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I was told that in romaji the long vowel of o would be ō (see this
[tutorial](http://japanese-lesson.com/characters/romaji/index.html))

However, I am confused by these two words. In Google Translate they both were
romanized as Tōri (see
[here](https://translate.google.com/?sl=ja&tl=en&text=%E9%80%9A%E3%82%8A%0A%E6%9D%B1%E3%83%AA%0A%0A&op=translate)),
but their 平仮名 are different

  * 通り とおり
  * 東リ とうり
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84221
2021-02-17T23:39:40.597
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question
rōmaji long-vowels
Romaji for long vowel: 通り vs 東リ
Responding to the extended discussion in the comments --

## Terminology

The second vowel is //o// in both 通【とお】り and 東【とう】. (東【とう】り is not a word, so
I won't repeat that here.) When you're talking about vowels, you're talking
about pronunciation. The second **kana** is either お or う, but in both 通【とお】り
or 東【とう】, the **vowel** is //o//.

## Kana spellings

This gets really involved. Hop to the bottom if the details don't matter to
you.

The kana spelling difference is due to different origins -- historically, 通り
came from older とほり. Medial (mid-word) //h//'s often
[lenited](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lenition) (softened) and disappeared
in many words, leaving behind the vowels. The pronunciation shifted before the
kana spelling did -- the とほり kana spelling was the "correct" spelling up
through the spelling reforms of the mid-20th century.

This older [historical kana
spelling](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_kana_orthography) is still
included in many monolingual Japanese dictionaries, since modern readers are
still likely to encounter this. For instance, see [the 通り entry at
Kotobank](https://kotobank.jp/word/%E9%80%9A%E3%82%8A-581994). At the top of
the page, you'll see kana spellings listed like `とおり〔とほり〕`. The kana string
〔in brackets〕 is the historical spelling.

### Historical spellings for native Japanese terms -- _kun'yomi_

If you spend some time with a monolingual Japanese dictionary that includes
these, you'll notice that many entries for _kun'yomi_ terms with vowel-vowel
combinations like //oo// or //au// come from older historical spellings with
an //h// or //f// in between.

All of the modern //h// or //f// kana, はひふへほ, were probably originally
pronounced with an initial //p//, as //pa pi pu pe po//. These lenited over
time to become first the bilabial fricative //ɸ//, kinda like an "f". We know
that these "f" pronunciations at the beginnings of words were still current in
1603, when the Japanese-to-Portuguese dictionary [the _Nippo
Jisho_](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nippo_Jisho) was published. We can see
this in the scanned copy over at Google Books, in entries like [on this page
for `F ANTES DO
I`](https://books.google.com/books?id=TFJAAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA87-IA1#v=onepage&q&f=false)
("F before I"), with entries like:

> **Fi**. _Sol_. ( **Fi**. Sun.)

Meanwhile, in a medial (mid-word) position, these pronunciations lenited
further to often become a //w// sound. We see that in places like the word 川,
modern かわ and historical かは. The _Nippo Jisho_ entry
[here](https://books.google.com/books?id=TFJAAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA43-IA1#v=onepage&q&f=false)
(right-hand column, sixth from the top) shows:

> **Caua**. _Rio, ou ribeira._ ( **Kawa**. River, or stream.)

In pretty much all cases except before //a//, this //w// sound basically
disappeared -- so Old Japanese //opo// ("big; many", the root of modern
大【おお】きい or the prefix 大【おお】) became early Middle Japanese //ofo//, then maybe
mid-Middle Japanese //owo//, and then recorded late Middle Japanese //oː//.

### Historical spellings for Chinese borrowings -- _on'yomi_

Entries for _on'yomi_ terms generally don't have this, and instead will show
kana indicating different vowel values than we have in the modern
pronunciation -- mostly things like あう where the modern language has おう.
Historically, these were previously pronounced with an //au//
[diphthong](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diphthong) (two-vowel sound), which
was probably pronounced a bit like English _ow!_. This gradually flattened
from //au// to a long-vowel //ɔː// sound a bit like English _awww_ , and then
this //ɔː// shifted further to become modern //oː//, the long-O sound in
everyday Japanese.

