The Standardization of Foreign Geographical Names in Japan

Abstract

The issues of toponymy, in particular, the transfer of geographical names to foreign languages, are of great importance for international relations. For over one hundred years from the end of the XIX century until the late XX century, the Japanese government consistently solved the problem of standardization of foreign geographical names. This article focuses on tracing the stages of standardization beginning with the Meiji period (1868-1912), and considering how the names of foreign states in the Japanese language have changed up until the present time. The first serious step was the nation-wide “Spelling of Foreign Geographical Names, Names and Surnames” policy, adopted by the Ministry of Education of Japan in 1902. The main principle of the transfer of foreign names in this new policy was the phonetic transcription of the katakana alphabet, mainly from the English-speaking version of names, while retaining some of the names in the traditional hieroglyphic record. The main guidance for the media during pre-war years was published in 1937 by the Japanese Broadcasting Corporation NHK titled “List of Foreign Geographical Names and Names”, in which the same principles as that of the 1902 policy were observed. After the Second World War, the Ministry of Education of Japan issued a number of normative documents including “Spelling of Foreign Geographical Names and Names (Draft)” (1946), ”Writing Foreign Words“ (1955) and “Spelling of Geographical Names“ (1959). Finally, on the basis of the existing standards, the Committee for the Creation of Geographical Names issued the “Guide to the Spelling of Geographical Names” (1978).