuirumu ‘film’. In other words, while not stated in explicitly linguistic terms,
whether spellings should reflect a mono- or bimoraic pronunciation.
Rule 11 states that ティ <ti> and ディ <di> should be written ‘whenever possible’ as
チ <ci> and ジ <ji>, respectively. Thus チーム 
c iimu not ティーム tiimu ‘team’, ジレン

E.g. kacurecu from Eng. cutlet (attested 1864),
sacu from Eng. shirt (attested 1873), or
siicu fromEng. sheet (attested 1884).
4― 43 ―JAPANESE LOANWORD ORTHOGRAPHY FROM 1955

Mark Irwin

マ jireNma not ディレンマ direNma ‘dilemma’. Exceptions, where ‘there is an awarenessof the donor sound’, are ティー tii ‘tea’ and ビルディング birudiNgu ‘building’.
Rule 12 urges, in a similarly conservative vein, that シェ <se> and ジェ <je> be written ‘whenever possible’ as セ <se> and ゼ <ze>, respectively. Thus, ミルクセーキ mirukuseeki not ミルクシェーキ mirukus
caa not ジェスチャー
eeki ‘milkshake’, ゼスチャー zesujesu
caa ‘gesture’. Here, exceptions cited include シェード s eedo ‘s hade’ and ジェットエ
ンジン jeQtoeNjiN ‘jet engine’. Rule 12, like Rule 10, contains an explanatory footnote.
This makes it clear that the Council did not agree with the Subcommittee’s recommendation on this point: ‘/
se/ and /je/ are sounds that can be pronounced by Japanese people
and thus the spellings シェ and ジェ ought to be recommended’.
Rule 13 recommends monomoraic ウィ <wi>, ウェ <we> and ウォ <wo> be written as
bimoraic ウイ <ui>, ウエ <ue> and ウオ <uo>. Thus, ウイスキー uisukii not ウィスキー
wisukii ‘whisk(e)y’, ウエーブ ueebu not ウェーブ weebu ‘wave’, ストップウオッチ
sutoQpuuoQ
ci not ストップウォッチ sutoQpuwoQci ‘stopwatch’. A /u/ mora may be
dropped altogether when a spelling is established: e.g. サンドイッチ saNdoiQci ‘sandwich’,
not saNdouiQ
ci. A footnote reveals that the Council failed to agree with the Subcommittee’s recommendation here too: ‘depending on the donor sound, there is surely no problem with writing ウィ <wi>, ウェ <we> and ウォ <wo>’.
Rule 14 states that the labial glides クァ <kwa>, クィ <kwi>, クェ <kwe> and クォ<kwo> be written カ <ka>, クイ <kui> クエ <kue> and コ <ko>, respectively. Thus, ス
su not レモ
クエア sukuea not スクェア sukwea ‘square’, レモンスカッシュ remoNsukaQsu ‘lemon squash’. This recommendation may be seen as
ンスクァッシュ remoNsukwaQ
inconsistent. While monomoraic クィ <kwi> and クェ <kwe> should, like ウィ <wi> andウ ェ <we> in Rule 13, be written bimoraically as ク イ <kui> and ク エ <kue>,monomoraic ク ァ <kwa> and ク ォ <kwo> should remain monomoraic throughdelabialization and be written カ <ka> and コ <ko>. Again, exceptions where ‘there is anawareness of the donor sound’, are noted and include クォータリー kwootarii ‘quarterly(publication)’.
Rule 15 recommends transcribing the |k| of a donor |ks| cluster as <ku> rather than<ki> (i.e. an epenthetic /u/, rather than /i/). Thus, ボクシング boku
siNgu, not ボキシン
siNgu ‘boxing’. Exceptions cited include エキス ekisu ‘extract, essence’ and テキ
グ bokiスト tekisuto ‘text’.
Rule 16 states that ‘final -er, -or and -ar, particularly from English’ be spelt long using― 44 ―

