Banzuke Natsu 2016

[Tenshinhan 1,612]

Ahmmm...

Dairaido and Toho (or is it To-who?) over Asashoryu???

Yes, actually I was referring to the current Natsu 2016 Banzuke which is coincidentally the topic of this thread... :-)

[kuroimori 1,634]

Ahmmm...

Dairaido and Toho (or is it To-who?) over Asashoryu???

Yes, actually I was referring to the current Natsu 2016 Banzuke which is coincidentally the topic of this thread... :-)

OK, my bad... I was surprised after not finding the word "active"

[serge_gva 52]

There are now two rikishi whose shikona romanize to "Satoyama". The sekitori just uses his family name and is the obvious 里山. The new jonokuchi rikishi has family name 佐藤 which is pronounced "Sato" with a long 'o' (Satou), and is the same as the new sekitori Sato. So this guy had to change from his family name to something else, and chose to add a -yama 山 that makes it romanize (unless you are Kintamayama) to the same thing as another sekitori. Fellow Hakkaku-beya entrant with family name Miyazaki also had to change his name as someone else was using that, and also added -yama, but no one else in Hakkaku-beya has -yama in their shikona; the most common practice there is to start with Hokuto-.

I think that, in fact, the correct romanization of 佐藤山 is Satōyama (using Hepburn method, the most widely used) or Satôyama (using Kunrei method, but also tolerated in Hepburn). Satoyama is clearly wrong, altough common (keyboards...)

And forget about Satouyama (wāpuro style), which is not only wrong, but also confusing! The only perso that is allowed to use it is Kintamayama, because he's doing great videos (Dribbling...)

Edited April 28, 2016 by serge_gva

[Gurowake 4,111]

There are now two rikishi whose shikona romanize to "Satoyama". The sekitori just uses his family name and is the obvious 里山. The new jonokuchi rikishi has family name 佐藤 which is pronounced "Sato" with a long 'o' (Satou), and is the same as the new sekitori Sato. So this guy had to change from his family name to something else, and chose to add a -yama 山 that makes it romanize (unless you are Kintamayama) to the same thing as another sekitori. Fellow Hakkaku-beya entrant with family name Miyazaki also had to change his name as someone else was using that, and also added -yama, but no one else in Hakkaku-beya has -yama in their shikona; the most common practice there is to start with Hokuto-.

I think that, in fact, the correct romanization of 佐藤山 is Satōyama (using Hepburn method, the most widely used) or Satôyama (using Kunrei method, but also tolerated in Hepburn). Satoyama is clearly wrong, altough common (keyboards...)

And forget about Satouyama (wāpuro style), which is not only wrong, but also confusing! The only perso that is allowed to use it is Kintamayama, because he's doing great videos (Dribbling...)

I suppose I meant more "how the NSK chooses to present the Romanization". Wikipedia editors are generally very good about marking long vowels (although I'm too lazy when I do my few edits of obviously wrong information), but the NSK chooses not to at all, and that filters down through everyone else that grabs information from them, like the Sumo DB. It was maddening for me to discover that there were two rikishi whose shikona were "Mori" at the same time, one with a long vowel that is completely unmarked on the English version of the database, as it meant that the system I used for distinguishing rikishi was not rigorous and I had to do more work to parse the URL of the links. Of course, the NSK didn't even bother using the correct unicode for someone that changed which version of the "umi" character that was in their shikona, so probably someone along the line in web development decided it was too much work to present the information and that no one would care.

[Asashosakari 19,726]

It was maddening for me to discover that there were two rikishi whose shikona were "Mori" at the same time, one with a long vowel that is completely unmarked on the English version of the database, as it meant that the system I used for distinguishing rikishi was not rigorous and I had to do more work to parse the URL of the links.

Ironically, the last few times we saw "identical" shikona, the Kyokai did make them unambiguous by contravening their own romanization rules; your Mouri is here. Doitsuyama's DB uses the Kyokai's standard romanization.

For a while the Kyokai also made a sudden shift in the way they're romanizing ん before b/p, so the current Oiwato suddenly became Kambayashi instead of Kanbayashi from one day to the next, before they reversed course again a few years later. That's not reflected on the Sumo DB, either.

Anyway, I wouldn't be too surprised if the rookie becomes Satouyama in time for his first Natsu bout.

