"Kantoku"

[Mike Haftel]

In Dave Lowry's book, "Moving Toward Stillness," there is a chapter in which he discusses the term "Kantoku" and states that it has a general translation/meaning of "to perceive virtue."

I am confused. Kantoku (かんとく, 監督) means "supervison, control, or superintendence." And 試験監督 (しけんかんとく) means "proctoring of an examination."

Did Lowry take this to imply that a proctor of an exam is there to enforce the rules and make sure the ones taking the exam do not cheat? i.e. they remain virtuous, ethical, and moral? And then strip the original term of it's detail and abstract it to infer the perception of virtue, alone?

[Mike Haftel]

Also, his chapter on Enzan O Metsuke (塩山を目付け) should be Enzan O Metsu[ki] (塩山を目付き), and basically means "gazing/looking as though one were viewing a distant mountain." It's an important distinction, I think. He wrote an entire chapter on this subject but failed to come out and just say that this concept/principle, with relation to Budo, basically implies that the budoka should use his peripheral vision (as it picks up motion much better) rather than focus on any specific point.

[Earl Hartman]

Um, dude, not to be the language police or anything (OK, I'm being the language police), but I think you need to remember that Japanese has a plethora of homophones, words that sound exactly the same but have different meanings since they are written with different characters.

The "kantoku" to which Mr. Lowry was referring is almost certainly 観徳, a compound made up of 観 (to perceive) and 徳 (virtue). It sounds the same as 監督 but has the same relationship to it as carrot has to carat or flower has to flour. In other words, none at all. As a verb, 観 can be read 観ずる (かんずる) or just 観る (みる) meaning to view, see, or contemplate.

Also, the character compound you have provided for "gazing at a far mountain"/"the far mountain gaze" is incorrect. As written, it reads "the salt mountain gaze". This should be written 遠山の目付. Again, depending on how they are used, 塩 (salt) and 遠 (distant) are both pronounced えん (en).

When gazing at a salt mountain, I assume the secret teaching (the 口伝 or the 極意, as it were) would be to wear goggles so the salt doesn't get in your eyes.

[Mike Haftel]

Um, dude, not to be the language police or anything (OK, I'm being the language police), but I think you need to remember that Japanese has a plethora of homophones, words that sound exactly the same but have different meanings since they are written with different characters.

The "kantoku" to which Mr. Lowry was referring is almost certainly 観徳, a compound made up of 観 (to perceive) and 徳 (virtue). It sounds the same as 監督 but has the same relationship to it as carrot has to carat or flower has to flour. In other words, none at all. As a verb, 観 can be read 観ずる (かんずる) or just 観る (みる) meaning to view, see, or contemplate.

Also, the character compound you have provided for "gazing at a far mountain"/"the far mountain gaze" is incorrect. As written, it reads "the salt mountain gaze". This should be written 遠山の目付. Again, depending on how they are used, 塩 (salt) and 遠 (distant) are both pronounced えん (en).

When gazing at a salt mountain, I assume the secret teaching (the 口伝 or the 極意, as it were) would be to wear goggles so the salt doesn't get in your eyes.

Yeah, sorry. Windows language bar automatically changes the kanji when you enter it in. 塩山を目付　is what I actually typed, but it changed it.

Ok, so it's 観徳 and not what I originally had. None of the dictionaries I looked in, nor the japanese people I asked, referenced those kanji.

Thanks for the clarificaiton.

But, my original intended question still stands. Etymologically speaking, what relationship do 観徳 and 監督 or 試験監督 have with each other? I was going along the lines of a person who watches over people taking a test does so in order to prevent cheating and uphold any standards of virtue. But, this might be a leap.

[Earl Hartman]

I'm not sure what's going on, but you still have it written as 塩山 when it should be 遠山. Also, it is not 遠山を目付 but 遠山の目付。

I speak Japanese fairly well, but I am not a linguist, so I cannot comment authoritatively on etymology. The characters for 監督 and 観徳 are completely different, so as I said, I assume that they have no particular etymological relationship as you seem to want them to have. They just sound the same, like carrot and carat. But they mean something completely different. So, yeah, I think it's a leap.

It is not surprising that the Japanese people with whom you spoke were not familiar with 観徳 or that it was not in the dictionary. It is an archaic and rather specialized compound.

I assume that the large number of homophones in Japanese is a result of the fact that Japanese does not have tones as does Chinese. When the Japanese borrowed Chinese characters to write their language, all the tones were lost. As a result, characters which in Chinese would sound different all sound the same in Japanese. Just "kan", for example, can be written 観 (see), 間 (interval), 感 (feeling or emotion), 館 (hall or building), 完 (completion), 関 (barrier), etc., etc.

