In defense of Kintamayama's romanisation method

[Atenzan 1,074]

Broadly related to Ozumo so this goes here.

Quite a few people on this site have criticized myself along with our lord and saviour Moti for using a particular method of transliterating Japanese shikona into the Latin alphabet. However, I refuse to acknowledge that you are all right and the three and a half people that disagree are wrong. Here's why.

Take this shikona here: 朝青龍. Let's break this down, shall we?

朝=asa, morning. No conflict here.

青=shou, blue. NOT sho. The hiragana is しょう. Not しょ.

龍=ryuu, NOT ryu. The hiragana is りゅう.Not りゅ.

Now let's see what we get...

Asa+shou+ryuu= Asashouryuu (あさしょうりゅう). Asashoryu is just plain wrong.

I can hear you from here. You're crying, wailing: "B-But Hepburn..."-shut up. Silence! Hepburn would use macrons in this situation. Like so: Asashōryū. This I can accept. Not Asashoryu though.

Again, don't protest without letting me finish. "McBugger,", you were about to rudely interject, "you must be a moron! My keyboard doesn't have macrons, nor circumflexes! Full Hepburn is a pain in the backside! You cannot possibly expect me to do so!" Well, I don't. I'm lazy too. But I still manage to represent the kana correctly, and you don't. So there. That is precisely why I persist with this system. Well, that and other reasons. On to those.

I would argue that this kana system, or "wapuro imitation", as a couple of you blithering helmets have so ostentatiously called it (tyranny of the masses at its best right there), is better suited for sumo than Hepburn. This is because the main arguments on phonetic accuracy in the kana vs Hepburn debate is that:

A (pro-Hepburn): In kana, there is no way to distinguish between two-phthong "ou" (Kitanoumi, Kita-no-umi) and a single-phthong "ou" (Kotoshougiku, Koto-shou-giku). Both are transliterated as ou.

B (pro-kana): In your bastardised version of Hepburn, you cannot distinguish sounds of "o", "oo" and "ou". If you use macrons, you STILL can't distinguish between oo and ou.

Now, please let me argue my case here. Impatient pests. I have a question for you: how often do you get an "ou" in the world of sumo that isn't single-phthong and doesn't involve the particle "no"? Because anyone after getting one basho of coverage and/or with a very basic knowledge of Japanese can recognise and correctly pronounce shikona with "no" in them. Taka-no-hana. Kise-no-sato. Teru-no-fuji. I don't see how they wouldn't be able to pick up Oki-no-umi if they had learned from day 1 to write down Sawai's shikona as Goueidou.

However, the o/oo/ou conundrum is very much in play. See Satoyama/Satouyama conflict (or, as most would have it, Satoyama/Satoyama. Thankfully the NSK fixed that for you. Now can we please update all the other shikona as well? All in the name of intellectual progress, you see.)

Now suppose I turn pro tomorrow. What on earth would you headless Hepburn chickens do if I chose the shikona of 左十山（さとおやま）? You would have a Satoyama, a Satoyama and a Satoyama. Disgraceful. I wouldn't be here to clout your ears, of course, since I would not be allowed Internet access. Fat chance a 166cm, 61kg dwarf like me would make sandanme. But Kintamayama would fill you in on news concerning three different, distinguishable rikishi: Satoyama, Satouyama and Satooyama. And therein lies his everlasting superiority.

Amen.

(Both the insults to Hepburn users and my treating Moti as a god are jokes. Please do not take them seriously. Obviously the man is a mere demigod.)

[Randomitsuki 2,548]

Great rant!
But why do you use the bastard Hepburn transliteration you so much condemn in your current signature? ;-)

[Atenzan 1,074]

Great rant!

But why do you use the bastard Hepburn transliteration you so much condemn in your current signature? ;-)

I was young and impressionable...

Edit: there y'are Rando.

Edited May 24, 2016 by McBugger

[Kintamayama 41,304]

Wow.

[Asashosakari 16,985]

Stopped reading at the grievous misspelling of "romanization".

[Atenzan 1,074]

Stopped reading at the grievous misspelling of "romanization".