Edit: Other than the link to the Kyokai Mouri profile, I see I've just repeated much of what I wrote a couple of years ago. (Laughing...) Bonus link from several years earlier: the other recent dupe shikona cases.

Edited April 30, 2016 by Asashosakari

[Gurowake 4,111]

For a while the Kyokai also made a sudden shift in the way they're romanizing ん before b/p, so the current Oiwato suddenly became Kambayashi instead of Kanbayashi from one day to the next, before they reversed course again a few years later. That's not reflected on the Sumo DB, either.

Where does the actually pronunciation tend to lie? Is it *supposed* to be 'n', but due to assimilation with the concurrent bilabial often come out as 'm'? I was under the impression that 'm' was in some way the expected pronunciation of ん before bilabials, such that I tend to always write "shimpan", etc.

[kuroimori 1,634]

If it is at the end of word, always 'n'

In between, it depends on the preceding syllables, e.g.

Shim-pan

Shim-pai

but

Shin-Juku

Shin-Kan-Sen

I have seen both

Shin-bun & Shim-bun

too lazy to look up the exact linguistic rule, the sun is shining and spring seem to have finally arrived here in Southern Germany.

Edited April 30, 2016 by kuroimori

[Kasutera 258]

For a while the Kyokai also made a sudden shift in the way they're romanizing ん before b/p, so the current Oiwato suddenly became Kambayashi instead of Kanbayashi from one day to the next, before they reversed course again a few years later. That's not reflected on the Sumo DB, either.

Where does the actually pronunciation tend to lie? Is it *supposed* to be 'n', but due to assimilation with the concurrent bilabial often come out as 'm'? I was under the impression that 'm' was in some way the expected pronunciation of ん before bilabials, such that I tend to always write "shimpan", etc.

You're correct, syllable-final "m/n" are allophones where "n" becomes "m" before labials. And that concludes this weeks' episode of "who took phonetics in college?"

[Ryoshishokunin 325]

The n -> m shift for ん before b/p sounds is indistinguishable by most Japanese people in my experience. It's really noticeable if you're an english-speaker, but not for Japanese. I personally have issues with hitotsu/futatsu, as for my english-ear the initial consonant is an important difference, but again they're considered to be identical in Japanese, leading to me getting more or less things than I expect.

Romanisation is a hard problem in practice because most people don't have easy access to the over-bar character, so long-o (and long u) persists in being romanised a bunch of different ways. I live in sagami-ono, aka sagami-ohno, sagami-oono, and variations without the hyphen. I don't think I've ever seen the overbar used.

[Kuroyama 715]

Let's be honest: Would 99% of English speakers know what to do with a long-marked vowel in romanization of a Japanese word? If you wrote Tōkyō or Toukyou for Tokyo, would it actually result in a correct pronunciation?

And really, to use wapuro correctly, you need to know how to write a word in kana, and that's too much to ask from most English speakers. Contra what Serge suggested above, "Satouyama" is, as far as I can tell, actually correct for 佐藤山, unless the reading さとうやま from the database is wrong. It would be incorrect for the sekitori 里山 where the reading is given as さとやま and which therefore should be romanized Satoyama. I don't remember how Kintamiyama spells it, but if he in fact writes the sekitori's name with the "ou" romanization, that just shows how even the knowledgeable can err.

[Ryoshishokunin 325]

Let's be honest: Would 99% of English speakers know what to do with a long-marked vowel in romanization of a Japanese word? If you wrote Tōkyō or Toukyou for Tokyo, would it actually result in a correct pronunciation?

And really, to use wapuro correctly, you need to know how to write a word in kana, and that's too much to ask from most English speakers. Contra what Serge suggested above, "Satouyama" is, as far as I can tell, actually correct for 佐藤山, unless the reading さとうやま from the database is wrong. It would be incorrect for the sekitori 里山 where the reading is given as さとやま and which therefore should be romanized Satoyama. I don't remember how Kintamiyama spells it, but if he in fact writes the sekitori's name with the "ou" romanization, that just shows how even the knowledgeable can err.

A lot of romanisations are done by Japanese people, who do know the kana. That being said, 'ou' might be the worst thing to do to an anglophone that doesn't know what he's doing with Japanese words, as they tend to pronounce it like 'shout'. (I know a Japanese guy named 'Shouta'....)

