Disputatio:Lingua Iaponica

E Vicipaedia

Why is the japanese here "latinized"? That's ridiculous! "Watashi wa" becomes "Vatasi va". It's absurd. --BiT 21:44, 26 Aprilis 2007 (UTC)

Why? Probably because classical Latin "v" is pronounced [w], and Latin ears hear [ʃ] as [s]. (Hence English Chicago becomes Latin Sicagum.) Japanese isn't ordinarily written in an alphabet anyway. IacobusAmor 22:02, 26 Aprilis 2007 (UTC)
It's not entirely certain that Latin (well... Roman) ears hear [ʃ] as /s/, but it is that Japanese do — see, e.g., Kunrei romanization. The ears that wrote the first Japanese grammar in Latin (english trans) would have spelled it vataxi va, with a v because w hadn't been invented yet, and an x because he was Iberian. —Mucius Tever
Ioshe: locus classicus huius verbi est "parturiunt montes, nascetur ridiculus mus"? IacobusAmor 14:05, 27 Aprilis 2007 (UTC)
It isn't done anywhere else to the best of my knowledge. --BiT 19:28, 30 Aprilis 2007 (UTC)
I rather agree with BiT about this. As with Sanskrit, if there is a transliteration used internationally, for a language that has no close cultural connections with the Latin-speaking world, I think there are strong arguments for choosing the international standard. Andrew Dalby 19:56, 30 Aprilis 2007 (UTC)