山形大学人文学部研究年報

第 8 号 (2011. 3 ) 39−57

oonpu ― (see also Rule 7). Thus, ラ イ タ ー raitaa ‘lighter’ and エ レ ベ ー タ ー
the cherebeetaa ‘lift, elevator’. As usual, there are exceptions: ハンマ haNma ‘hammer’, スリッ
パ suriQpa ‘slipper’ and ドア doa ‘door’. No mention is made of admittedly less frequent
English final -ur or -ir.
Rule 17 deals with a minor point of spelling, recommending that donor words in final-um be written ウム <umu>: アルミニウム aruminiumu not アルミニューム aruminyuumu‘aluminium’, etc. Exceptions cited include アルバム arubamu ‘album’ and スタジアム
sutajiamu ‘stadium’.
Rules 18 and 19 deal once more with the spellings of innovative pronunciations. In
the case of Rule 18, the subcommittee recommends the テュ <tyu> and デュ <dyu>moras be written チュ <cu> and ジュ <ju>, respectively: e.g. スチュワーデス sucuwaadesu
not ステュワーデス sutyuwaadesu ‘stewardess’, ジュース juusu not デュース dyuusu‘deuce’. Only one exception is cited: プロデューサー purodyuusaa ‘(movie) producer’.
The final rule, Rule 19, is similar in its theme: innovative フュ <fyu> and ヴュ <vyu>should be written ヒュ <hyu> and ビュ <byu>. Thus ヒューズ hyuuzu not フューズ fyuuzu‘fuse’, インタビュー iNtabyuu not インタヴュー iNtavyuu ‘interview’. An addendum toRule 19 states that the five katakana ヰ <wi>, ヱ <we>, ヲ <wo>, ヅ <du> and ヂ <di>should not be used to write gairaigo.
A final explanatory note appearing after Rule 19 concerns a point of punctuation. The
Council notes that while three different marks have conventionally been employed to indicate a word break between two gairaigo, the nakaten ・ and two types of hyphen, - and=, it has elected to defer any decision on the matter of which of the three to recommend.
It points out that the use of the nakaten may be confused with its other major function,roughly equivalent to the use in English of a slash /.
Subsequent to these rules, Monbusho (1955) then goes on to list 17 pages of gairaigo
orthographic examples. The report concludes with an appendix containing orthographic
examples of foreign names and a list of kana recommended for their transcription. Thisis broadly the same as those recommended for general gairaigo orthography, although
includes five additional katakana digraphs, one of which is the curious ウュ <wyu>,
cited in the Subcommittee’s transcription of ‘W
urttemberg’ as ウ ュ ル テ ン ベ ル ク
wyuruteNberuku. These five additional digraphs are coded M F in Table 2.

― 45 ―JAPANESE LOANWORD ORTHOGRAPHY FROM 1955

Mark Irwin


Nearly three decades after Monbusho (1955) was published, the National Institute forJapanese Language published an analysis, Kokken (1984), of the orthographical data
found in one of their earlier surveys, Kokken (1962). This has direct relevance to
Monbusho (1955) in two ways. Firstly, Kokken (1962) contains data on a range ofmagazines published in 1956, only two years after Monbusho (1955) was submitted to
the National Language Council and four years after the Subcommittee’s deliberations
began. Secondly, Kokken (1984) expressly analyses the Kokken (1962) orthographicaldata according to seven of the general rules set forward in Monbusho (1955). Both thesefactors offer a valuable insight into contemporary orthographic practice.
Monbusho (1955) Rule 1 stated that gairaigo should be written in katakana. Although
Kokken (1984) agrees that ‘katakana was overwhelmingly to the fore’, it does list a significant number of loanwords in Kokken (1962) which had alternative non-katakana
spellings. Of these, the following words had a token count greater than 20 and showed
an alternative non-katakana orthography in 25% or more of these:(1)粍for mirimeetoru ‘millimetre’(31/31, 100%)cm, 糎for seN
cimeetoru ‘centimetre’(357/359, 99%)頁, p., pp.

for peeji ‘page’(98/106, 92%)

煙草, たばこ, 莨

for tabako ‘tobacco, cigarette’(24/37, 65%)

KW

for kirowaQto ‘kilowatt’(13/22, 59%)

米, m

for meetoru ‘metre’(49/86, 57%)

H

for hiQpu ‘hips’(14/26, 54%)

倶楽部, くらぶ

for kurabu ‘club’(8/21, 38%)

W

for uesuto or wesuto ‘waist’(34/108, 31%)巴里

for pari ‘Paris’(14/49, 29%)

吋for iNci ‘inch’(6/22, 27%)

H

for hiQto ‘hit’(5/20, 25%)

Monbusho (1955) Rule 3 recommended the mora nasal /N/ be written ン. The central
finding of Kokken (1984) is that for gairaigo whose donor words contained <mb>, 5 ム
5Note that, even as late as 1984, it appears Kokken is still basing an analysis on donor orthography, not donor phonology. This is surely indicative of how entrenched dictionary traditions are.

