Style/Language/Japanese: Difference between revisions

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{{official capitalization standard|language=Japanese|proposal=1}}
{{official capitalization standard|language=Japanese|proposal=1}}

Note that these guidelines apply only to domestic Japanese releases. For Japanese versions of western releases, please use the capitalization guidelines for the original language (unless the tracklisting has been translated or transliterated into Japanese; in which case the Japanese Script guidelines apply).


==Japanese Script (Kanji/Kana)==
==Japanese Script (Kanji/Kana)==
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==Latin Script (Transliteration)==
==Latin Script (Transliteration)==


For a guideline to performing transliterations, please see [[User:Kepstin/Transliteration_Standard_Japanese|Transliteration Standard Japanese]].
There are several methods to transliterate Japanese into the Latin script. If an official transliteration is available (endorsed by the artist or their record label), it should be used. For a summary of the most common transliteration method used for user-submitted transliterations on Musicbrainz, see [[User:Kepstin/Transliteration_Standard_Japanese|Transliteration Standard Japanese]].


The capitalization style used on transliterated (romanized) Japanese releases is designed to resemble the title-casing style used for English releases. Although official Japanese standards differ, these guidelines represent the most common capitalizations of romanized titles used by English speakers. In particular:
The capitalization style used on transliterated (romanized) Japanese releases is designed to resemble the title-casing style used for English releases. Although official Japanese standards differ, these guidelines reflect the most common style for romanized titles used by English-speakers on the Internet. In particular:


* The first word of a title should always have the first letter capitalized.
* The first word of a title should always have the first letter capitalized.

Revision as of 20:15, 14 August 2011


Status: This page describes an active style guideline proposal and is not official.



Proposal number: RFC-288
Champion: Kepstin
Current status: In development




Status: This is an official style guideline.

Japanese Script (Kanji/Kana)

The Japanese script doesn't have any inherent capitalization. For releases originating in Japan, characters should be used as-is; with Kanji, Hiragana, or Katakana characters as used in the original titles.

Although the Japanese script has no capitalization, it is very common for Japanese titles to contain words in other scripts. Japanese artists have a tendency to choose capitalization and punctuation for aesthetic reasons; and to be very consistent regarding case over all releases. For this reason, words in the Latin script on a Japanese release should be in the same case as on the album art (or other available sources, such as official discography or record label pages), and not be normalized.

Latin Script (Transliteration)

There are several methods to transliterate Japanese into the Latin script. If an official transliteration is available (endorsed by the artist or their record label), it should be used. For a summary of the most common transliteration method used for user-submitted transliterations on Musicbrainz, see Transliteration Standard Japanese.

The capitalization style used on transliterated (romanized) Japanese releases is designed to resemble the title-casing style used for English releases. Although official Japanese standards differ, these guidelines reflect the most common style for romanized titles used by English-speakers on the Internet. In particular:

  • The first word of a title should always have the first letter capitalized.
  • Proper nouns (names) should have the first letter of each word capitalized.
  • Any honourifics or suffixes to a proper noun should be in lowercase.
  • Every other word should have the first letter capitalized, except:
  • Particles (1-2 mora long): wa, ga, o, ni, de, e, to, mo, ka, ya, kara, made, yo, ne, etc. Particles on Wikipedia
  • Any words written using Latin characters in the original title should maintain the same capitalization as originally used.
  • In certain cases, Japanese words may be written in Katakana for emphasis. In some transliterations, ALL CAPS is used to indicate this. This use is discouraged.