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NAME

Lingua::JA::Moji - Handle many kinds of Japanese characters

SYNOPSIS

Convert various types of Japanese characters into one another.

    use Lingua::JA::Moji qw/kana2romaji romaji2kana/;
    use utf8;
    my $romaji = kana2romaji ('あいうえお');
    # $romaji is now 'aiueo'.
    my $kana = romaji2kana ($romaji);
    # $kana is now 'アイウエオ'.

VERSION

This document describes Lingua::JA::Moji version 0.48 corresponding to git commit 2b735cdf07ab42c23dda568c12efb95bcf0a78c4 made on Sun Dec 24 18:06:09 2017 +0900.

DESCRIPTION

This module provides methods to convert different written forms of Japanese into one another. It enables conversion between romanized Japanese, hiragana, and katakana. It also includes a number of unusual encodings such as Japanese braille and morse code, as well as conversions between Japanese and Cyrillic and Hangul. It also handles conversion between the Chinese characters (kanji) used before and after the character reforms of 1949, as well as the various bracketed and circled forms of kana and kanji.

All the functions in this module assume the use of Unicode encoding. All input and output strings must be encoded using Perl's "UTF-8" format.

The module loads the various data format conversion files on demand, thus the various obscure conversions hopefully do not cause a memory burden.

This module does not handle the conversion of kanji words into kana, or kana into kanji.

ROMANIZATION

These functions convert Japanese letters to and from romanized forms.

kana2romaji

Convert kana to romaji.

    use Lingua::JA::Moji 'kana2romaji';

    $romaji = kana2romaji ("うれしいこども");
    # $romaji = 'uresîkodomo'

Convert kana to a romanized form.

An optional second argument, a hash reference, controls the style of conversion.

    use utf8;
    $romaji = kana2romaji ("しんぶん", {style => "hepburn"});
    # $romaji = "shimbun"

The options are

style

The style of romanization. The default style of romanization is "Nippon-shiki". The user can set the conversion style to "hepburn" or "passport" or "kunrei" or "common". If Hepburn is selected, then the following option use_m is set to "true", and the ve_type is set to "macron". The "common" style is the same as the Hepburn style, but it does things like changing "ジェット" to "jetto" rather than ignoring the small vowel.

Possible styles are as follows:

none/empty

Without a style, the Nippon-shiki romanization is used.

hepburn

This gives Hepburn romanization.

kunrei

This is the form of romanization used in childrens' education.

common

This is a modification of the Hepburn system which also changes combinations of large kana + small vowel kana into the commonest romanized form. For example "ジェット" becomes "jetto" and "ウェ" becomes "we".

use_m

If this is true, "syllabic n"s (ん) which come before "b" or "p" sounds, such as the first "n" in "shinbun" (しんぶん, newspaper) will be converted into "m" rather than "n".

ve_type

The ve_type option controls how long vowels are written. The default is to use circumflexes to represent long vowels.

undef

A circumflex is used.

macron

A macron is used.

passport

"Oh" is used to write long "o" vowels, and other long vowels are ignored.

none

Long vowels are not indicated.

wapuro

The "chouon" marks become hyphens, and おう becomes ou.

wo
     kana2romaji ("ちりぬるを", { wo => 1 });

If "wo" is set to a true value, "を" becomes "wo", otherwise it becomes "o".

romaji2kana

Convert romaji to kana.

    use Lingua::JA::Moji 'romaji2kana';

    $kana = romaji2kana ('yamaguti');
    # $kana = 'ヤマグチ'

Convert romanized Japanese to katakana. The romanization is highly liberal and will attempt to convert any romanization it sees into katakana. The rules of romanization are based on the behaviour of the Microsoft IME (input method editor). To convert romanized Japanese into hiragana, use "romaji2hiragana".

An optional second argument to the function contains options in the form of a hash reference,

     $kana = romaji2kana ($romaji, {wapuro => 1});

Use an option wapuro => 1 to convert long vowels into the equivalent kana rather than "chouon".

     $kana = romaji2kana ($romaji, {ime => 1});

Use the ime => 1 option to approximate the behaviour of an IME. For example, input "gumma" becomes グッマ and input "onnna" becomes オンナ. Passport romaji ("Ohshimizu") is disallowed if this option is switched on.

romaji2hiragana

Convert romaji to hiragana.

    use Lingua::JA::Moji 'romaji2hiragana';

    $hiragana = romaji2hiragana ('babubo');
    # $hiragana = 'ばぶぼ'

Convert romanized Japanese into hiragana. This takes the same options as "romaji2kana". It also switches on the "wapuro" option, which uses long vowels with a kana rather than a "chouon".

romaji_styles

    use Lingua::JA::Moji 'romaji_styles';

    my @styles = romaji_styles ();
    # Returns a true value
    romaji_styles ("hepburn");
    # Returns the undefined value
    romaji_styles ("frogs");

Given an argument, this return a true value if it is a known style of romanization.

