Cyrillization of Japanese - Common Errors

Common Errors

In English texts, Japanese names are written with the Hepburn system. People then try to transcribe Japanese names as if they were English.

Very often people want to transcribe shi as ши and ji as джи. This is incorrect, because in Russian ши is pronounced as шы and джи as джы. The Russian sound /ɨ/ is in fact closer to Japanese /u/ than to Japanese /i/. It would probably be closer to Japanese to write щи, but the system uses си and дзи. Actually, Russian щи is pronounced like Japanese sshi.

Equally often people transcribe cha, chi, chu, cho as ча, чи, чу, чо. This is acceptable phonetically, but for reasons of consistency, it is better to follow the rules and write тя, ти, тю, тё.

Sometimes э is replaced with е (but, ironically, not at the beginning of a word, even though there are Roman transliterations such as "yen" and "Yedo" which one might expect to be written as ен and Едо). This is tolerable only for the words that are in general use (e.g. kamikaze > камикадзе instead of камикадзэ). One should, however, never replace ё (yo) with е (ye) — it will change the Japanese word too much. The initial ё (yo) or after a vowel, is often written as йо (yo), which has the same pronunciation: Ёкосука -> Йокосука (Yokosuka), Тоёта -> Тойота (Toyota). Although, the spelling "йо" is not common in Russian words, these are more generally accepted for Japanese names than the transliterations using "ё".

Despite the rules, some Japanese words either are now spelled without following the system or have alternative spellings: Hitachi – Хитачи (the corporation, while the city is Хитати), Toshiba – Тошиба (not Тосиба), sushi is spelled "суси" and "суши", the latter is more common.

Many anime fandom members intentionally use the cyrillized Hepburn system and other alternative transcriptions because they believe the system distorts the Russian reading of Japanese pronunciation too much. Preference of a cyrillization system often becomes a matter of heated debates.