Re: Romanization of Japanese

Quoting Christophe Grandsire <christophe.grandsire@...>:

> En réponse à Via_Acadon :
>
>
> >Has there ever been any attempt to Romanize Japanese
> >without ANY reference to the traditional syllabaries? It seems
> >to me that the result would be a very different appearance on
> >the page since some "vowels" appear swallowed, etc..
> >Leo
>
> Since the "swallowed" (really unvoiced) vowels are actually *still* there
> and their appearance is easily predictable, I doubt it would change
> anything. As for other sounds, like the geminates, palatals, etc..., I find
> the romanisation I know and use already doesn't take much the traditional
> syllabaries into account (for instance by writing "fu" instead of "hu" or
> "chi" instead of "ti"). The only thing it takes into account is the actual
> pronunciation... (or at least a phonemic representation of it).
I once leafed thru a teach yourself Japanese book that apparently used a kana-
based romanization. It took a while before I understood why something
called "Huzi" turned up in every second example sentence.

                                                         Andreas