Without an argument, it returns a list of possible styles, as an array of hash references, with each hash reference containing the short name under the key "abbrev" and the full name under the key "full_name".

romaji_vowel_styles

    use Lingua::JA::Moji 'romaji_vowel_styles';

Returns a list of valid styles of romaji vowels.

is_voiced

    use Lingua::JA::Moji 'is_voiced';

    if (is_voiced ('が')) {
         print "が is voiced.\n";
    }

Given a kana or romaji input, is_voiced returns a true value if the sound is a voiced sound like a, za, ga, etc. and the undefined value if not.

is_romaji

    use Lingua::JA::Moji 'is_romaji';

    # The following line returns "undef"
    is_romaji ("abcdefg");
    # The following line returns a defined value
    is_romaji ('loyehye');
    # The following line returns a defined value
    is_romaji ("atarimae");

This detects whether a string of alphabetical characters, which may also include characters with macrons or circumflexes, "looks like" romanized Japanese. If the test is successful, it returns a true value, and if the test is unsuccessful, it returns a false value. If the string is empty, it returns a false value. Hyphens are not allowed as the first character.

This works by converting the string to kana via "romaji2kana" and seeing if it converts cleanly or not.

The "true" value returned is the output of the round-trip conversion, converted into wapuro format.

is_romaji_strict

    use Lingua::JA::Moji 'is_romaji_strict';

    # The following line returns "undef"
    is_romaji_strict ("abcdefg");
    # The following line returns "undef"
    is_romaji_strict ('loyehye');
    # The following line returns a defined value
    is_romaji_strict ("atarimae");

This detects whether a string of alphabetical characters, which may also include characters with macrons or circumflexes, "looks like" romanized Japanese. If the test is successful, it returns a true value, and if the test is unsuccessful, it returns a false value. If the string is empty, it returns a false value.

This test is much stricter than "is_romaji". It insists that the word does not contain constructions which may be valid as inputs to an IME, but which do not look like Japanese words.

The "true" value returned is the output of the round-trip conversion, converted into wapuro format.

is_romaji_semistrict

    use Lingua::JA::Moji 'is_romaji_semistrict';

    # The following line returns "undef"
    is_romaji_semistrict ("abcdefg");
    # The following line returns "undef"
    is_romaji_semistrict ('loyehye');
    # The following line returns a defined value
    is_romaji_semistrict ("atarimae");
    # The following line returns a defined value
    is_romaji_semistrict ("pinku no dorufin");

Halfway between "is_romaji" and "is_romaji_strict", this allows some formations like "pinku no dorufin" but not the really unlikely stuff which "is_romaji" allows.

normalize_romaji

    use Lingua::JA::Moji 'normalize_romaji';

    $normalized = normalize_romaji ('tsumuji');

normalize_romaji converts romanized Japanese to a canonical form, which is based on the Nippon-shiki romanization, but without representing long vowels using a circumflex. In the canonical form, sokuon (っ) characters are converted into the string "xtu". If there is kana in the input string, this will also be converted to romaji.

normalize_romaji is for comparing two Japanese words which may be represented in different ways, for example in different romanization systems, to see if they refer to the same word despite the difference in writing. It does not provide a standardized or officially-sanctioned form of romanization.

KANA

These functions convert one form of kana into another.

hira2kata

Convert hiragana to katakana.

    use Lingua::JA::Moji 'hira2kata';

    $katakana = hira2kata ('ひらがな');
    # $katakana = 'ヒラガナ'

hira2kata converts hiragana into katakana. The input may be a single string or a list of strings. If the input is a list, it converts each element of the list, and in list context it returns a list of the converted inputs. In scalar context it returns a concatenation of the strings.

    my @katakana = hira2kata (@hiragana);

This does not convert "chouon" signs.

kata2hira

Convert katakana to hiragana.

    use Lingua::JA::Moji 'kata2hira';

    $hiragana = kata2hira ('カキクケコ');
    # $hiragana = 'かきくけこ'

kata2hira converts full-width katakana into hiragana. If the input is a list, it converts each element of the list, and in list context, returns a list of the converted inputs, otherwise it returns a concatenation of the strings.

