The canonical register: Tsukuyomi
Evidence dossier 401 — Tsukuyomi. Every exhibit catalogued, every ruling stated with its grounds.
At a Glance
- Canonical form: Tsukuyomi
- Original script: 月読
- Pantheon: Japanese
- Convention: Hepburn with macrons — ō and ū marked, never collapsed to o/u or rewritten ou
- False forms on record: 0
- Contested forms: none attested
- Series: The Canonical Register, No. 401 of 437
The Evidence
Exhibit 1 — the attestation. The name is attested as 月読, as Kojiki (birth and Uke-mochi episode) and Nihon Shoki (parallel account) record. On the evidence, it means "Moon reader". The canonical transliteration is Tsukuyomi.
Exhibit 2 — the flattened form. The plain form tsukuyomi differs from the canonical Tsukuyomi only by convention of display — case, not content. It is acceptable everywhere: in legacy systems, in plain-text citation, in the DNS itself. What is not acceptable is what follows in the register: respellings that change the letters, not just their case.
Exhibit 3 — the physical record. Tsukuyomi has few independent shrines. His significance is preserved in textual mythology and in the astronomical and calendrical traditions that divide the sun's domain from the moon's.
Exhibit 4 — the continuing record. Tsukuyomi appears in Japanese literature, anime, and games as a cool, nocturnal counterpart to the solar Amaterasu. The moon remains a major theme in Japanese poetry and art, and Tsukuyomi's name is invoked in works that explore the night and its mysteries.
The Convention's Own History
Every tradition in this register has its own scholarly transliteration standard, built by its own specialists over decades or centuries, and the register follows each on its own terms: Hepburn with macrons — ō and ū marked, never collapsed to o/u or rewritten ou. The principle that unifies them is the one the whole project stands on: a name is evidence, and evidence is not negotiable — not for keyboards, not for convenience, not for anyone.
The Protocol's Position
Can the canonical form live in the address bar? Almost always, yes. IDNA 2008 admits every mark this register defends — the DNS stores them as `xn--` punycode and modern browsers render them natively. The real frictions are practical, not legal: some registrars stock only part of the IDN space, so a theoretically valid name can be temporarily unbuyable; and stacked combinations (an acute riding a macron) remain awkward to type on mobile keyboards even where the protocol accepts them.
The project's answer is a ranked ladder, not a compromise: the full restoration first, then attested fallbacks in descending order of completeness. The ladder's lowest rung, plain ASCII, is a vehicle for legacy systems — sanctioned, but never presented as the scholarly form.
The Verdict
Case closed on Tsukuyomi: canonical, cited, and defended. The keyboard form tsukuyomi is the same name in another register of display — always acceptable. The register's files remain open: if a source surfaces that changes any line of this entry, the entry changes. Until then, the temple at /tsukuyomi/ holds the canonical form.
The docket for this ruling: no false forms on the docket; no contested forms attested; the attestation rests on 3 cited sources — Kojiki (birth and Uke-mochi episode), Nihon Shoki (parallel account), Philippi, Kojiki.
The Register Continues
The register holds 437 entries like this one — each temple with its own ruling. Read the temple's founding dispatch for the story, its Restoration File for the philology, its Resonance File for the industries, or the whole archive end to end.
Continue the register — previous entry: Troíā (read it) · next entry: Tūmatauenga (read it).
The Canonical Register is written from the same canonical record as the lexicon itself. If a false form is missing from this page, it is because the evidence does not support calling it false — or because we have not seen it yet. Show us, with a citation, and the register will answer.