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山形大学人文学部研究年報

第 8 号 (2011. 3 ) 39−57<mu> is found where ン <N> is expected in 21% of tokens and 22% of types. This is incomparison with only 5% of tokens and 11% of types for donor <mp>. Examples of theformer were コロムビア koromubia or コロムビヤ koromubiya ‘Columbia’ in 53% (9/17)
of cases, against コロンビア koroNbia in 47% (8/17). Examples of the latter were キャ
ムプ kyamupu ‘camp(ing)’ in 3/11 (27%) of cases, against キャンプ kyaNpu or キヤン
プ kiyaNpu in 73% (8/11) of cases.
Kokken (1984) provides an extremely thorough analysis of Monbusho (1955) Rule 7,
namely that the ch
oonpu ― be used to indicate long vowels. Use of the ch
oonpu varied
across the five long vowels, with the following ranking found (percentages show proportion of ch
oonpu usage by type): /aa/ (95%, 810/854), /oo/ (92%, 563/611), /uu/ (86%,254/294), /ii/ (84%, 467/558), /ee/ (71%, 323/455). Examples without ch
oonpu included スタア sutaa ‘(movie) star’, ショオ soo ‘show’, チュウリップ 
cuuriQpu ‘tulip’, ス
oonpu spellings, notable were
キイ sukii ‘skiing’ and ネエム neemu ‘name’. Of the non-ch
soobooto
ウ <u> for the second mora of /oo/ in 6% (37/611) of types (e.g. ショウボート ‘showboat’) and イ <i> for the second mora of /ee/ in a much larger 26% (119/455) oftypes (e.g. ニューフェイス nyuufeesu ‘new member, new employee’). If these two exceptional spellings for /oo/ and /ee/ are ignored, then the use of non-ch
oonpu spellings wasmore common amongst names: 12% (107/895) of types here, as against 5% (92/1721)
for other gairaigo. Differences were also evident according to donor language, although
in some cases the number of donor words was small. While words borrowed fromEnglish showed non-ch
oonpu spellings in 7% (137/2081) of types, this figure rose to ashigh as 21% (6/29) for Dutch and 17% (34/202) for French, while falling to as low as
2% (2/110) for German. Dictionary traditions were clearly playing a role here. Finally,a non-ch
oonpu spelling was more likely to occur word-finally (15%, 130/892) than wordinternally (4%, 69/1724).
Although Monbusho (1955) Rule 8 advised using ア <a> rather than ヤ <ya> after
the front vowels /i/ and /e/, the statistics in Kokken (1984) suggest that, in spite of theinstability at the time Subcommittee debate was being conducted, the majority ofgairaigo of this type were in fact already being written with ア <a> after front vowels.
Overall, 70% (192/273) of types evinced ア <a>, although this was more common with/ea/ (86%, 42/49) than with /ia/ (67%, 150/224).
Kokken’s (1984) analysis shows how divorced from the contemporary reality of spelling practice the Monbusho (1955) Subcommittee’s recommendations had been as re-― 47 ―JAPANESE LOANWORD ORTHOGRAPHY FROM 1955

Mark Irwin

gards both Rules 10 and 11. Rule 10 stated that f- and v-row should be written with hand b-row kana. The disparity was particularly large with donor |f|. Here, the recommended h-row kana were being employed in a mere 6% (13/214) of types. Bimoraic
spellings such as フア <fua> were found in only 10% (21/214) of types, with the remaining 84% (180/214) being monomoraic spellings such as ファ <fa>. With donor |v|, thesplit was more even, however. The recommended b-row kana were found in 43%(149/344) of types, with bimoraic spellings such as ヴア <vua> in only 4% (13/344)
and monomoraic spellings such as ヴァ <va> in the remaining 53% (182/314) of types.
Rule 11 recommended that ティ <ti> and ディ <di> be written as チ <ci> and ジ <ji>.
Both the innovative forms ティ <ti> and ディ <di> were more popular, although the former, with 51% (70/138) of types, less so than the latter, with 73% (60/82) of types.6
Innovative forms were conspicuously dominant when word final: 88% (28/32) of types
for ティ <ti> and 81% (17/21) of types for ディ <di>.
Finally, Monbusho (1955) Rule 16 stated that ‘final -er, -or and -ar, particularly fromEnglish’ be spelt long using the ch
oonpu ―. Kokken (1984) found this to have been thepractice of the time. An overwhelming 96% (273/285) of types borrowed from English
final -er, -or and -ar were spelt with a ch
oonpu in Kokken (1962).