    my @hiragana = hira2kata (@katakana);

This function does not convert "chouon" signs into long vowels. It also does not convert half-width katakana into hiragana.

kana2katakana

Convert kana to katakana.

    use Lingua::JA::Moji 'kana2katakana';

    

This converts any of katakana, "halfwidth katakana", circled katakana and hiragana to full width katakana.

kana_to_large

    use Lingua::JA::Moji 'kana_to_large';

    $large = kana_to_large ('ぁあぃい');
    # $large = 'ああいい'

Convert small-sized kana such as 「ぁ」 into full-sized kana such as 「あ」.

nigori_first

    use Lingua::JA::Moji 'nigori_first';

    my @list = (qw/カン スウ ハツ オオ/);
    nigori_first (\@list);
    # Now @list = (qw/カン スウ ハツ オオ ガン ズウ バツ パツ/);

Given a list of kana, add all the possible versions of the words with the first kana with either a dakuten or a handakuten added.

InHankakuKatakana

    use Lingua::JA::Moji 'InHankakuKatakana';

    use utf8;
    if ('ア' =~ /\p{InHankakuKatakana}/) {
        print "ア is half-width katakana\n";
    }

InHankakuKatakana is a character class for use in regular expressions with \p which can validate "halfwidth katakana".

kana2hw

Convert kana to halfwidth katakana.

    use Lingua::JA::Moji 'kana2hw';

    $half_width = kana2hw ('あいウカキぎょう。');
    # $half_width = 'アイウカキギョウ。'

kana2hw converts hiragana, katakana, and fullwidth Japanese punctuation to "halfwidth katakana" and halfwidth punctuation. Its function is similar to the Emacs command japanese-hankaku-region. For the opposite function, see hw2katakana. See also "katakana2hw" for a function which only converts katakana.

hw2katakana

Convert halfwidth katakana to katakana.

    use Lingua::JA::Moji 'hw2katakana';

    $full_width = hw2katakana ('アイウカキギョウ。');
    # $full_width = 'アイウカキギョウ。'

hw2katakana converts "halfwidth katakana" and halfwidth Japanese punctuation to fullwidth katakana and fullwidth punctuation. Its function is similar to the Emacs command japanese-zenkaku-region. For the opposite function, see kana2hw.

katakana2hw

Convert katakana to halfwidth katakana.

    use Lingua::JA::Moji 'katakana2hw';

    $hw = katakana2hw ("あいうえおアイウエオ");
    # $hw = 'あいうえおアイウエオ'

This converts katakana to "halfwidth katakana", leaving hiragana unchanged. See also "kana2hw".

is_kana

    use Lingua::JA::Moji 'is_kana';

    

This function returns a true value if its argument is a string of kana, or an undefined value if not. The input cannot contain punctuation or "chouon".

is_hiragana

    use Lingua::JA::Moji 'is_hiragana';

    

This function returns a true value if its argument is a string of hiragana, and an undefined value if not. The entire string from beginning to end must all be kana for this to return true. The kana cannot include punctuation marks or "chouon".

kana_order

    use Lingua::JA::Moji 'kana_order';

    $kana_order = kana_order ();

Returns an array reference containing an ordering of the kana. This is useful for looping over the kana or sorting.

katakana2syllable

    use Lingua::JA::Moji 'katakana2syllable';

    $syllables = katakana2syllable ('ソーシャルブックマークサービス');

This breaks the given string into syllables. If the string is broken up character by character, it becomes 'ソ', 'ー', 'シ', 'ャ', 'ル'. This breaks the string up into meaningful syllables, so that $syllables becomes 'ソー', 'シャ', 'ル'. A "syllabic n" is attached to the preceding sequence, so for example フラナガン is broken up into four syllables, フ, ラ, ナ, ガン.

InKana

    use Lingua::JA::Moji 'InKana';

    $is_kana = ('あいうえお' =~ /^\p{InKana}+$/);
    # $is_kana = '1'

A character class for use in regular expressions which matches all kana characters. This class catches meaningful combinations of hiragana, katakana, halfwidth katakana, circled katakana, and katakana combined words. As of [% info.version %], it does not match hentaigana.

