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Comment by BigTTYGothGF | Hacker News Reader

Up until just last year "si" "ti' and "tu" were the proper official way to romanize "shi" "chi" and "tsu": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kunrei-shiki

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"Official" in only the strictest sense. Everyone has used Hepburn since forever, the government just got around to acknowledging that.

And thank the lord that the romanization of Japanese (with its few little quirks) is one of the simplest transliterations there is.

And, since the English equivalent of those sounds doesn't exist, there's no confusion the way there would be between "she" and "see" in english. Complaining that there's no english equivalent of the russian (взгляд / vzglyad)'s initial cluster would be similar in feel - no english words use it, so the romanization can be whatever you like, really.

Sorry, not a linguist by any means, I initially thought you meant there is no 1:1 mapping to the meaning ("outlook", "glance", "sight").

Are you talking about the v-z-g-l sequence of harsh consonants? That looks uninviting in print, but in practice it's just a quick puff of air.

Yes, exactly, there's no equivalent cluster in english, so it's hard for english speakers to even hear it, let alone reproduce it correctly

> And, since the English equivalent of those sounds doesn't exist, there's no confusion the way there would be between "she" and "see" in english.

Erm, wtf? The English "si" sound does exist and sounds different from し. There is a reason people don't want to write Sinzyuku, and while I think they're making the wrong tradeoff, it is a tradeoff and should be acknowledged as such.

"As a result, the sequences [ti si di (d)zi] do not occur in native or Sino-Japanese vocabulary."[1] Unless I'm missing something, Japanese phonology doesn't include the sound english has as "si", only "shi"? I'm not a native speaker though, it's entirely possible that I am missing something.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_phonology

Technically, it's possible to write the "si" sound as スィ, similarly to much more common constructions like ファ and ティ.

Wiktionary lists eight whole words that use it! (The entry for スィ itself, a couple obscure loanwords and proper names, and a couple alternate spellings of words that Japanese people normally pronounce using the "shi" sound.) https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Category:Japanese_terms_spell...

Ah, you mean those sounds don't exist in (standard) Japanese? I got confused by you talking about "the English equivalent".

Yes exactly so, sorry for the confusion.

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