By the 1980s, many of the recommendations in Monbusho (1955) were being ignored,
and those of Bunkacho (1991) being anticipated, in orthographic guidelines publishedby several major organizations. These included, as noted in Kokken (1990: 111-112), theJapan Licensing Authority (NSK 1982), the Japan Newspaper Publishers & Editors
Association (SYK 1984) and the nation’s only public broadcaster, NHK (1987).
Bunkacho (1991) is a document based on debate carried out during the 17th and 18th
National Language Council sessions held from 1986-1988 and 1989-1991, respectively.
In 1991, it was submitted to the Minister of Education, announced as Cabinet
Notification No. 2 and promulgated as Cabinet Directive No. 1. It was the last document
submitted by the National Language Council to become either a cabinet notification or
directive: the body was disbanded in 2001. Language policy issues are now officially the6

I ignore here Kokken’s (1984) statistics for the adapted forms テ /te/, テイ /tee/, テー /tee/, デ/de/, デイ /dee/ and デー /dee/.

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bailiwick of the National Language Subcommittee (Kokugo Bunkakai), 7 at the time ofwriting one of four subcommittees within the wide-ranging Culture Advisory Committee(Bunka Shingikai).
The preface to Bunkacho (1991) states that its contents are intended to act as an
authoritative guide to gairaigo orthography in the spheres of ‘laws and ordinances, public documents, newspapers, magazines, broadcasting, etc.’, but that it is ‘not the document’s intention to infringe on individual orthographic practices in scientific, technicaland artistic spheres’, nor ‘in the spelling of proper nouns, including personal names, company names and brand names’. Neither is it the document’s intent to ‘contradict or negate gairaigo orthographies established in the past’.
The document continues with a list of katakana recommended for gairaigo spelling, divided into two charts. The larger Chart 1 is to be used for ‘the general writing of gairaigo
and foreign names’ and consists of the 115 (di)graphs coded B1 in Table 2. The smaller
Chart 2 is to be used for ‘the writing of the same when necessary to come as close as possible to the original pronunciation or spelling’ and is composed of 20 (di)graphs coded
B2 in Table 2. Taking Chart 1 and Chart 2 together, for a total of 135 (di)graphs, makes
for an increase of five (di)graphs over the total of 130 kana (M, M ＊, M F) recommended
in Monbusho (1955). Appearing only in Bunkacho (1991) are クィ <kwi>, クェ <kwe>,
クォ <kwo>, テュ <tyu>, ツィ <ci> and ヴュ <vyu>, while ウュ <wyu> appears only in
Monbusho (1955).
The main thrust of Bunkacho (1991) lies in six ‘Fundamental Articles’ (原則的な事
項) and 24 ‘Detailed Articles’ (細則的な事項). Fundamental Article 1 states that the
document treats only katakana spellings of gairaigo, while Article 2 warns that no attempt will be made to judge between two already well-established variants of the same
donor word (e.g. グローブ guroobu and グラブ gurabu ‘glove’). Where a spelling is wellestablished, notes Fundamental Article 3, it should be adhered to, the use of different
variants across different technical fields being perfectly acceptable. Fundamental
Articles 4 to 6 provide more detail on the two kana charts described in the previous
paragraph. Chart 1 kana should be used ‘for the most part’ in writing gairaigo whoselevel of nativization is high, Chart 2 kana to write words whose degree of nativizationis ‘not high’ or which are ‘to a certain extent’ gaikokugo. Chart 1 kana should be used if

7Note, however, the input to language policy provided by Kokken, especially with regard to current issues regarding the proliferation of gairaigo, especially Kokken (2003a, 2003b, 2004, 2006a,
2006b, 2007).