This is a combination of the existing Perl character classes Katakana, InKatakana, and InHiragana, minus unassigned characters, plus the "halfwidth katakana prolonged sound mark" (U+FF70) <ー> (chouon), the "halfwidth katakana voiced sound mark" (U+FF9E) <゙> (dakuten) and the "halfwidth katakana semivoiced sound mark" (U+FF9F) <゚> (handakuten), minus '・', Unicode 30FB, "KATAKANA MIDDLE DOT". It is somewhat like the following:

    qr/\p{Katakana}|\p{InKatakana}|\p{InHiragana}|ー|゙|゚>/

except that the unassigned points which are matched by \p{Katakana} are not matched and KATAKANA MIDDLE DOT is not matched.

square2katakana

    use Lingua::JA::Moji 'square2katakana';

    $kata = square2katakana ('㌆');
    # $kata = 'ウォン'

Convert a square katakana box into its components.

katakana2square

    use Lingua::JA::Moji 'katakana2square';

    $sq = katakana2square ('カロリーアイウエオウォン');
    # $sq = '㌍アイウエオ㌆'

Convert katakana into a square thing if possible.

smallize_kana

    use Lingua::JA::Moji 'smallize_kana';

    $smallize = smallize_kana ('オキヤクサマガカツタ');
    # $smallize = 'オキャクサマガカッタ'

Given katakana input, convert possible "old-style" kana usage with large kanas used for youon or sokuon into smaller kana. If the conversion succeeds, return the converted value, otherwise return the undefined value. This function is experimental.

This was added to the module in version 0.46.

cleanup_kana

    use Lingua::JA::Moji 'cleanup_kana';

Clean up mixed kana and romaji inputs into katakana, and convert stray "one" kanjis into chouons. This function is experimental.

This was added to the module in version 0.46.

HENTAIGANA

Variant kana forms. Hentaigana are new in Unicode 10.0 (June 2017).

hentai2kana

    use Lingua::JA::Moji 'hentai2kana';

Convert hentaigana into hiragana. Hentaigana with multiple interpretations are converted into a list of kana separated by a middle dot character.

This was added to the module in version 0.43.

hentai2kanji

    use Lingua::JA::Moji 'hentai2kanji';

Convert hentaigana into their equivalent kanji.

This was added to the module in version 0.43.

kanji2hentai

    use Lingua::JA::Moji 'kanji2hentai';

kana2hentai

    use Lingua::JA::Moji 'kana2hentai';

WIDE ASCII FUNCTIONS

Functions for handling "wide ASCII".

InWideAscii

    use Lingua::JA::Moji 'InWideAscii';

    use utf8;
    if ('A' =~ /\p{InWideAscii}/) {
        print "A is wide ascii\n";
    }

This is a character class for use with \p which matches "wide ASCII"

wide2ascii

Convert wide ASCII characters to printable ASCII characters.

    use Lingua::JA::Moji 'wide2ascii';

    $ascii = wide2ascii ('abCE019');
    # $ascii = 'abCE019'

Convert "wide ASCII" into ASCII.

ascii2wide

Convert printable ASCII characters to wide ASCII characters.

    use Lingua::JA::Moji 'ascii2wide';

    $wide = ascii2wide ('abCE019');
    # $wide = 'abCE019'

Convert ASCII into "wide ASCII".

OTHER TYPES OF LETTERING

kana2morse

Convert kana to Japanese morse code (wabun code).

    use Lingua::JA::Moji 'kana2morse';

    $morse = kana2morse ('しょっちゅう');
    # $morse = '--.-. -- .--. ..-. -..-- ..-'

Convert Japanese kana into Morse code. Japanese morse code does not have any way of representing small kana characters, so converting to and then from morse code will result in しょっちゅう becoming シヨツチユウ.

morse2kana

Convert Japanese morse code (wabun code) to kana.

    use Lingua::JA::Moji 'morse2kana';

    $kana = morse2kana ('--.-. -- .--. ..-. -..-- ..-');
    # $kana = 'シヨツチユウ'

Convert Japanese Morse code into kana. Each Morse code element must be separated by whitespace from the next one.

Bugs

This has not been extensively tested.

kana2braille

Convert kana to Japanese braille.

    use Lingua::JA::Moji 'kana2braille';

    

This converts kana into the equivalent Japanese braille (tenji) forms.

Bugs

This has not been extensively tested. This is not an adequate Japanese braille convertor. Creating Japanese braille requires breaking Japanese sentences up into individual words, but this does not attempt to do that. People who are interested in building a Perl braille convertor could start here.

braille2kana

Convert Japanese braille to kana.

    use Lingua::JA::Moji 'braille2kana';

    

Converts Japanese braille (tenji) into the equivalent katakana.

kana2circled

Convert kana to circled katakana.

    use Lingua::JA::Moji 'kana2circled';

    $circled = kana2circled ('あいうえお');
    # $circled = '㋐㋑㋒㋓㋔'

This function converts kana into the "circled katakana" of Unicode, which have code points from 32D0 to 32FE. See also "circled2kana".

