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Tube of delight!

#26 2009-01-05 12:34:54

Yungflutes
Flutemaker/Performer
From: New York City
Registered: 2005-10-08
Posts: 1061
Website

Re: Where did "hocchiku" come from?

Peter Kororo wrote:

It's Official!  Whereas I had only checked with a number of native speakers, (and after reading Josh's post enough checked with two more), none of whom could accept ほっちく hocchiku, Josh emailed me today that he found it as an uncommon alternate pronunciation in the Kojien. It shows, as Josh remarked again in his email to me, something about Watazumi. Though I guess his choice of the pronunciation "Wata tsumi" for 海童 should be a clue to that.

Well, in the spirit of Watazumi, since hocchiku has become standard, I'll use houchiku ;-).

Hi Peter, Great!

All that time spent sitting and making natural flutes with Kinya, talking about utaguchi angles, finger hole sizes and how much to open the bell etc...it never occurred to me to ask him how to spell Hocchiku!

And yes Prem, almost nobody uses the term Hocchiku. Within my small shakuhachi circle in Japan, only Kinya and his wife Laurie (she herself has made and recorded with Hocchiku) used the term.  Laurie once offered to set up a meeting with Ishi Bashi Gudo but I was too busy to make it happen. I guess that was a spell check opportunity lost.

Namaste, Perry


"A hot dog is not an animal." - Jet Yung

My Blog/Website on the art of shakuhachi...and parenting.
How to make an Urban Shakuhachi (PVC)

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#27 2009-01-05 14:32:43

Tairaku 太楽
Administrator/Performer
From: Tasmania
Registered: 2005-10-07
Posts: 3226
Website

Re: Where did "hocchiku" come from?

Yungflutes wrote:

Peter Kororo wrote:

It's Official!  Whereas I had only checked with a number of native speakers, (and after reading Josh's post enough checked with two more), none of whom could accept ほっちく hocchiku, Josh emailed me today that he found it as an uncommon alternate pronunciation in the Kojien. It shows, as Josh remarked again in his email to me, something about Watazumi. Though I guess his choice of the pronunciation "Wata tsumi" for 海童 should be a clue to that.

Well, in the spirit of Watazumi, since hocchiku has become standard, I'll use houchiku ;-).

Hi Peter, Great!

All that time spent sitting and making natural flutes with Kinya, talking about utaguchi angles, finger hole sizes and how much to open the bell etc...it never occurred to me to ask him how to spell Hocchiku!

And yes Prem, almost nobody uses the term Hocchiku. Within my small shakuhachi circle in Japan, only Kinya and his wife Laurie (she herself has made and recorded with Hocchiku) used the term.  Laurie once offered to set up a meeting with Ishi Bashi Gudo but I was too busy to make it happen. I guess that was a spell check opportunity lost.

Namaste, Perry

Yes Perry, Peter and the gang.

I'm sure we are all relieved to find that this spelling and pronunciation conundrum has been settled. I was actually losing sleep over it. I had dreams that Watazumi was outside my window and his blowing on the houchiku/hocchiku/hotchiku sounded like a kookaburra. Then when I woke up I was amazed to find that there was a kookaburra in the vicinity. I assumed it was the angry ghost of Watazumi laughing at me as the administrator of www.shakuhachiforum.com.

wink


'Progress means simplifying, not complicating' : Bruno Munari

http://www.myspace.com/tairakubrianritchie

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#28 2009-01-06 10:32:53

Yungflutes
Flutemaker/Performer
From: New York City
Registered: 2005-10-08
Posts: 1061
Website

Re: Where did "hocchiku" come from?

