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Jack B
25th May 2000, 23:10
Why is the character DO (michi) sometimes pronounced DO and sometimes TO?

ShinTO but sometimes ShinDO
KenDO but never KenTO
Same for IaiDO, JuDO, SaDO, etc.

Is this a Tokyo dialect thing? Some JoDO guys call it ShinDO Muso Ryu, but Matsui and some others call it ShinTO. It's ShinDO Munen Ryu, except sometimes I've heard it ShinTO... is it completely personal preference? Why is the religion called TO and does that pronunciation in a name emphasize the religion as opposed to the generic suffix for "way"? http://216.10.1.92/ubb/confused.gif

kabutoki
25th May 2000, 23:49
Hi Jack !
In my studies in japanese I found it sometimes very difficult to say why it is a hard or soft sound like your example. I´m not sure if I can give a completely correct answer but I can tell you two things. First, as far as I know it is not a dialect thing to say -do or -to. It may be personal preference to seperate it from other names. A lot of schools use the shintô in their names. My teacher (not trainer) once told me that this does only mean that the way of thinking and fighting in this school is according to the principles of shintô. Whatever this can mean...
I´ll ask my teacher tomorrow if he has a better answer. Hope I helped you a little.
yours Karsten
In japanese you often have a rule that is not more than a suggestion.

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Karsten Helmholz
Bujinkan Dôjô Flensburg
Webmaster
kabutoki@foni.net

Gene McGloin
26th May 2000, 20:52
Hi,

My very limited knowledge of Japanese language tells me that it may have something to do with the combination of kanji used in the name. Again, I'm nowhere near fluent in Japanese, but I often get pronounciations screwed up when reading kanji combos!

kabutoki
28th May 2000, 17:00
Hi Gene !
I think you are absolutely right, but the problem starts when one kanji-composita is spoken in two or even three different ways without any reason given. I think it is a "freedom of reading". You have a lot of cases in japanese where you can choose yourself what to do. Just look at the punctuation. There are nearly no rules. You can only talk about common use but not really about right and wrong...

Yours Karsten

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Karsten Helmholz
Bujinkan Dôjô Flensburg
Webmaster
kabutoki@foni.net

kabutoki
29th May 2000, 11:24
Hi Robert !
It sounds right what you say, but how do you explain the differences between shinto and shindo ? The charakters are the same. To me it sounds like a irregular or willingly chosen "ombin".
What do you think ?

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Karsten Helmholz
Bujinkan Dôjô Flensburg
Webmaster
kabutoki@foni.net

Jack B
30th May 2000, 06:30
Could it be the pronunciation "Shindo" was used to de-empasize the connection with the religion Shinto, in the various examples?

CKohalyk
30th May 2000, 12:04
Okay, I can't offhand explain the t/d variation, but I would bet you that it has something to do with tradition. It happens often in Japanese, and the only way to know how to pronounce it is to have somebody correct you when you pronounce it wrong(which is what happens constantly to me at my university here in Kyoto http://216.10.1.92/ubb/rolleyes.gif ).

As for the abovementioned n/m variation,that is a simple matter of phonology. When pronouncing the word slowly, it is [ken.po]
just like the hiragana underlying representation - /ken.po/. As explained before, the kanji /ho/ becomes [po] due to it's interaction with the consanant(dental/alveolar nasal for all you linguists out there).

Now, when the word is said quickly, as in normal conversation, by the time your mouth gets to the /n/ the brain is preparing to say [p]. This causes the /n/ to become [m] because to make the [p] sound one must close one's lips. Now the technical linguistic difference between /n/ and /m/ is simply whether the lips are closed or not.

This kind of overlapping is evident in many languages. For example in English the morpheme /in-/ means something negative.

ex. [in]convenient [in]coherent

Now if we were to ad this /in-/ to a word starting with /p/, like "perfect", we get:

[im]perfect

Other possible examples are: improper, impossible, impolite,

The English writing system writing system has the ability to describe these phonological quirks, but Japanese doesn't. That's why when these words are transcibed into English you see these crazy m's popping up(but not all the time) all over the place while Japanese only has the n-character in hiragana.

As for the difference between the 2 "kenpo" (meaning "fist-way" and "law") is more likely a difference in tone. Japanese, since it uses the Chinese writing system but a native phonological system, is filled with homonyms that can only be discerned by context, or tone(unfortunately tone is variable dependant on the particular dialect of Japanese you speak).

This is one answer within the framework of modern Linguistics, I am sure there are some other good theories out there.

Thank you,

CK

[This message has been edited by CKohalyk (edited 05-30-2000).]

[This message has been edited by CKohalyk (edited 05-30-2000).]

CKohalyk
30th May 2000, 12:04
Please Delete

[This message has been edited by CKohalyk (edited 05-30-2000).]

Adam DArcy
30th May 2000, 20:04
Hello all,

This is a really interesting topic. I recently saw something in Asahi Paper that talked about current Japanese spoken by students. One word they talked about was ŒŽ‹É parking. The proper pronunciation of the kanji is "Tsuki kime". Those of you who know kanji, though, know that the last kanji "kyoku", "kiwameru" and other readings is not usually read "kime". Consequently, most *Japanese* teen age students read it, and normally use "gekkyoku"!! This is totally wrong, but even native Japanese make this mistake.

Just thought I'd add this for perspective.

Adam


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Ninpo Bugei/ Kokusai Jujutsu Renmei
Kusakage Dojo, Dallas, Texas