― 49 ―JAPANESE LOANWORD ORTHOGRAPHY FROM 1955

Mark Irwin

Chart 2 kana are unnecessary: e.g. イエ <ie> for イェ <ye>, ウオ <uo> for ウォ <wo>,
バ <ba> for ヴァ <va>. In the event of it being necessary to employ kana not listed in either chart, no rules or advice are proffered and usage is down to the individual. Ten examples of such usage are cited and these katakana are coded B＊ in Table 2.
The 24 Detailed Articles are divided into three groups: (I) Chart 1 ‘additional’ kana;oonpu and other matters.
(II) Chart 2 kana; and (III) the mora consonants, use of the ch
Articles I.1 to I.6 illustrate the usage patterns for all Chart 1 kana. I restrict listing examples cited to a small selection of those containing non-traditional (i.e. unshaded in Table2) katakana digraphs: シェーカー seekaa ‘(cocktail) shaker’, ダイジェスト daijesuto ‘digest, roundup’, チェス c esu ‘chess’, シャンツェ 
saNce ‘ski jump’, ボランティア boraNtia‘volunteer’, ディズニー dizunii ‘Disney’, フェンシング feN
siNgu ‘fencing (sport)’ and デュット dyueQto ‘duet’. Also given, in some cases, are exceptions where usage has alreadybeen established. For ティ <ti> and ディ <di>, these include exceptions using both icolumn (e.g. チ <ci>, ジ <ji>) and e-column (e.g. テ <te>, デ <de>) katakana. For the frow, exceptions employing both h-row (e.g. ハ <ha>) and bimoraic spellings (e.g. フア<fua>) are given.
Articles II.1 to II.10, which deal with Chart 2 kana, are a simple list of examples. Eachof the 10 articles uses wording such as ‘the kana グァ <gwa> should be used to represent
the foreign sound グァ <gwa>’. The ‘foreign sound’ is written in katakana and IPA is not
employed. Examples cited include イェーツ yeecu ‘(William Butler) Yeats’, スウェーデ
ccoNmaaku ‘question mark’, パラグァ
ン suweedeN ‘Sweden’, クェスチョンマーク kwesu
イ paragwai ‘Paraguay’, ソルジェニーツィン sorujeniiciN ‘(Alexander) Solzhenitsyn’, ハ
caturiyaN ‘(Aram) Khachaturian’, テューバ tyuuba ‘tuba’, フュージョ
チャトゥリヤン ha
ン fyuujoN ‘fusion’, ヴェルサイユ verusaiyu ‘Versailles’ and レヴュー revyuu ‘revue,(book) review’. Remarks regarding exceptions note that foreign イェ <ye> is ‘generally
written’ either as エ <e> or イエ <ie>; that the convention of writing, for example,
monomoraic ウィ <wi> rather than bimoraic ウイ <ui> is especially strong with names;that donor クァ <kwa> and グァ <gwa> may also be written with a different reduced
kana, as クヮ and グヮ; and that foreign トゥ <tu> has established spellings with bothツ <cu> and ト <to>, likewise ドゥ <du> with both ズ <zu> and ド <do>.
Of the third and final group of Detailed Articles, III.1 and III.2 treat the mora consonants. Article III.2 recommends that the mora obstruent /Q / be written reduced, as ッ.
Article III.1 recommends the mora nasal /N/ be written ン, but that established spellings― 50 ―

山形大学人文学部研究年報

第 8 号 (2011. 3 ) 39−57

such as シムポジウム simupojiumu (rather than シンポジウム 
siNpojiumu) ‘symposium’
should be respected. The noting of this and other exceptions is further proof that Rule 5of Monbusho (1955) had failed to take hold.
oonpu should be used for long vowels: e.g.
Article III.3 states that, ‘as a rule’, the chポーランド pooraNdo ‘Poland’. However, it notes that there exist established spellings
with O-row/
kana, especially when these represent /ee/ and /oo/: e.g. レイアウト reeauto‘layout’ and サラダボウル saradabooru ‘salad bowl’. Loans whose English donor words
have final -er, -or or -ar should be written long (e.g. コンピューター koNpyutaa ‘computer’),except where established spellings or variants exist (e.g. コンピュータ koNpyuta ‘computer’).
Articles III.4 and III.5 are fundamentally identical to Rules 8 and 17 of Monbusho(1955) and cover the use of ア <a> after front vowels and the spelling of donor wordfinal <(i)um>. Article III.6 adopts a more flexible position than that taken by Rule 15 ofMonbusho (1955). Whereas the latter advocated an epenthetic /u/ following the |k| ina donor |ks| cluster (e.g. タクシー taku
sii not タキシー taki
sii ‘taxi’), Bunkacho (1991)
states that an epenthetic /i/ is also acceptable. Current usage is confused and somegairaigo have both variants. Article III.7 recommends that kana indicating palatal
glides, ャ, ュ and ョ, be written reduced, as should the second kana in the digraphs ヴァ<va>, ヴィ <vi>, ヴェ <ve>, ヴォ <vo> and トゥ <tu>. Oddly, this advice is not offered forthe latter digraph’s voiced counterpart ドゥ <du>.
The final Detailed Article, III.8, addresses the issue of how to indicate a word break in
a loan phrase. While this was passed over in the form of a final explanatory note in
Monbusho (1955: 9), Bunkacho (1991) sidesteps the problem completely, by stating it
has no position to take and no advice to offer, other than ‘conforming to accepted practice’. Thus, keesubaikeesu ‘case by case’ may be written with spaces (ケース バイ ケース), with nakaten (ケース・バイ・ケース), or with hyphens (ケース-バイ-ケース), 8 while
non-kanji-sphere foreign names (e.g. maruko poro ‘Marco Polo’) may use a nakaten (マルコ・ポロ) or a double hyphen (マルコ＝ポロ), but, curiously, not a space (マルコポロ).
It is worth mentioning one survey whose results are relevant to the Bunkacho (1991)
orthographic recommendations, specifically the use of b-row or v-row kana to write

8

The commonly found ケースバイケース, where the word break is simply ignored, is not mentioned.

