ISO INTERNATIONAL STANDARD 3602 First edition 1989-09-01 Documentation -- Romanization of Japanese (kana script) Documentation - Romanisation du japonais (écriture en kana) Reference number ISO 3602: 1989 (E) No reproduction or networking permited without license from IHS Not for Resale ISO 3602:1989 (E) Foreword ISo (the International Organization for Standardization) is a woridwide federation of national standards bodies (iSO member bodies).The work of preparing International Standards is normally carried out through iso technical committees. Each member body interested in a subject for which a technical committee has been established has the right to be represented on that committee. International organizations, govern- mental and non-governmental, in liaison with ISO, also take part in the work. ISO collaborates closely with the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) on all matters of electrotechnical standardization, Draft International Standards adopted by the technical committees are circulated to the member bodies for approval before their acceptance as International Standards by the ISO Council. They are approved in accordance with Iso procedures requiring at least 75 % approval by the member bodies voting. International Standard ISO 3602 was prepared by Technical Committee ISO/TC 46, Documentation. @ SO 1989 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means,electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and microfim,without permission in writing from the publisher. International Organization for Standardization Casepostale56CH-1211Geneve20·Switzerland Printed in Switzerland d without license from IHS Not for Resale ISO 3602 : 1989 (E) Introduction Standards on conversion of systems of writing This International Standard is one of a series of International Standards dealing with theconversionofsystemsofwriting.TheaimofthisInternationalStandardandothers intheseriesistoprovideameansfor internationalcommunicationofwrittenmessages in a form which permits the automatic transmission and reconstitution of these by men or machines. The system of conversion must, in this case, be univocal and entirely reversible. This means that no consideration should be given to phonetic and aesthetic matters nor to certain national customs; all these considerations are ignored by the machine performing the function. The adoption of this International Standard for international communication leaves ferent,onconditionthat itbecompatiblewiththisInternationalStandard.Thesystem proposed herein shouid make this possible, and be acceptable for international use if graphisms used in any strict national system. This International Standard may be usedby anyone who has a clear understanding of the system and is certain that it can be applied without ambiguity. The result obtained rectly, if one has a knowledge of English or Polish. The adoption of national standards compatible with this International Standard will permit the representation, in an international publication, of the morphemes of each language according to the customs of the country where it is spoken. it wil be possible to simplify this representation in order to take into account the nurnber of the character sets available on different kinds of machines. General principles of conversion of writing systems Definitions and methods The words in a language; which are written according to a given script (the converted system), sometimes have to be rendered according to a different system (the conver- sion system), normally used for a different language. This procedure is often used for historical or geographical texts, cartographical documents and, in particular, bibliographica! work where characters must be converted from different writing systems into a single alphabet to aliow for alphabetical intercalation in bibliographies. catalogues,indexes,toponymiclists,etc. It is indispensable in that it permits the univocal trans