It's called British English- do you really want another topic like this?

I kid. Socialising with Englishmen, Scotsmen and Aussies since the age of two has left its mark on me, as you may realise. Glamour and splendour are not my goals; it is the power of habit that makes my spelling colourful.

[ALAKTORN 346]

I’ve edited my keyboard layout to be able to type things like Gōeidō.

[Atenzan 1,074]

I’ve edited my keyboard layout to be able to type things like Gōeidō.

Much appreciated, and will work out 99.9% of the time. Let's hope that Satooyama doesn't materialise anytime soon. In fact, I remembered you, and I meant you as the "half" in the "three and a half people who disagree".

Edited May 24, 2016 by McBugger

[Asojima 2,839]

Romaniz/sation system be damned. Every unpretentious english-speaker is well aware that the next to the last syllable of the shikona is the one that always gets the emphasis.

[robnplunder 949]

Hilarious thread!

After so many years, I am trying to learn Japanese again just so that I can understand Sumo streams, recognize shikonas, etc.. A question for you Japanese experts - I've noticed the kanji for mountain can be read as yama or san. When is this yama, and when is it san? Is this a rare exception or are there many kanji that can be read differently?

[Atenzan 1,074]

Hilarious thread!

After so many years, I am trying to learn Japanese again just so that I can understand Sumo streams, recognize shikonas, etc.. A question for you Japanese experts - I've noticed the kanji for mountain can be read as yama or san. When is this yama, and when is it san? Is this a rare exception or are there many kanji that can be read differently?

Yes, almost all kanji have multiple readings- which one to use each time differs from kanji to kanji, from reading to reading. Sone readings are nearly obsolete, like the Oshima-beya 'kyoku'; 旭 is almost always "asahi".

[kuroimori 1,634]

Hilarious thread!

After so many years, I am trying to learn Japanese again just so that I can understand Sumo streams, recognize shikonas, etc.. A question for you Japanese experts - I've noticed the kanji for mountain can be read as yama or san. When is this yama, and when is it san? Is this a rare exception or are there many kanji that can be read differently?

Jackpot! ... or rather Hornets Nest! :-)

It was exactly that discovery and ensuing question that almost made me quit studying Japanese.

Yama vs. zan/zen is a relatively easy one with just 3 options (if you leave the nanori kanji aside, that is)

Edited May 24, 2016 by kuroimori

[hamcornheinz 839]

Hilarious thread!

After so many years, I am trying to learn Japanese again just so that I can understand Sumo streams, recognize shikonas, etc.. A question for you Japanese experts - I've noticed the kanji for mountain can be read as yama or san. When is this yama, and when is it san? Is this a rare exception or are there many kanji that can be read differently?

With a lot of them, you have the kanji representing the original Japanese, which is yama = mountain, and also a transliteration of the original chinese, which is san = mountain. So you get both pronunciations.

[robnplunder 949]

Hilarious thread!

After so many years, I am trying to learn Japanese again just so that I can understand Sumo streams, recognize shikonas, etc.. A question for you Japanese experts - I've noticed the kanji for mountain can be read as yama or san. When is this yama, and when is it san? Is this a rare exception or are there many kanji that can be read differently?

With a lot of them, you have the kanji representing the original Japanese, which is yama = mountain, and also a transliteration of the original chinese, which is san = mountain. So you get both pronunciations.

Ouch! I was afraid of that.

[Gurowake 3,526]

Hilarious thread!

After so many years, I am trying to learn Japanese again just so that I can understand Sumo streams, recognize shikonas, etc.. A question for you Japanese experts - I've noticed the kanji for mountain can be read as yama or san. When is this yama, and when is it san? Is this a rare exception or are there many kanji that can be read differently?

With a lot of them, you have the kanji representing the original Japanese, which is yama = mountain, and also a transliteration of the original chinese, which is san = mountain. So you get both pronunciations.

