# Okasan, obachan, and ojichan



## JoeDerivative

Hi all! I'm new here.
I'm writing something where characters occasionally speak different languages, and as they're supposed to be natives, I'd like to make sure what I write is accurate.

In this case, I have a Japanese character who is having a dream about her childhood. In the dream, she is indeed a child and her mother, her grandfather, and her grandmother appear. I would like her to refer to them using appropriate Japanese words that a child would use, so the equivalent of mum, grandpa, and grandma basically. According to my research, okasan, ojichan and obachan should be okay. Can anyone confirm? Is this transliteration acceptable, in latin alphabet? Thanks


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## SoLaTiDoberman

> okasan, ojichan and obachan


The answer is yes and no.
Okâsan, ojîchan and obâchan are more accurate because those vowels should be long in Japanese.


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## JoeDerivative

SoLaTiDoberman said:


> The answer is yes and no.
> Okâsan, ojîchan and obâchan are more accurate because those vowels should be long in Japanese.


Gotcha! Thanks!


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## gengo

JoeDerivative said:


> According to my research, okasan, ojichan and obachan should be okay.



Just FYI, the last two, as written, mean a middle-aged man and woman, respectively.  Okasan would be a surname (岡さん).

If you don't want to use the circumflex (^) as in Sola's post (because non-Japanese speakers probably won't understand what that means), you can also transliterate the words as o-kaasan, o-jiichan, and o-baachan.


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## JoeDerivative

gengo said:


> Just FYI, the last two, as written, mean a middle-aged man and woman, respectively.  Okasan would be a surname (岡さん).
> 
> If you don't want to use the circumflex (^) as in Sola's post (because non-Japanese speakers probably won't understand what that means), you can also transliterate the words as o-kaasan, o-jiichan, and o-baachan.


Thanks, gengo.


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## KLAUSED

gengo said:


> If you don't want to use the circumflex (^) as in Sola's post (because non-Japanese speakers probably won't understand what that means), you can also transliterate the words as o-kaasan, o-jiichan, and o-baachan.


I've only seen macrons (◌̄) used to indicate long vowels. According to Wikipedia, circumflexes (◌̂) are also in use but I'm pretty sure macrons are much more commonly used and I would be a little taken aback if I saw


SoLaTiDoberman said:


> Okâsan, ojîchan and obâchan


instead of okāsan, ojīchan and obāchan.


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## gengo

KLAUSED said:


> I've only seen macrons (◌̄) used to indicate long vowels.



It's also quite common to use a double vowel, especially for A, U, and I (oo and ee are a bit different because for English speakers who don't know anything about Japanese, they would be pronounced as う and い).  The reason for this usage is simple:  it is often difficult or impossible for people to produce the macron (they don't know how to do it).


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## Joschl

長母音をどう表記するのかは，どのローマ字表記のシステムを使うかによって決まります。
「訓令式」の場合は，


> 4. 長音は母音字の上に^をつけて表わす。なお、大文字の場合は、母音字を並べてもよい。
> 文化庁 | 国語施策・日本語教育 | 国語施策情報 | 内閣告示・内閣訓令 | ローマ字のつづり方 | そえがき


私の記憶が正しければ，長母音の表記については，「日本式」も「訓令式」と同じです。

「ヘボン式」の場合は，旧ヘボン式でも修正ヘボン式でも，マクロンを付けるのが一般的ですね。マクロンを使わないヘボン式の表記方法は「英語式」と呼ばれているようです。/(*C*)i:/の表記については，ヘボン式の場合「<(*C*)i>と<(*C*)ī>の形が似ているため，<(*C*)ī>の代わりに<(*C*)ii>と書いても良い」ということを大学生の頃読んだことがありますが，どの本にそう書いてあったのか思い出せません。

/(*C*)i:/以外の長母音の表記にも重ね書きが用いるられるのは，補助記号を使わずに済むことと関係があるのでしょうが，訓令式では，<Aa, Ii, Uu, Ee, Oo>に限られているようですね。私が調べた限りでは，「小文字でも重ね書きができる」という記述は見付かりません。


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## gengo

Joschl said:


> 私が調べた限りでは，「小文字でも重ね書きができる」という記述は見付かりません。



Google "okaasan" and you will see that that method is extremely common.  In fact, I would say that for people who don't speak Japanese, it is the most intuitive way to write the word.  Writing okâsan or okāsan will mean absolutely nothing to such people.  Those methods are useful for learners of Japanese or Japanese speakers who want to write in Roman letters for some reason, but not for the average non-Japanese speaker.


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## KLAUSED

ローマ字表記についてはこのページで詳しく解説されています。
筆者は訓令式の正当性を主張していますが、別項の末尾でヘボン式の方が普及しており訓令式がつかわれない理由を説明しています。


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## gengo

KLAUSED said:


> 筆者は訓令式の正当性を主張していますが、



Japanese scholars have long promoted the kunrei-shiki, but it really makes no sense.  Romaji is not for Japanese speakers, it is for non-speakers, so it should make sense to those people.  They would never be able to pronounce kyȏsitu correctly.

I used to have a 日系アメリカ人 friend whose name was 鉄, but his parents spelled it according to kunrei-shiki, as Tetu.  One day he was complaining to me that people always mispronounced his name.  I said, "Why don't you just spell it as T-E-T-S-U?," to which he replied, "That's not how it's spelled on my birth certificate."  I could only laugh at this stupidity.


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