― 51 ―JAPANESE LOANWORD ORTHOGRAPHY FROM 1955

Mark Irwin

donor |v|. Sakamoto (2002: 55-56) analysed transcription patterns for the v-row in three
media: usage found between 1985 and 2001 in three daily national newspapers (Asahi
Shinbun, Yomiuri Shinbun and Mainichi Shinbun); usage patterns derived from thesearch results of three major internet search engines (Yahoo!, goo and Google) carriedout in 2002; and a survey carried out by NHK in the same year which asked just under
1,300 respondents which of two transcriptions they usually used. His results are summarized in Table 3.

Table 3 : v-row transcription patterns across three media (adapted from Sakamoto 2002)

Transcription patterns for the v-row differ radically by medium. Newspapers are themost conservative, in general following the older Monbusho (1955) recommendation to
use the b-row. The most politically liberal of the three newspapers, the Asahi Shinbun, is
in fact the most transcriptionally conservative, although Sakamoto’s figures include orthographic practice found in newspaper editions as far back as 1985 and predating
Bunkacho (1991). Internet search engine results show the most innovative transcription
with a rough 50:50 split between v- and b-row usage. The NHK survey falls approximately halfway between these two extremes.

Compared to Monbusho (1955), the tone of Bunkacho (1991) is more forbearing andits content less confused. Although it provides useful guidance on how to transcribe
gaikokugo, it stops short of offering suggestions for a number of common foreign phones
still without an accepted kana transcription. Restricting examples to consonants, theseinclude |l x|, conventionally transcribed identically to donor |r s z j h|, respectively.

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山形大学人文学部研究年報

第 8 号 (2011. 3 ) 39−57

When, therefore, it is ‘necessary to come as close as possible to the original pronunciationor spelling’ (Bunkacho 1991: 3-4) a transcription is often difficult or ambiguous whenrestricted to kana, a situation which has far-reaching consequences for foreign language
pedagogy. This is not to say, however, that such transcriptions have not been proposed
or attempted: see Umegaki (1963: 142-143) and Nishimura (1995: 31-32) for some examples.
The match between kana graphs and the sounds they actually represent in modern
standard Japanese is close to 100% transparent. This means that a document like
Bunkacho (1991) is not only recommending a given spelling, but also the pronunciation
on which the spelling is based. When, for example, Detailed Article III.3 notes that theword for computer can be spelt as either コンピューター koNpyuutaa or コンピュータ koNpyuuta, it is in reality acknowledging that the word has two different pronunciations, onewith a final short and one with a final long vowel. Many of the orthographic recommendations in Bunkacho (1991), as well as in Monbusho (1955), double therefore as recommendations on gairaigo pronunciation and offer tacit acknowledgement, especially in
Bunkacho (1991), that these often vary. Purely orthographic alternatives among modern Japanese gairaigo ― alternatives unconnected with variant pronunciations ― arefound in only four areas. The first of these, variation regarding a word break in a loanphrase, is dealt with in Detailed Article III.8. The second, the question of the extent towhich the reduced graph in a digraph truly indicates monomoraicity (e.g. ウエ /ue/ versus ウェ /we/), is considered in Fundamental Article 5.
The third is the use of the ch
oonpu to mark a long vowel, taken up in Article III.3 ofBunkacho (1991). Examples found in Kokken (1962), such as スタア sutaa ‘star’ andチュウリップ 
cuuriQpu ‘tulip’, where tautomorphemic /aa/ and /uu/ are spelt withouta ch
oonpu, would, if encountered today, probably be considered non-standard. There arestill, however, a very small number of examples in the modern language where
tautomorphemic /ii/ may be found written without a ch
oonpu. These include ミイラ
miira ‘mummy’ and ユリイカ yuriika ‘eureka’. With tautomorphemic /oo/ and /ee/,
however, the situation is different. Here, the second mora of /oo/ may be written withウ <u> (2a), though never with オ <o>, while the second mora of /ee/ may be represented by either イ <i> (3a) or, more rarely, エ <e> (3b). Both tautomorphemic /oo/and /ee/ may also, of course, be written with a ch
oonpu (2b, 3c).