There is no circled form of the ン kana, "syllabic n", so this is left untouched.

circled2kana

Convert circled katakana to kana.

    use Lingua::JA::Moji 'circled2kana';

    $kana = circled2kana ('㋐㋑㋒㋓㋔');
    # $kana = 'アイウエオ'

This function converts the "circled katakana" of Unicode into full-width katakana. See also "kana2circled".

KANJI

new2old_kanji

Convert Modern kanji to Pre-1949 kanji.

    use Lingua::JA::Moji 'new2old_kanji';

    $old = new2old_kanji ('三国 連太郎');
    # $old = '三國 連太郎'

Convert new-style (post-1949) kanji (Chinese characters) into old-style (pre-1949) kanji.

Bugs

The list of characters in this convertor may not contain every pair of old/new kanji.

It will not correctly convert 弁 since this has three different equivalents in the old system.

old2new_kanji

Convert Pre-1949 kanji to Modern kanji.

    use Lingua::JA::Moji 'old2new_kanji';

    $new = old2new_kanji ('櫻井');
    # $new = '桜井'

Convert old-style (pre-1949) kanji (Chinese characters) into new-style (post-1949) kanji.

circled2kanji

    use Lingua::JA::Moji 'circled2kanji';

    $kanji = circled2kanji ('㊯');
    # $kanji = '協'

Convert the circled forms of kanji into their uncircled equivalents.

kanji2circled

    use Lingua::JA::Moji 'kanji2circled';

    $kanji = kanji2circled ('協嬉');
    # $kanji = '㊯嬉'

Convert the usual forms of kanji into circled equivalents, if they exist. Note that only a limited number of kanji have circled forms.

bracketed2kanji

    use Lingua::JA::Moji 'bracketed2kanji';

    $kanji = bracketed2kanji ('㈱');
    # $kanji = '株'

Convert bracketed form of kanji into unbracketed form.

kanji2bracketed

    use Lingua::JA::Moji 'kanji2bracketed';

    $kanji = kanji2bracketed ('株');
    # $kanji = '㈱'

Convert an unbracketed form of kanji into bracketed form, if it exists, otherwise do nothing with it.

yurei_moji

    use Lingua::JA::Moji 'yurei_moji';

bad_kanji

    use Lingua::JA::Moji 'bad_kanji';

CYRILLIZATION

This is an experimental cyrillization of kana based on the information in a Wikipedia article, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyrillization_of_Japanese. The module author does not know anything about cyrillization of kana, so any assistance in correcting this is very welcome.

kana2cyrillic

Convert kana to the Cyrillic (Russian) alphabet.

    use Lingua::JA::Moji 'kana2cyrillic';

    $cyril = kana2cyrillic ('シンブン');
    # $cyril = 'симбун'

cyrillic2katakana

Convert the Cyrillic (Russian) alphabet to katakana.

    use Lingua::JA::Moji 'cyrillic2katakana';

    $kana = cyrillic2katakana ('симбун');
    # $kana = 'シンブン'

HANGUL (KOREAN LETTERS)

kana2hangul

    use Lingua::JA::Moji 'kana2hangul';

    $hangul = kana2hangul ('すごわざ');
    # $hangul = '스고와자'

Bugs

May be incorrect

This is based on lists found on the internet at http://kajiritate-no-hangul.com/kana.html and http://lesson-hangeul.com/50itiranhyo.html. There is currently no proof of correctness.

No reverse conversion

There is currently no hangul to kana conversion.

SEE ALSO

Other Perl modules on CPAN include

Japanese kana/romanization

Data::Validate::Japanese

This contains four validators for kanji and kana, is_hiragana, corresponding to "is_hiragana" in this module, and three more, is_kanji, is_katakana, and is_h_katakana, for half-width katakana.

Lingua::JA::Kana

This contains convertors for hiragana, half width and full width katakana, and romaji. As of version 0.07 [Aug 06, 2012], the romaji conversion is less complete than this module.

Lingua::JA::Romanize::Japanese

Romanization of Japanese. The module also includes romanization of kanji via the kakasi kanji to romaji convertor, and other functions.

