Romanisation

· from English

What is romanisation?

Romanisation is writing a non-Latin script in Latin letters, such as Pinyin for Mandarin, Hepburn for Japanese or Revised Romanization for Korean.

Most Asian languages have several competing systems, which is why the same name appears as Kim and Gim or Peking and Beijing. Romanisation is a learning aid and an input method, not a replacement for the native script. Good systems mark tones or vowel length; casual ones drop them.

Examples

Mandarin: Pinyin, Wade-Giles; Cantonese: Jyutping; Japanese: Hepburn, Kunrei-shiki; Korean: Revised Romanization, McCune-Reischauer; Hokkien: Pe̍h-ōe-jī

Kungfucius says: Romanisation is a ladder. Climb it, then kick it away before it becomes a crutch.