― 53 ―JAPANESE LOANWORD ORTHOGRAPHY FROM 1955

(2) a.
b.

フィンガーボウル fiNgaabooru

Mark Irwin‘finger bowl’

ソウルフル

soorufuru‘soulful’

サウスポー

sausupoo‘southpaw’

グルコース

gurukoosu‘glucose’

ドメイン

domeeN‘(web)domain’

レイプ

reepu

‘rape’

b.

バレエ

baree

‘ballet’

レゲエ

regee

‘reggae’

c.

バレー

baree

‘volleyball’

データ

deeta

‘data’(3) a.

In a very few cases a different spelling serves to distinguish two homonyms: e.g.
booriNgu ボーリング ‘boring, drilling’, but booriNgu ボウリング ‘ten-pin bowling’. In careful pronunciation, however, type (2a) and (3a) spellings are typically sounded out as/o-u/ and /e-i/ rather than /o-o/ and /e-e/. Vance (1987: 13) comments on an identicalphenomenon in Sino-Japanese vocabulary. While I am unaware of any statistical studies
offering corroboration, there is a tendency for type (3a) spellings to occur more frequently in names. The homonyms メイン meeN for ‘Maine’ but メーン meeN for ‘main’,
ペイジ peeji for ‘(Jimmy) Page’ but ページ peeji for ‘page’, and quasi-homonyms ゲイ
ツ geecu for ‘(Bill) Gates’ and ゲート geeto for ‘gate’, are all cases in point.
The fourth and final area where orthographic variation is apparent is the choice of
which script to employ when writing gairaigo. One of the recommendations made by
Monbusho (1955) had taken hold so strongly by the late 1980s, that mention of it in
Bunkacho (1991) was no longer deemed necessary. Bunkacho (1991) states nowherethat gairaigo should be written in katakana, simply noting in Fundamental Article 1 that
it will treat only katakana spellings. By 1991 this was the script being used to write theoverwhelming majority of gairaigo. While nearly two decades on from Bunkacho (1991)
hiragana is rarely encountered in gairaigo orthography, a small number of kanji spellings are still frequently used. 9 It is, however, a foreign script, the Roman alphabet, which
has made greatest inroads into the katakana hegemony and it is to this I will turn in alater paper.

Bibliography
Bunkacho (文化庁)(Agency for Cultural Affairs). 1991. Gairaigo no hy
oki (Loanword

Orthography). Available online at http://www.bunka.go.jp/kokugo/main.asp?fl=9

E.g. 頁, 缶, 珈琲, 天麩羅, etc.

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山形大学人文学部研究年報

第 8 号 (2011. 3 ) 39−57

list&id=1000003933&clc=1000000068. Retrieved 11 June, 2010.
Gottlieb, Nanette. 1995. Kanji Politics: Language Policy and Japanese Script. London:
Kegan Paul International.
ogoteki kenkyIshiwata Toshio (石綿敏雄). 2001. Gairaigo no su (A General Study ofJapanese Loanwords). Tokyo: T
oky
od
o.
Kokken = Kokuritsu Kokugo Kenkyujo (国立国語研究所) (National Institute for theJapanese Language, formerly The National Language Research Institute), ed. 1962.
H
okoku 21: Gendai zasshi 90-shu no yogoy
oji daiichibunsatsu: hy
oki oyobi goihyo (Report＃21: Vocabulary and Chinese Characters in 90 Magazines of Today: Vol. I General
Description and Vocabulary Frequency Tables). Tokyo: Sh
uei Shuppan.
okoku 79: Zasshi 90-shu shiry
o no gairaigohyoki (Report ＃79:
, ed. 1984. H
Loanword Orthography in the ‘90 Magazines’ Materials). Tokyo: Sh
uei Shuppan.
oiku shido sankosho ＃16: gairaigo no keisei to sono kyoiku, ed. 1990. Nihongo ky(Reference Guide for Japanese Language Education ＃16: The Evolution of Loanwords
and Their Instruction). Tokyo: Ministry of Finance.
, ed. 2003a. Dai ikkai gairaigo iikae teian: wakarinikui gairaigo o wakariyasuku suru
tame no kotobazukai no kufu (Paraphrasing Loanwords: Making Difficult toUnderstand Loanwords More Intelligible. Proposal 1.). Tokyo: Kokuritsu Kokugo
Kenky
ujo.
, ed. 2003b. Dai nikai gairaigo iikae teian: wakarinikui gairaigo o wakariyasuku suru
tame no kotobazukai no kufu (Paraphrasing Loanwords: Making Difficult toUnderstand Loanwords More Intelligible. Proposal 2.). Tokyo: Kokuritsu Kokugo
Kenky
ujo.
, ed. 2004. Dai sankai gairaigo iikae teian: wakarinikui gairaigo o wakariyasuku suru
tame no kotobazukai no kufu (Paraphrasing Loanwords: Making Difficult toUnderstand Loanwords More Intelligible. Proposal 3). Tokyo: Kokuritsu Kokugo
Kenky
ujo.
, ed. 2006a. Dai yonkai gairaigo iikae teian: wakarinikui gairaigo o wakariyasuku
suru tame no kotobazukai no kufu (Paraphrasing Loanwords: Making Difficult toUnderstand Loanwords More Intelligible. Proposal 4.). Tokyo: Kokuritsu Kokugo
Kenky
ujo.
, ed. 2006b. Gairaigo iikae tebiki (A Guide to Paraphrasing Loanwords). Tokyo:
Gy
osei.