Yeah, this is the basic case in Japanese. You had the Japanese import the Chinese Characters, and at the same time they also borrowed some Chinese words. So in those words, the characters get pronounced like they did in Chinese at the time and place they were borrowed. When using the Chinese characters to represent indigenous Japanese words, the characters were chosen for their meaning and not their sound, and the word was still pronounced as it was in Japanese. One can almost look at the tendency of the pronunciation differences between English words derived from Latin/French and those more native to the language. For instance, "machine" is pronounced entirely like it's a French word; the "ch" cluster and the 'i' before a single consonant and terminal 'e' are normally pronounced differently in English. It's not as strong of an association though, and the two languages are actually related, making the pronunciation not all that different. Chinese and Japanese are etymologically unrelated, so there's absolutely no correspondence at all between the pronunciations of characters.

Like kuromori, I have given up entirely on learning how to pronounce Japanese, so long as I can read it. Even if I had the money, I would never travel to Japan unless they lifted their restriction on pharmaceutical amphetamines, without which I am entirely unable to function correctly, so I'm not particularly concerned about learning how to converse in Japanese.

--

On the main topic of this thread, I think the goal of written communication is to get others to understand what you are talking about, not to tell them how to pronounce the words. I am shocked at how lazy of spellers some Americans are, going with letters that approximate what the sound of the intended utterance as if it were out loud, and apparently there are plenty of people who process written information by sounding it aloud in their head. Especially in olden times, when it was said in the Roman empire that a mark of intelligence was being able to read without moving your lips. (I suspect a lack of spaces contributed to that though). I saw some writing that had "heck tick" somewhere, and had absolutely no idea what they meant until I actually went through sounding it out, something I normally don't need to do to be able to understand what written words mean (ok, it only took an additional half-second, but when it only takes a second or two to read an entire sentence, having writing full of these things makes it take much longer to read). This is also why I'm focused on learning to read Japanese for meaning and not speak it, as it corresponds more naturally with how I process written English.

Thus, I really don't care how you transliterate things, and don't care if there are issues with not knowing how to pronounce it based on the spelling (that's something English speakers are very familiar with). I don't care if you use "Satoyama" to refer to the new rikishi when it's clear you don't mean the sekitori, and "Satouyama" at other times when the distinction needs to be made. As long as I know who you're talking about, I really don't care. Since not typing out the 'u's or using long marks is faster, I don't tend to do so.

Edited May 24, 2016 by Gurowake

[Asojima 2,839]

Hilarious thread!

After so many years, I am trying to learn Japanese again just so that I can understand Sumo streams, recognize shikonas, etc.. A question for you Japanese experts - I've noticed the kanji for mountain can be read as yama or san. When is this yama, and when is it san? Is this a rare exception or are there many kanji that can be read differently?

Kanji was adopted from the Chinese. Basically, each character was originally a picture (pictograph) of an object or concept. The sound attached to the character was simply the sound used for the object. When the Japanese adopted the system, they picked up a subset of the characters. They already had sounds associated with many objects or concepts that would be represented by a single general purpose character. Most of the characters therefore picked up several existing Japanese sounds. To further complicate things, many also picked up the original Chinese sound for the character.

Japanese is therefore a very difficult language to vocalize from a reading. The meaning is clear from the pictograph, but it is often unclear which of the several spoken words are associated with the reading. It is not unusual for Japanese characters to be followed by hiragana phonetics in parenthesis when the sound associated with the character is ambiguous, but important.

Shikona are a string of characters with no context, so they often are accompanied by the hiragana. Without it, most Japanese would be unable to pronounce the name.

In the example, shan was the original Chinese pronounciation for the mountain character and yama was one of several Japanese words in use for mountain when the Kanji was adopted.

[Benevolance 2,302]

I’ve edited my keyboard layout to be able to type things like Gōeidō.

I'm trying to figure out how to edit my keyboard to type nice things about Gōeidō. Do I need Linux?

[Gurowake 3,526]

In your bastardised version of Hepburn, you cannot distinguish sounds of "o", "oo" and "ou". If you use macrons, you STILL can't distinguish between oo and ou.

I was under the impression that there is no meaningful difference in the actual pronunciation of おお and おう.

