Romajization Guidlines

[ricce]

AniDB need more strict guidlines how romanization shuld take place. Now everyone do as thay think is rigth witch ends up in no consistent at all.

Here is a few thinks we need to find guidelines for:



1. Hepburn or Kunrei
Hepburn and Kunrai are different at some points.

Hepburn is more suteabel for a native English speaker whene the romaji script better follows the English pronouction rules. One problem with Hepburn is that じ and ぢ both becomes ji - the same is that both ず and づ becoumes zu.

Kunrai dosen't have any double meaning in that way but dosen't realy show how the world shuld be pronounced.


2. Capital letters
There are a few ways to use cappital letters in romanization.

a. You can use capital letter for katakana and non-capital for hiragana
b. You can use capital letters in begining of words, except particals like wa, o, e, no etc.
c. You can use capital letters in the begining of a sentence - e.g. just the first letter in a title

Again all three methodes have there advantages and disadvantages.


3. Furigana
Japanese people like to play with kanji and make them pronounce in a compleately different why to what thay usualy are. - in those cases shuld we have the natural reading, the changed reading or both in the romaji field, if we have both the pronuncations have shuld we write them.

There are two main tracks nowdays:
a. Only use the changed pronuncation
b. Use both pronuncations like: natural-pronnuncation [changed-pronuncation]


4. Adopted english words
In Japanese you time to time use adopted english words - there allready is a way to spell them in roman script. The qustion here is shuld we use the english spelling of the word or shuld we use the Japanes spelling.

Some words is hardly recognizeabel whene we use to Japanes spelling.
(ハート)haato = heart
(ラブ)rabu = love

We also have exampels where there is a shortened word or term
(パソコン)pasokon = personal computer

5. Particals
The particals are romanizated a litte bit different some times.

we need to deside if を shuld be wo or o, は shuld be ha or wa etc.

6. the n character (ん or ン)
n can do much troubell - shuld we mar it in some way lika write n' if the followed character is y or a voule - my dictionary uses ñ, shuld we adopet it

[energist]

Have you checked AniDB_Definition:Romanisation?
That page already contains some guidelines on the topics you outlined here.

[ricce]

OK, here is what I found out there...

1. We use Hepburn
2. Use cappital letter for words, but not particels
3. Nothing
4. Use the orginal spelling (english spelling) when possible
5. Use wa, o and e
6. n' is accepted but not strictely required

OK, thats good - no rules how on 3 - but the main part of the mods seem to like to have the natural reading and changed reding in [ and ] - so I go on that.....

I think it's time to submit a lot of CREQ's where those rules aren't followed.....

[pelican]

When rar wrote `accepted' in that page, it's not what he meant. n' for ん before a vowel or y is an absolute requirement.

[Rar]

You can try searching the forum too for this stuff ricce... sure, it's mostly just me and rows. arguing about minor issues, but hey.

http://www.anidb.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2056 (hepburn)
http://www.anidb.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2063 (more hepburn)
http://www.anidb.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=3600 (case)
http://www.anidb.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=4020 (particles, abuse)
http://www.anidb.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=4059 (spacing)
http://www.anidb.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=4099 (furigana, more abuse)

To clear up a bit of your confusion:
1) Hepburn, but with important exceptions (on vowels and ん)
6) n' *is* strictly required before vowels and y
3) ...read the next paragraph

I notice you discovered the fact that anidb sometimes uses [] for furi in transcribed titles as well as original through peli's title creq here. Now, this is fine because previously the title was ignoring the given reading, and he fixed it. In general though, we just give what would be said, and 輪舞曲 is given the reading ロンド so often it's practically ateji, and doesn't really need preserving.
However with your creq, (bar the wo-pain-preservance) this is bad as it would break search on both the normal "full moon wo sagashite" and the hen "mangetsu wo sagashite". Basically, we really don't want to be inserting furi into text we intend to be searching on, especially as this is a *transcription* and no tard would *say* 'mangetsu' (or 'mitsuki', for that matter). So, there's a fair bit of playing to the system we currently have, with all its little problems.

Anyway, as you can see from the unfinished state of the guideline page on teh wiki and the various unresolved issues above, everything is still up for discussion. And, as I've reminded people in the past, it *is* a wiki, and people should just edit the guideline page, certainly in preference to posting random rants on the talk page or this forum.

Rar