:James Curtis Hepburn

{{Short description|American physician, educator, and phonologist of Japanese (1815–1911)}}

{{Infobox person

| name = James Curtis Hepburn

| image = James Curtis Hepburn.jpg

| image_caption =

| birth_date = {{birth-date|March 13, 1815}}

| birth_place = Milton, Pennsylvania, U.S.

| death_date = {{Death date and age|1911|9|21|1815|3|13}}

| death_place = East Orange, New Jersey, U.S.

| known_for = {{nowrap|Medical missions in China and Japan}}
Hepburn romanization system

| nationality = American

| alma_mater = Princeton University
University of Pennsylvania

}}

James Curtis Hepburn ({{IPAc-en|ˈ|h|ɛ|p|b|ər|n}}; March 13, 1815 – September 21, 1911) was an American physician, educator, translator and lay Christian missionary. He is known for the Hepburn romanization system for transliteration of the Japanese language into the Latin alphabet, which he popularized in his Japanese–English dictionary.

Background and early life

File:hepburn.jpg]]

Hepburn was born in Milton, Pennsylvania, on March 13, 1815. He attended Princeton University, earned a master's degree, after which he attended the University of Pennsylvania, where he received his M.D. degree in 1836,{{cite web|url=http://www.bdcconline.net/en/stories/h/hepburn-james-curtis.php|title=James Curtis Hepburn: H: By Person: Stories: Biographical Dictionary of Chinese Christianity|website=www.bdcconline.net|access-date=September 24, 2010|archive-date=October 25, 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161025190058/http://www.bdcconline.net/en/stories/h/hepburn-james-curtis.php|url-status=dead}} and became a physician. He decided to go to China as a medical missionary, but had to stay in Singapore for two years because the First Opium War was underway and Chinese ports were closed to foreigners. After five years as a missionary, he returned to the United States in 1845 and opened a medical practice in New York City.{{Cite web |url=http://www.famousamericans.net/jamescurtishepburn/ |title=James Curtis Hepburn |access-date=September 27, 2024 |archive-date=July 7, 2002 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20020707155242/http://www.famousamericans.net/jamescurtishepburn/ |url-status=bot: unknown }} - famousamericans.net

Missionary work in Japan

In 1859, Hepburn went to Japan as a medical missionary with the American Presbyterian Mission. After first arriving in Nagasaki in October 1859, Hepburn swiftly relocated to the newly opened treaty port of Yokohama, opening his first clinic in April 1861 at the Sokoji Temple. Initially residing at Jobutsuji in Kanagawa, a dilapidated temple formerly occupied by the Dutch consulate, Hepburn was the first Christian missionary to take up residence close to the newly opened treaty port. Hepburn's family shared accommodation at Jobutsuji with Dutch Reformed minister Rev. Samuel Robbins Brown and all were quickly absorbed into the local foreign community, Hepburn being appointed honorary physician to the US Consul, Townsend Harris.

Hepburn's first clinic failed as the Bakumatsu authorities, wanting the missionaries to relocate to Yokohama, put pressure on patients to stop going to it.{{cite book|last1=Ion|first1=Hamish, A.|title=American Missionaries, Christian oyatoi, and Japan, 1859-73|date=2009|publisher=UBC Press|location=Vancouver, BC|isbn=978-0-7748-1647-2|page=37}} In the spring of 1862, Hepburn and his family relocated to the house and compound at Kyoryuchi No. 39, in the heart of the foreigners residential district in the treaty port of Yokohama. There, in addition to his clinic, he and his wife Clara founded the Hepburn School, which eventually developed into Meiji Gakuin University. Hepburn's Japanese pupils included Furuya Sakuzaemon, Takahashi Korekiyo, and Numa Morikazu.

For his medical contributions to the city of Yokohama, Hepburn Hall was named in his honor on the campus of Yokohama City University School of Medicine.

