These combinations are used mainly to represent the sounds in words in other languages. Digraphs with orange backgrounds are the general ones used for loanwords or foreign places or names, and those with blue backgrounds are used for more accurate transliterations of foreign sounds, both suggested by the Cabinet of Japan's Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology. Katakana combinations with beige backgrounds are suggested by the American National Standards Institute and the British Standards Institution as possible uses. Ones with purple backgrounds appear on the 1974 version of the Hyōjun-shiki formatting. * — The use of in these two cases to represent w is rare in modern Japanese except for Internet slang and transcription of the Latin sound into katakana. E.g.: ミネルウァ (Mineruwa "Minerva", from Latin MINERVA ); ウゥルカーヌス (Wurukānusu "Vulcan", from Latin VVLCANVS, Vu'lcānus ). The wa-type of foreign sounds (as in watt or white) is usually transcribed to ワ (wa), while the wu-type (as in wood or woman) is usually to ウ (u) or ウー (ū). ⁑ — has a rarely used hiragana form in that is also vu in Hepburn romanization systems. ⁂ — The characters in are obsolete in modern Japanese and very rarely used. See also List of ISO romanizations References References External links Preface of first edition of Hepburn's original dictionary, explaining romanization Preface of third edition of Hepburn's original dictionary, explaining romanization Romanization of Japanese Japanese writing system