Also, 'tokyo' has worse problems than just the long vowels: most say it with three syllables (toe-key-oh)...

[Asashosakari 19,726]

Personally, I feel the Kyokai has made the right choice with the simplified Hepburn style they're using. Let's be honest here, their English-language coverage is first and foremost geared towards casual fans located outside Japan - vowel length is hardly a high priority there. Sure, it's nice to know how each 'o' in Kotoshogiku is supposed to be pronounced, but nobody's enjoyment of sumo is going to be markedly affected by that either way. And as has been brought up, any long vowel signalling technique might be just as confusing to the uninitiated as it is helpful to the ones who know what it's about. (I recall one guy on the old SML seeming to be a bit distraught when he found out after years that Houchiyama - Kinta's wapuro spelling of Hochiyama - actually wasn't meant to be pronounced Ho-uchi-yama...)

In the end, there's no substitute for simply having enough interest to learn about it. Maybe we should do more to foster that here, but I'm both lazy and not the proselytizing type, so I've never felt the need to use macrons when the Kyokai's standard romanization does an IMHO good enough job of conveying the important stuff.

[Kintamayama 45,628]

And really, to use wapuro correctly, you need to know how to write a word in kana, and that's too much to ask from most English speakers. Contra what Serge suggested above, "Satouyama" is, as far as I can tell, actually correct for 佐藤山, unless the reading さとうやま from the database is wrong. It would be incorrect for the sekitori 里山 where the reading is given as さとやま and which therefore should be romanized Satoyama. I don't remember how Kintamiyama spells it, but if he in fact writes the sekitori's name with the "ou" romanization, that just shows how even the knowledgeable can err.

I spell it Satoyama, like it should be. I of course disagree with everyone all the time regarding the spelling of shikona. I don't do this to annoy anyone, although it probably does and good for me. It should be the way I do it-simply reproducing the kana, but in English.

We can all spell climb as klime and say who cares, but some do.

[RabidJohn 1,859]

Not so much annoying as plain confusing, Kintamayama!

I don't expect to convince a leopard to change his spots, but 'Chiyoootori' doesn't help anyone, and 'Chiyo-ootori' isn't much better, because most English speakers will read the double O as in shoot.

And how is your average English speaking ignoramus supposed to distinguish between 'ou' as in your 'Goueidou' and the same letters in Okinoumi?

I've watched enough of your videos to have gotten used to it by now, though. :-P

[Gurowake 4,111]

If you want to add the u's that are there in the kana rendering, I think in cases where a 'u' is not lengthening the preceding 'o' like Okinoumi, you should add an apostrophe similar to how it is recommended for san'yaku, to show where the syllable edge is. I never use the apostrophe for sanyaku in typing because I'm mainly conversing without a care as to how the words I'm writing are actually pronounced. For Wikipedia and other coverage though, I think it makes sense.

The real problem though with adding the 'u' is that it doesn't match English pronunciation habits of that vowel cluster. It seems to me that if you use them, you should also be using "du" instead of "zu" for づ, "si" instead of "shi", "ti" instead of "chi", etc, because that follows the kana even better and ignores how the English pronunciation of that cluster will differ from the Japanese. A site that I learned Hiragana on had the first of those changes, as well as "di" for a ぢ instead of the usual "ji". In both of those cases, the voicing of two different base kana ends up producing sounds that are normally indistinguishable, but in order to type them you have to know that you should use the 'd' because it comes from voicing a kana that starts with a 't', even if that's not actually how it's pronounced (at least, from what little I know of actual pronunciation).

Edited May 6, 2016 by Gurowake

[Unkonoyama 105]

I'm good with however Kintamayama wants to romanize, thank you for all of your hard work.

That said, I think the way the Kyokai does it is easiest for those that don't know the kana.

[Yubinhaad 11,773]

Takanohana-beya's Jonidan gyoji Kimura Yasutaka has turned in his gunbai and retired. Rather surprised by that - his father is the heya's senior tokoyama, Tokotaka, so I figured Yasutaka would be in for the long term having been brought up around the sumo world.