Lingua::JA::Romaji::Valid

Validate romanized Japanese. This module does the same thing as "is_romaji" in Lingua::JA::Moji.

Lingua::JA::Hepburn::Passport

Passport romanization, which means converting long vowels into "OH". This corresponds to "kana2romaji" in the current module using the passport => 1 option, for example

    $romaji = kana2romaji ("かとう", {style => 'hepburn', passport => 1});
Lingua::JA::Fold

Full/half width conversion, collation of Japanese text.

Lingua::JA::Romaji

Romaji to kana/kana to romaji conversion.

Lingua::JA::Regular::Unicode

This includes hiragana to katakana, full width / half width, and wide ascii conversion. The strange name is due to its being an extension of Lingua::JA::Regular using Unicode-encoded strings.

Lingua::JA::NormalizeText

A huge collection of normalization functions for Japanese text. If Lingua::JA::Moji does not have it, Lingua::JA::NormalizeText may do.

Lingua::KO::Munja

This is similar to the present module for Korean.

Kana/kanji conversion

Lingua::JA::Romanize::MeCab

Romanization of Japanese language with MeCab

Text::MeCab
Lingua::JA::Romanize::Japanese

Romanization of Japanese language via kakasi.

Books

Parts of this module are covered in the book "Perl CPAN Module Guide" by Naoki Tomita (in Japanese), ISBN 978-4862671080, published by WEB+DB PRESS plus, April 2011.

NOTES

This section explains some of the Japanese-language-specific terminology used elsewhere in the documentation. The headers in this section are in lower case for the benefit of internal documentation links.

chouon

The long vowel marker, "ー", or chōon, which is used in Japanese katakana to indicate a lengthened vowel. See What is the long line symbol used in katakana?

wide ASCII

Wide ASCII, fullwidth ASCII, or zenkaku eisūji (全角英数字) are a legacy of bitmapped fonts which has survived into the present day. "Wide ascii" characters were originally special bitmapped font characters created to be the same size as one kanji or kana character. The name for normal ASCII characters in Japanese is hankaku eisūji (半角英数字), literally "half width English letters and numerals". See What is "wide ASCII"? for full details.

halfwidth katakana

Halfwidth katakana, hankaku katakana (半角かたかな) is a legacy encoding of katakana based on an eight-bit encoding. See What is half-width katakana? for full details.

syllabic n

In this document, "syllabic n" means the kana ん or ン. See What is syllabic n? for full details.

EXPORT

This module exports its functions only on request. To export all the functions in the module,

    use Lingua::JA::Moji ':all';

DEPENDENCIES

Carp

Carp is used to report errors.

Convert::Moji

This is used for most of the work of the module.

JSON::Parse

This is used to read in some of the data.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Thanks to Naoki Tomita, David Steinbrunner, and Neil Bowers for fixes.

HISTORY

"Moji" (文字) means "letters" in Japanese. I started Lingua::JA::Moji out of a need for more comprehensive handling of Japanese text than was offered by any of the existing modules on CPAN. There were a lot of modules offering piecemeal romaji/kana conversions or hiragana/katakana conversions, but, with apologies, nothing truly comprehensive or robust. Lingua::JA::Moji was originally a private module. Most of the functions in the module are things I needed for my own projects.

The design using Convert::Moji was part of an abandoned plan to make a cross-language module which could produce, say, a JavaScript converter doing the same things as this Perl one, using the same text sources.

I wasn't really sure whether to release it, but eventually I released it to CPAN as a result of requests for the source code of an online romaji/kana converter by website users. The module interface, in particular the hash reference options to "kana2romaji" and "romaji2kana", is rather messy, and some of the defaults are rather strange, but since it was described in Naoki Tomita's book, and some people may be using it as is, I'm not very keen to change it in incompatible ways.

0.43 added support for hentaigana. This is based on copy and paste of the Unicode 10.0 standard draft documents. See the directory data in the github repository for the files used to generate this data.

0.46 disallowed hyphens as the first character of a romaji string and added "smallize_kana" and "cleanup_kana".

0.47 added a list of the "Yūrei moji" (幽霊文字), false kanji, and changed romanisation somewhat.

0.48 changed kana2romaji to be consistent with the documentation for long vowel options wapuro and none.

AUTHOR

Ben Bullock, <bkb@cpan.org>

COPYRIGHT & LICENCE

This package and associated files are copyright (C) 2008-2017 Ben Bullock.

You can use, copy, modify and redistribute this package and associated files under the Perl Artistic Licence or the GNU General Public Licence.