In May 1867, with the collaboration of his long-time assistant Kishida Ginkō, Hepburn published a Japanese–English dictionary which rapidly became the standard reference work for prospective students of Japanese.{{cite book|last1=Ion|first1=Hamish, A.|title=American Missionaries, Christian oyatoi, and Japan, 1859-73|date=2009|publisher=UBC Press|location=Vancouver, BC|isbn=978-0-7748-1647-2|page=80}} In the dictionary's third edition,{{cite book

|last=Hepburn

|first=James Curtis

|title=A Japanese–English and English–Japanese Dictionary

|url=http://www.halcat.com/roomazi/doc/hep3.html

|access-date=July 25, 2009

|edition=3rd

|year=1886

|publisher=Z. P. Maruya

|location=Tokyo

}}

published in 1886, Hepburn adopted a new system for romanization of the Japanese language developed by the Society for the Romanization of the Japanese Alphabet (Rōmajikai).{{Citation needed|date=November 2022}} This system is widely known as the Hepburn romanization because Hepburn's dictionary popularized it. Hepburn also contributed to the translation of the Bible into Japanese.{{Cite web|url=https://www.originalbibles.com/the-bible-in-transliterated-japanese/|title = Giving You Holy Bibles the Way They Were Originally Printed}}

Later years

File:Hepburn Hall 2014.JPG, Yokohama, Japan]]

File:J・C・Hepburn and his family.jpg

Hepburn returned to the United States in 1892. On March 14, 1905, a day after Hepburn's 90th birthday, he was awarded the decoration of the Order of the Rising Sun, third class. Hepburn was the second foreigner to receive this honor.{{cite news

|title=Japanese Order for Missionary

|url=https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1905/03/15/101411015.pdf

|work=The New York Times

|page=13

|date=March 15, 1905

|access-date=July 25, 2009

|quote=

|archive-url=

|archive-date=

}}

He died on September 21, 1911, in East Orange, New Jersey, at the age of 96. He is interred in Orange's Rosedale Cemetery.{{Cite web |title=Rosedale Cemetery Walking Guide of Notable Interments |url=https://rosedalecemetery.org/wp-content/uploads/RosedaleCemetery_BF-Walking-Guide_Q07999_D2.pdf |access-date=2022-11-08}}

Publications

{{cite book|last=Hepburn|first=James Curtis|author-link=James Curtis Hepburn|title=A Japanese and English dictionary: with an English and Japanese index|place=London|publisher=Trübner & Co.|year=1867|url=https://archive.org/details/japaneseenglishd00hepb}} (first edition) 690pp
[https://archive.org/details/ajapaneseandeng00hepbgoog A Japanese and English dictionary: with and English and Japanese index (1867)]
[https://archive.org/details/japaneseenglish00unkngoog Japanese-English and English-Japanese Dictionary (1881)]
{{cite book|last=Hepburn|first=James Curtis|author-link=James Curtis Hepburn|title=A Japanese-English and English-Japanese Dictionary|place=Tokyo|publisher=Z.P. Maruya & Company|year=1888|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=6CkYAAAAYAAJ}} (4th edition), 962pp (gives Japanese next to romaji)
[https://books.google.com/books?id=oJtBAAAAYAAJ A Japanese-English and English-Japanese dictionary (1903)]
{{cite book|last=Hepburn|first=James Curtis|author-link=James Curtis Hepburn|title=Hepburn's Abridged Dictionary|place=Tokyo|publisher=Z.P. Maruya & Company|year=1905|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=6FQWAAAAYAAJ}} (2nd. ed. abridged), 1032pp (romaji only)

References

External links

[http://www.meijigakuin.ac.jp/guide/history_en.html History of Meiji Gakuin University]
[http://www.princeton.edu/paw/web_exclusives/plus/plus_071807hepburn.html Article on Hepburn] in Princeton Alumni Weekly
[http://www.church.ne.jp/heboken/ Hepburn Christian Fellowship] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110525163456/http://www.church.ne.jp/heboken/ |date=May 25, 2011 }} {{in lang|ja}}

Category:American expatriates in Japan

Category:American Japanologists

Category:Presbyterian missionaries in Japan

Category:Presbyterian missionaries in Singapore

Category:American lexicographers

Category:Translators of the Bible into Japanese

Category:1815 births

Category:1911 deaths

Category:Recipients of the Order of the Rising Sun, 3rd class

Category:19th-century American physicians

Category:People from Northumberland County, Pennsylvania

Category:19th-century American translators