Archaic romanizations

The earliest form of romanization of Japanese was that used for the Nippo jisho, a dictionary from Japanese to Portuguese published in 1603.

Nippo jisho romanization

In older texts, variant romanizations which are now no longer used are sometimes seen. Some examples of words romanized in this way have survived to the present day, although none of them is still actively used. Examples include:

The vowel ''i'' plus ''o'' was sometimes used to represent the Japanese yōon sound, hence Tokyo becomes "Tokio" and Kyoto becomes "Kioto". This romanization can still be seen in the species name "mioga" of the Japanese vegetable myōga (a ginger-like root plant).

The ''z'' consonant was romanized as ''dz'', as seen in the plant names "adzuki" and "kudzu".

A ''y'' was added to words beginning in the vowel ''e''. Although Japanese has no kana for ''ye'' or ''yi'', Edo, the old name for Tokyo, was romanized as "Yedo", and Ebisu, a place in Tokyo, as well as a religious figure, became "Yebisu". This romanization survives in the surnames of some Japanese-Americans such as U.S. senator Daniel Inouye.

Based on the historical kana usage, the ka sound was romanized as "kwa", as seen in Lafcadio Hearn's book "Kwaidan".

The ぢ kana was romanized as "di", as can be seen in the name of the ice-cream company "Meidi-ya".

Category:romanization