89007
I understand how it works for Ohayō the o here is omitting the u from う, so
without the macron it would be "ohayou". Even Tōkyō becomes Toukyou. But what
about other vowels? such as ī ē ā ū what are these characters shortening or
omitting?
CC BY-SA 4.0
2021-08-22T23:01:14.827
89002
2021-08-24T00:24:24.057
2021-08-23T01:10:08.463
30454
46953
question
rōmaji long-vowels
Understanding how macrons work in romaji
It depends on the romanization system which your writing or the words you
encounter are based on. In nihon shiki and kunrei shiki, for example, the
macron is not used and in its place a
[circumflex](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circumflex) appears above the vowel
letter. Among the major romanization systems of the Japanese language, you
only see macrons used in Hepburn.

[The Wikipedia page on
Hepburn](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hepburn_romanization) is pretty clear
and detailed and hard to improve upon, so I will just borrow the information
from the relevant section:

> In Hepburn, vowel combinations that form a long sound are usually indicated
> with a macron ( ¯ ). Other adjacent vowels, such as those separated by a
> morpheme boundary, are written separately:

[![enter image description
here](https://i.stack.imgur.com/h28df.jpg)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/h28df.jpg)

> There are many variations on the Hepburn system for indicating long vowels
> with a macron. For example, 東京 (とうきょう) is properly romanized as Tōkyō, but
> can also be written as:
>
>   * Tokyo – not indicated at all. Common for Japanese words that have been
> adopted into English, and the de facto convention for Hepburn used in signs
> and other English-language information around Japan.
>   * Tôkyô – indicated with circumflex accents, as in the alternative Nihon-
> shiki and Kunrei-shiki romanizations. They are often used when macrons are
> unavailable or difficult to input, due to their visual similarity.
>   * Tohkyoh – indicated with an h (only applies after o). This is sometimes
> known as "passport Hepburn", as the Japanese Foreign Ministry has authorized
> (but not required) it in passports.
>   * Toukyou – written using kana spelling: ō as ou or oo (depending on the
> kana). This is also known as wāpuro style, as it reflects how text is
> entered into a Japanese word processor by using a keyboard with Roman
> characters. Wāpuro more accurately represents the way that ō is written in
> kana by differentiating between おう (as in とうきょう (東京), Toukyou in wāpuro) and
> おお (as in とおい (遠い), tooi in wāpuro); however, it fails to differentiate
> between long vowels and vowels separated by a morpheme boundary.
>   * Tookyoo – written by doubling the long vowels. Some dictionaries such as
> the Pocket Kenkyusha Japanese Dictionary and Basic English Writers'
> Japanese-English Wordbook follow this style, and it is also used in the JSL
> form of romanization.
>
CC BY-SA 4.0
2021-08-23T01:56:02.453
89007
2021-08-24T00:24:24.057
2021-08-24T00:24:24.057
30454
30454
89002
answer