These historical kana spellings -- and indicated pronunciations -- for
_on'yomi_ terms point towards the phonological shapes of the words when first
borrowed from Middle Chinese. 東 was borrowed originally with a pronunciation
probably like //tou// with that //u// on the end, and this flattened to modern
//oː//. See [the Chinese pronunciation section over at
Wiktionary](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E6%9D%B1#Pronunciation). While the
reconstructed Middle Chinese reading is shown as //tuŋ//, I've noticed after
much research that the modern Min Nan readings are sometimes closer to the
Japanese readings than the Middle Chinese reconstruction -- possibly due to
Min Nan being closer to the original dialect of Middle Chinese from which the
readings were borrowed into Japanese. One of the Min Nan pronunciations for 東
is listed as `tong`, and final //ŋ// in Chinese often correlates to an う in
the Japanese _on'yomi_.

Meanwhile, 刀 was borrowed as //tau//, and this shifted to modern //toː//. See
[the 刀 entry in Daijisen at Weblio](https://www.weblio.jp/content/%E5%88%80),
where again we see two kana spellings for the _on'yomi_ , listed as `トウ（タウ）`.
The （タウ） in parentheses is the historical kana spelling. And [the Middle
Chinese pronunciation](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E5%88%80#Pronunciation)
for this was reconstructed as //tɑu//.

## Conclusion about guessing kana spellings from pronunciations

Without knowing the origins of the term, you just _can't_ really tell whether
a long-O sound //oː// uses お or う as the second kana.

If you know at least whether the pronunciation is _on'yomi_ or _kun'yomi_ ,
it's often a good bet that long-O _kun'yomi_ -- in the middle of any word, and
not just the volitional / "let's" verb ending -- is spelled with an お for the
second kana, while long-O _on'yomi_ is spelled with an う for the second kana.
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answer
Different writing systems are useful for different things.

In English, if we wanted to, we could write things down the way we pronounce
them. The best way to do that would be using a special alphabet called the
[International Phonetic Alphabet
(IPA)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_phonetic_alphabet). For
example, if I wanted to write down how I say _knight_ using IPA, I would write
/naɪt/. We don't usually write English that way, but we could.

Instead, we usually write things down roughly as they would have been
pronounced in Middle English. Our pronunciation has changed a lot, but our
spelling has only changed a little, so the two drifted apart. We write
_knight_ , but we don't pronounce that ‹k› or ‹gh› anymore. Our spelling shows
us where the word _knight_ came from, and how it _used to be_ pronounced.

Something similar happened in Japanese. Over the centuries, the spoken
language changed, but the system of kana spelling didn't change much, and the
two drifted apart. [This changed after World War II, when Japan adopted
spelling reforms](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_kana_usage#History)
which brought kana spelling very close to actual pronunciation. Certain
aspects of the old spelling system were kept intentionally, however!

For example, let's look at 王 'king' and 追う 'chase':

  * 王 'king' is pronounced [オー]{HL}, but is written おう in kana. There is no う in the pronunciation, but it's written with う anyway. This reflects the origin of the word, which comes from Chinese. When a word or morpheme from Chinese has a long /oː/ sound, the second half is spelled う.
  * 追う 'chase' is pronounced [オウ]{LH}. It is written おう in kana, and the う makes sense because it's actually pronounced that way.

Again, different writing systems are useful for different things. When I write
王 or 追う, people who can read Japanese can tell those words apart instantly. If
I wrote おう, you'd only be able to tell them apart from context. When I write
[オー]{HL} or [オウ]{LH}, I'm transcribing the spoken language instead of writing
the words the usual way.

So what if we want to write Japanese with Latin letters ("romanization")? What
should we do? The answer depends on what your goals are:

  * If we want to copy the kana spelling using Latin letters, we should write _ou_ for both words. Let's call this **transliteration**.
  * If we want to write down the spoken language and focus on how it's pronounced, we could write _ō_ for 王 and _ou_ for 追う. Let's call this **transcription**.

Different people at different times have had different goals, and so different
systems of romanization have shown up over time.

In your examples, the spelling _tōri_ is used for both words. Why? Because
it's a **transcription** of the spoken language, reflecting how the words are
pronounced; it's not intended to be a **transliteration** , reproducing the
kana spelling.

And where does the kana spelling come from? Well, in 東リ, the 東 part comes from
Chinese. It's just like 王, where the second half of the long /oː/ sound is
spelled in kana with a う. And that's because the post-war spelling reforms
stopped short of actually respelling these words with an お, despite their
pronunciation. In other words, the う is a holdover from the past.

But 通り isn't from Chinese. It's a native Japanese word, and [it never had a う
sound
historically](https://kobun.weblio.jp/content/%E3%81%A8%E3%81%BB%E3%82%8B), so
there was never a reason to write it with that kana. Just like the う spelling,
the お spelling reflects where the word came from.

So really, it's all just a matter of different writing systems being useful
for different things.
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answer