- James Curtis Hepburn
James Curtis Hepburn (
13 March 1815 –11 June 1911 ) was born inMilton, Pennsylvania . He attended Princeton and Pennsylvania universities and became a doctor. He decided to go toSiam (later changing toChina ) as a medical missionary, but had to stay inSingapore for two years as theOpium War was under way and Chinese ports were closed to foreigners. After five years as a missionary, he returned to theUnited States (in 1845) and opened a medical practice inNew York City .In 1859, he decided to go toJapan as a medical missionary, where he opened a clinic in Kanagawa and later a school (the Hepburn School, from which the present "Meiji Gakuin" University (明治学院大学) developed.) He also began compiling a Japanese-English dictionary, which was first published in 1867. The third edition of his dictionary, published in 1887, used a revised form of Japanese romanization devised by a society of enthusiasts for writing Japanese in the Latin alphabet. This form of romanization is now known asHepburn romanization , and it is often mistakenly said that Hepburn "invented" it; he is, however, largely responsible for "popularizing" it. He also contributed to the translation of theBible into Japanese. Hepburn returned to the US in 1892, and died inEast Orange ,New Jersey in September of 1911 at the age of 96.Some of Hepburn's noted Japanese pupils include
Furuya Sakuzaemon andNuma Morikazu (沼間守一).ee also
*The
Hepburn romanization systemExternal links
* [http://www.meijigakuin.ac.jp/english/history.htm History of Meiji Gakuin University]
* [http://www.church.ne.jp/heboken/ Hepburn Christian Fellowship (in Japanese)]
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