This confuses non-native speakers no end, but it also makes Japanese a very rich language for puns and related wordplay.

[Mike Haftel]

I'm not sure what's going on, but you still have it written as 塩山 when it should be 遠山. Also, it is not 遠山を目付 but 遠山の目付。

I speak Japanese fairly well, but I am not a linguist, so I cannot comment authoritatively on etymology. The characters for 監督 and 観徳 are completely different, so as I said, I assume that they have no particular etymological relationship as you seem to want them to have. They just sound the same, like carrot and carat. But they mean something completely different. So, yeah, I think it's a leap.

It is not surprising that the Japanese people with whom you spoke were not familiar with 観徳 or that it was not in the dictionary. It is an archaic and rather specialized compound.

I assume that the large number of homophones in Japanese is a result of the fact that Japanese does not have tones as does Chinese. When the Japanese borrowed Chinese characters to write their language, all the tones were lost. As a result, characters which in Chinese would sound different all sound the same in Japanese. Just "kan", for example, can be written 観 (see), 間 (interval), 感 (feeling or emotion), 館 (hall or building), 完 (completion), 関 (barrier), etc., etc.

This confuses non-native speakers no end, but it also makes Japanese a very rich language for puns and related wordplay.

Lowry has it written as "O" and not "no." I know the difference, but I just went with how he wrote it (although he wrote it in romaji, not Japanese).

[Josh Reyer]

観 kan - comes from Mandarin "guan", Cantonese "gun"; was originally "kwan", but has normalized to "kan". Means "see, observe".
徳 toku - comes Mandarin "de", Cantonese "dak". Means "ethics, morality, virtue".

監 kan - comes from Mandarin "jian", Cantonese "gaam". Means "supervise, direct".
督 toku - comes from Mandarin "du", Cantonese "duk". Means "supervise, oversee".

Japanese borrowed kanji from at least three different periods of Chinese history, and there's been a fair bit of linguistic shift in both languages since the borrowing. Sometimes they borrowed the Cantonese pronunication, sometimes the Mandarin. In both cases pronunciation was approximated according to Japanese phonology. As as result, you have many situations like this where four completely different words in Chinese have the same pronunciations in Japanese.

The compound 目付 can be read as either "metsuke" or "metsuki", depending on whatever tradition you're dealing with. For instance, in show business circles, a young kohai who is assigned to follow around and assist a sempai is called a "tsukibito", whereas the same role is referred to as "tsukebito" in sumo circles. It's just i/e switching, not terribly unusual in Japanese. In any case, 目付 is most commonly read as "metsuke" in Yagyu Shinkage Ryu circles, which is no doubt where Mr. Lowry came across the phrase 遠山の目付.

遠山, incidentally, is typically read とおやま, so typing in "enzan" will not bring it up, which I think is why you keep getting "salt mountain". "Enzan" is a kind of budo-specific reading.

[Josh Reyer]

Also incidentally, Yagyu Munenori provides a perfect example of what Earl is talking about in the Heiho Kadensho, when he makes a connection between 観 and 感 - the first coming from "guan" and meaning "see, observe", while the latter comes from "gan" and means "feeling". This isn't a connection that could really be made in Chinese, but in Japanese both are read as "kan", so it, um...can.

[Earl Hartman]

Well, if it appears as "enzan o metsuke" in his book, then I'm afraid Mr. Lowry or his editor must have made a mistake. "Enzan o metsuke" simply doesn't make any sense.

[Mike Haftel]

Wow, Josh! Thanks.

Actually, typing "Enzan" into yahoo honyaku does bring up mountain. But, if I use Jim Breen's WWWJDIC it won't work unless I use the specific kanji (which I didn't know until this thread).

[Josh Reyer]

Wow, Josh! Thanks.

Actually, typing "Enzan" into yahoo honyaku does bring up mountain. But, if I use Jim Breen's WWWJDIC it won't work unless I use the specific kanji (which I didn't know until this thread).

塩山 "Enzan" (salt mountain) is a place name, which I imagine is why yahoo honyaku brought up "mountain". It probably would have come up in WWJDIC, too, if you had set it to search place names as well. At any rate, the kanji we're talking about here is 遠 en, "far", and 山 san, "mountain." But iif you show 1000 Japanese people the kanji 遠山, 990 of them will read it as "Tohyama", and the 10 who have some exposure to classical budo will say it might be "Tohyama" or "Enzan".

[Walker]

This isn't a connection that could really be made in Chinese, but in Japanese both are read as "kan", so it, um...can.

Beautiful...