Postscript to this - someone on 2ch noticed during the Hatsu basho that Tokotaka's profile had been removed from Takanohana-beya's website, so it looked like an unexpected end to 35 years of service. However, he remained on the Kyokai's website all along, so evidently it was being resolved behind the scenes. It was announced today that he's moved to Onomatsu-beya.

Another unexpected postscript - Tokotaka is now listed as a 5th-rank tokoyama, among men some 30 years younger than him. (I dunno...)

Also, I can't remember if I mentioned it already somewhere, but Kise-beya's young tokoyama Tokose didn't stick around long, already retired.

[Kuroyama 715]

A lot of romanisations are done by Japanese people, who do know the kana.

But for the sole benefit of non-Japanese people, who don't. That's one reason wapuro is fairly opaque, unless you already know what you're looking at.

That being said, 'ou' might be the worst thing to do to an anglophone that doesn't know what he's doing with Japanese words, as they tend to pronounce it like 'shout'.

Or as in "you", which is just as wrong.

Also, 'tokyo' has worse problems than just the long vowels: most say it with three syllables (toe-key-oh)...

True that.

Sure, it's nice to know how each 'o' in Kotoshogiku is supposed to be pronounced,

I never would have gotten it right without listening to the ringside announcements from the old stream, myself.

any long vowel signalling technique might be just as confusing to the uninitiated as it is helpful to the ones who know what it's about.

It doesn't help that what's called a "long vowel" according to grammar school English isn't a long vowel at all but a diphthong. (Except for "E") We don't really distinguish vowel length in English any more than we do tones.

I recall one guy on the old SML seeming to be a bit distraught when he found out after years that Houchiyama - Kinta's wapuro spelling of Hochiyama - actually wasn't meant to be pronounced Ho-uchi-yama...

There a manga/anime about boxing called Hajime no Ippo where the main character's name is identical to that of the top division in Ozumo, only written a little differently. (幕之内 vs. 幕の内) At one time Wikipedia had that romanized as "Makunōchi". Same error, different direction.

I of course disagree with everyone all the time regarding the spelling of shikona. I don't do this to annoy anyone, although it probably does and good for me.

(Applauding...)

Edited May 6, 2016 by Kuroyama

[Akinomaki 40,866]

Anybody mentioned yet the possible use of h for indicating long vowels? Or like in katakana putting an extending - after it (that seems to have ended up on top of the vowel)?

We should be glad to not have to think about who Tiyonohuji may have been.

Edited May 7, 2016 by Akinomaki

[Morningstar 118]

And really, to use wapuro correctly, you need to know how to write a word in kana, and that's too much to ask from most English speakers. Contra what Serge suggested above, "Satouyama" is, as far as I can tell, actually correct for 佐藤山, unless the reading さとうやま from the database is wrong. It would be incorrect for the sekitori 里山 where the reading is given as さとやま and which therefore should be romanized Satoyama. I don't remember how Kintamiyama spells it, but if he in fact writes the sekitori's name with the "ou" romanization, that just shows how even the knowledgeable can err.

I spell it Satoyama, like it should be. I of course disagree with everyone all the time regarding the spelling of shikona. I don't do this to annoy anyone, although it probably does and good for me. It should be the way I do it-simply reproducing the kana, but in English.

We can all spell climb as klime and say who cares, but some do.

Here in the Ozarks we do pronounce the b in Climb :-D

[Ryoshishokunin 325]

A lot of romanisations are done by Japanese people, who do know the kana.

But for the sole benefit of non-Japanese people, who don't. That's one reason wapuro is fairly opaque, unless you already know what you're looking at.

That's not as true as is immediately apparent, since most Japanese people type using wapuro, with exceptions for shi/si (し). While kana keyboard mappings exist, most people that learned to type on a computer (as opposed to typewriter or flip-phone) type using romaji-to-japanese systems. I'd guess that many, many more words are typed in romaji into computers than all other uses of romaji for Japanese.

Hence, when outputting romaji for the silly foreigners, that system is already ahead of the game when used by private persons, particularly for their own names.

[kumoryu 95]

To avoid confusion, could someone rename this thread "Bamduke Natu 2016" please. :-)

[Kuroyama 715]

That's not as true as is immediately apparent, since most Japanese people type using wapuro,

I thought we were talking mostly about options for romanization on the NSK website, which doesn't use wapuro.