Is it “juku” or “shuku”?

The kanji for post station, 宿, can be pronounced (and then transliterated into English) as either “juku” or “shuku” in Japanese, and you will see both varieties along the journey. These two transliterations are slightly different ways to pronounce the same character, and the choice depends on traditional and/or regional practices, and of historical phonetic evolution, i.e. different dialects and so on. In some cases, older or more regionally specific pronunciations influenced the standard reading.

The “shuku”-pronunciation was often used in eastern Japan closer to modern-day Tokyo, while “juku” was more common in western Japan, closer to Kyoto. Over time, certain names became standardised with either pronunciation based on local usage. The shift in the English spelling according to some modern transliterations that this site has adopted occur on the 31st leg, between Shiojiri-shuku and Seba-juku. The post stations east of them use the Tokyo variant, and those more to the west are aligned with the Kyoto transliteration. With that being said, this site isn’t a thesis on Japanese dialectal pronunciations and transliterations into English. If you get angry about what is written on this page, please scream into the void.