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okoku 126: Kokyosa, ed. 2007. H
obaitai no gairaigo - gairaigo iikae teian o sasaeru ch
kenky
u (Report ＃126: Loanwords in the Public Media - Basic Research on ‘Paraphra
sing Loanwords’). Tokyo: Kokuritsu Kokugo Kenkyujo.
Monbusho (文部省) (Ministry of Education of Japan). 1902. Gaikoku chimei jinmei
torishirabe fukumeisho (Report on the Survey of Foreign Place and Personal Names).
Japanese government archives cite report was read in committee 9 Aug. 1902. Record
available at http://www.bunka.go.jp/kokugo/file_l/1000015351_2006nenpyo02.pdf.
Retrieved 14 June, 2010.
oki (Loanword Orthography). Tokyo: Meiji Tosho.
. 1955. Gairaigo no hyNHK = Nippon H
os
o Ky
okai (日本放送協会), ed. 1987. NHK hoso no kotoba gaidobukku(NHK Guide to Broadcasting Words). Tokyo: Nihon Hoso Shuppan Ky
okai.
Nishimura Hajime (西村肇). 1995. Sabaibaru eigo no susume (Towards Survival English).
Tokyo: Chikuma Shinsho.
NSK = Nihon Shikaku Ky
okai (日本資格協会) (Japan Licensing Authority), ed. 1982. JIS
k
ogy
o y
ogo daijiten (The Great Dictionary of JIS (Japan Industrial Standard)Industrial Terminology). Tokyo: Denpa Shinbunsha.
RKC = Rinji Kokugo Ch
osakai (臨時国語調査会) (Interim National Language ResearchCouncil). 1926. Kanazukai kaiteian hosoku: gaikokugo no utsushikata (Supplement to
the Proposal for the Revision of Kana Usage: The Transcription of Loanwords).
Publisher unknown.
Sakamoto Mitsuru (坂本充). 2002. Do suru? Gairaigo no hy
oki to hatsuon (How Should
Loanwords Be Transcribed and Pronounced?). Hoso Kenkyu to Ch
osa 52.10: 50-71.
SYK = Shinbun Y
ogo Kondankai ( 新 聞 用 語 懇 談 会 ) (Newspaper Terminology
Roundtable Conference), ed. 1984. Gairaigo no kakikata (Writing Loanwords). Tokyo:
Nihon Shinbun Ky
okai.
Twine, Nanette. 1988. Standardizing Written Japanese: A Factor in Modernization.
Monumenta Nipponica 43: 429-454.
Umegaki Minoru ( 楳 垣 実 ). 1963. Nihongairaigo no kenkyu (Japanese Loanwords: A
Study). Tokyo: Kenkyusha.
Vance, Timothy. 1987. An Introduction to Japanese Phonology. Albany: State University of
New York Press.

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山形大学人文学部研究年報

第 8 号 (2011. 3 ) 39−57

1955 年以降の日本語における外来語表記法

アーウィン・マーク
日本政府が外来語表記のガイドラインを初めて発行したのは 1902 年であった｡ しかしながら,
当時の推奨基準は人名・地名に限定していた｡ 20 世紀前半, 日本政府の言語政策は外来語表
記より仮名使いや漢字使用字数制限に重点をおいていた｡ 20 世紀後半になると現在の外来語表記に強い影響を及ぼした資料が 2 つ発行され, それら 1955 年の文化庁建議と 1991 年内閣
告示第二号になった文部省報告についてこの論文では考察する｡― 57 ―