Hey guys. I’m just curious why “Wolf” is 「ウルブ」instead of 「ヲルフ」this comes in particular concern as I’m trying to spell the city I grew up in; which is Wolverhampton. Is it 「ウルヴァーハンプトン」OR 「ヲルヴーハンプトン」？？
Also use the stickied question thread for these kinds of questions next time please.
katakana versions of English words were converted by different people at different times using different rules and it isn’t consistent
kinda like English spelling
Katakana can be based off how the word looks (so the spelling) or off the pronunciation. There aren’t really hard and set rules. Personally I don’t think either ウル nor ヲル are great but then again, Japanese doesn’t quite have that W sound like English does, and since Katakana isn’t English I guess that’s the best you can get with it
Wo is pretty much exclusively used as a particle.
ヲ is pretty uncommon in general
it’s ウルフ or ウォルフ
ヲ is almost never used nowadays, it is usually pronounced identically to オ
Even beyond ヲ basically always being オ in pronunciation, you don’t pronounce wolf to rhyme with Rolf, do you? It’s more like woof with an L.
The real correct answer here is 狼ハンプトン
i mean, you pronounce wolf like “woolf” right, with an “oo” sound.. so that should already tell you why it’s not ヲルフ
1. The words wolf and Wolverhampton begin with /wʊ/, for which the best Japanese approximation would be /wɯ/ *wu*, they don’t allow /w/ before /ɯ/ so it gets simplified to just /ɯ/ *u* ウ.
2. The kana を/ヲ is used nowadays almost exclusively for the object particle and is almost always pronounced identically to お/オ as /o/. Foreign borrowings can contain /wo/ but it is written as ウォ.
を（ヲ） is pronounced exactly the same as お（オ） in modern Japanese, and it’s rarely used in words (though there exceptions like オタク being written as ヲタク).
The “wo” of wolf is closer to う (like the u in blue) than を, which sounds like the o in gold
You are badly running together some stuff.
Why would a Japanese person think that the plural of the word Wolf, magically changes the F to a V and and then add ES?
To them Wolf and Wolves are just unrelated words.
Your town is not Wolf Er Hampton. It is Wolverhampton. And in fact the town name is unrelated to Wolf at all. It is named after a person called Wulfrun.
Transliteration is a standard step-by-step process: 1. Choose American or British pronunciation as a starting point. 2. Write it in katakana. 3. If it’s too long, shorten it. 4. If it sounds too much like another word already in Japanese (including other imported words), change a vowel, カto キャ, or similar change, or insert or remove a ー or ッ. 5. Change the meaning somewhat, so as to thwart outsiders.
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Go to the wikipedia article for your city. Click on the 日本語 version and [look at it yourself](https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E3%82%A6%E3%83%AB%E3%83%B4%E3%82%A1%E3%83%BC%E3%83%8F%E3%83%B3%E3%83%97%E3%83%88%E3%83%B3)
It’s ウルヴァーハンプトン
Why? Because that’s how it is.
Also use the stickied question thread for these kinds of questions next time please.
katakana versions of English words were converted by different people at different times using different rules and it isn’t consistent
kinda like English spelling
Katakana can be based off how the word looks (so the spelling) or off the pronunciation. There aren’t really hard and set rules. Personally I don’t think either ウル nor ヲル are great but then again, Japanese doesn’t quite have that W sound like English does, and since Katakana isn’t English I guess that’s the best you can get with it
Wo is pretty much exclusively used as a particle.
ヲ is pretty uncommon in general
it’s ウルフ or ウォルフ
ヲ is almost never used nowadays, it is usually pronounced identically to オ
Even beyond ヲ basically always being オ in pronunciation, you don’t pronounce wolf to rhyme with Rolf, do you? It’s more like woof with an L.
The real correct answer here is 狼ハンプトン
i mean, you pronounce wolf like “woolf” right, with an “oo” sound.. so that should already tell you why it’s not ヲルフ
1. The words wolf and Wolverhampton begin with /wʊ/, for which the best Japanese approximation would be /wɯ/ *wu*, they don’t allow /w/ before /ɯ/ so it gets simplified to just /ɯ/ *u* ウ.
2. The kana を/ヲ is used nowadays almost exclusively for the object particle and is almost always pronounced identically to お/オ as /o/. Foreign borrowings can contain /wo/ but it is written as ウォ.
を（ヲ） is pronounced exactly the same as お（オ） in modern Japanese, and it’s rarely used in words (though there exceptions like オタク being written as ヲタク).
Transliteration is usually done based on how the word sounds, but trends in how certain sounds are transliterated changes over time. The simplest way to figure out how a particular name is transliterated is to Google it — [the Wikipedia article for that town](https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E3%82%A6%E3%83%AB%E3%83%B4%E3%82%A1%E3%83%BC%E3%83%8F%E3%83%B3%E3%83%97%E3%83%88%E3%83%B3) calls it ウルヴァーハンプトン. When it comes to proper nouns, it’s best to just look up what the correct transliteration is rather than trying to guess it — [it’s usually unintuitive](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RC07J2v66b8).
Because katakana reflect sounds, not spelling.
The “wo” of wolf is closer to う (like the u in blue) than を, which sounds like the o in gold
You are badly running together some stuff.
Why would a Japanese person think that the plural of the word Wolf, magically changes the F to a V and and then add ES?
To them Wolf and Wolves are just unrelated words.
Your town is not Wolf Er Hampton. It is Wolverhampton. And in fact the town name is unrelated to Wolf at all. It is named after a person called Wulfrun.
Transliteration is a standard step-by-step process: 1. Choose American or British pronunciation as a starting point. 2. Write it in katakana. 3. If it’s too long, shorten it. 4. If it sounds too much like another word already in Japanese (including other imported words), change a vowel, カto キャ, or similar change, or insert or remove a ー or ッ. 5. Change the meaning somewhat, so as to thwart outsiders.