[Atenzan 1,074]

In your bastardised version of Hepburn, you cannot distinguish sounds of "o", "oo" and "ou". If you use macrons, you STILL can't distinguish between oo and ou.

I was under the impression that there is no meaningful difference in the actual pronunciation of おお and おう.

There is a slight difference; it is slight though. Other than that, there is a semantics difference. If you told me your shikona had the tou kanji in it, I would assume you were talking about the one meaning "roadway", because if you meant "east" you would have said "higashi, pronounced tou" in all probability. If you had mentioned a too kanji, I would assume it's one of many variants meaning "complete" or "distant". This is of course one of many examples, what I mean is that there are oads of semantic mixups one can make with oo/ou.

[RabidJohn 1,260]

The helpful person who goes by the YouTube name of 'NEWS File' and posts full Makuuchi coverage here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCWJh5G_PNPTFzkTPCldprvw romanises shikona differently again. For example, Itinojou, Kotosyougiku, Syoudai...

Makes no difference to me. I can't read kanji, but regardless of the romanisation system used I can still recognise who's being referred to, and that's all that really matters.

Entertaining thread. Made me laugh and hurt my brain in more or less equal measure!

Edited May 24, 2016 by RabidJohn

[robnplunder 949]

Shikona are a string of characters with no context, so they often are accompanied by the hiragana. Without it, most Japanese would be unable to pronounce the name.

This is where I got confused when I watched past sumo videos (ama & basho) where they display shikona in Kanji. I know some Kanji but didn't have a clue how they are pronounced in Japan. Now I know that they can be pronounced in multiple ways more often than not.

Back to the topic - it is impossible to properly Romanize Japanese and vice versa.

[Asojima 2,839]

There are several romanization systems because there are people who have different pronunciation conventions for their own languages. Each system is developed to conform to the conventions used by the developer. Pick almost any word, and almost every European/American nationality/region will pronounce it differently. Pick any group of syllables, and each of these groups will tend to spell them differently.

On the reverse side, the Japanese use a set of about 90 katakana phonetic symbols to represent foreign language words. Since some foreign sounds do not exist in Japanese, many of these transliterations will make your head hurt.

Edited May 24, 2016 by Asojima

[Akinomaki 35,609]

The helpful person who goes by the YouTube name of 'NEWS File' and posts full Makuuchi coverage here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCWJh5G_PNPTFzkTPCldprvw romanises shikona differently again. For example, Itinojou, Kotosyougiku, Syoudai...

Makes no difference to me. I can't read kanji, but regardless of the romanisation system used I can still recognise who's being referred to, and that's all that really matters.

It's very helpful to have a shikona or any other Japanese word written in roma-ji like it it has to be typed on your PC's Japanese Input system (included in the system, just needs to be made an option in the settings - at least in Windows).

You might want to try to search for articles/pics/videos etc. on it - it's also amusing to see which shikona is included in the IME dictionary.

If you are used to type them, you tend to use the most efficient way for input, so why type shi, chi and tsu when you just have to type si, ti and tu.

Once you do this, the Sy for for sh might get a habit as well, but I don't think I would ever do that.

This all leaves out another problem you get with roma-ji: you'll never know if the zu might be from tsu instead of the usual su - and ji from chi and not shi - has anybody ever thought about a special marker for this?

Else we should get accustomed to du and di in names as well, which would throw us off completely from the way to pronounce it. And a jo from cho would be a nightmare.

There is no difference in pronunciation though ...

Edited May 24, 2016 by Akinomaki

[Jakusotsu 4,995]

Yes, almost all kanji have multiple readings- which one to use each time differs from kanji to kanji, from reading to reading. Sone readings are nearly obsolete, like the Oshima-beya 'kyoku'; 旭 is almost always "asahi".

Or 北 which is either Hoku or Kita.

Why should I be bothered with Asashouryuu when even some original spellings are ambiguous? That's trying to be more Catholic than the Pope in my opinion.

[krindel 671]

I will admit to having zero knowledge of japanese... But how can you possibly expect support when you start the title of your thread "In defense of Kintamayama"?