Tairaku wrote:

... I was actually losing sleep over it. I had dreams that Watazumi was outside my window and his blowing on the houchiku/hocchiku/hotchiku sounded like a kookaburra. Then when I woke up I was amazed to find that there was a kookaburra in the vicinity. I assumed it was the angry ghost of Watazumi laughing at me as the administrator of www.shakuhachiforum.com.

wink

Yes, I was worried that changing the spelling would change the way I approach making. wink


"A hot dog is not an animal." - Jet Yung

My Blog/Website on the art of shakuhachi...and parenting.
How to make an Urban Shakuhachi (PVC)

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#29 2009-01-06 11:01:25

david
Member
Registered: 2006-07-25
Posts: 71

Re: Where did "hocchiku" come from?

i am probably totally mistaken (as usual), but i could swear someone once told me that hocchiku was part of the scientific name of the type of bamboo watazumi used to make these flutes.


david
'Listen to the words of no man; listen only to the sounds of the wind and the waves of the sea.,~Claude Debussy

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#30 2009-01-06 12:59:08

Kiku Day
Shakuhachi player, teacher and ethnomusicologist
From: London, UK & Nørre Snede, DK
Registered: 2005-10-07
Posts: 922
Website

Re: Where did "hocchiku" come from?

Hi everyone.

I came into the discussion late, so I will just comment on the spelling.
It is right as it has been mentioned several times that 法 is pronounced hou or hō on it own or like in 法律 hōritsu. In case with 竹 chiku behind it, the vowel becomes short. Usually in the hepburn system a short vowel is represented with a double consonant. But my PhD supervisor, senior lecturer in ethnomusicology David W Hughes corrected in my writing, the somewhat 'correct' spelling in the case of a short vowel followed by the sound chi or cha is tc and not cc. In the kunrei system (which is more for Japanese people to use), I think they use cc. I am not 100% sure here.
Anyway, David gave me some links that explained the exception to the rule of the double consonant becoming tc. I can't find the good ones he sent me, but here is a couple of links:

Links:
http://www.kanji.org/kanji/japanese/kan … naroma.htm      Scroll down till Double consonants
http://jagasilk.com/maccha-or-matcha

Enjoy!

PS. I forgot to write that David Hughes' first two degrees are in linguistics with focus on Japanese from Yale! So, he is - in a very positive way - very pedantic about language. smile


I am a hole in a flute
that the Christ's breath moves through
listen to this music
Hafiz

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#31 2009-01-06 14:34:39

Priapus Le Zen M☮nk
Historical Zen Mod
From: St-Jerome, Quebec, Canada
Registered: 2006-04-25
Posts: 612
Website

Re: Where did "hocchiku" come from?

In the same line some Japanese will say the following.... I am so happy to see many foreign person play the Syakuhachi wink


Sebastien 義真 Cyr
春風館道場 Shunpukan Dojo
St-Jerome, Quebec, Canada
http://www.myspace.com/shunpukandojo

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#32 2009-01-06 19:47:33

Justin
Shihan/Maker
From: Japan
Registered: 2006-08-12
Posts: 540
Website

Re: Where did "hocchiku" come from?

Kiku Day wrote:

Hi Kiku
I had no intention to joint this thread, but now I would love to ask you - what do you do exactly on your keyboard to get that line above the "o"? I've been trying to figure it out for ages!

Many thanks
Justin
http://senryushakuhachi.com/

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#33 2009-01-06 21:58:30

Jeff Cairns
teacher, performer,promoter of shakuhachi
From: Kumamoto, Japan
Registered: 2005-10-10
Posts: 517
Website

Re: Where did "hocchiku" come from?

david wrote:

i am probably totally mistaken (as usual), but i could swear someone once told me that hocchiku was part of the scientific name of the type of bamboo watazumi used to make these flutes.

Hi David,  I don't know whether it's a scientific name attributed to a specific type of bamboo that Watazumi used, but there is a type of bamboo that grows in the same region as madake here in Kyushu known as houchiku which from the outside looks like madake and can easily be mistaken, but is thinner walled and not used for kinko or tozan style shakuhachi.


shakuhachi flute
I step out into the wind
with holes in my bones

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#34 2009-01-07 08:39:08

Peter Kororo
Member
Registered: 2008-06-21
Posts: 82
Website

Re: Where did "hocchiku" come from?

Kiku Day wrote:

Hi everyone.

I came into the discussion late, so I will just comment on the spelling.
It is right as it has been mentioned several times that 法 is pronounced hou or hō on it own or like in 法律 hōritsu. In case with 竹 chiku behind it, the vowel becomes short.

PS. I forgot to write that David Hughes' first two degrees are in linguistics with focus on Japanese from Yale! So, he is - in a very positive way - very pedantic about language. smile

Kiku,

To the best of my knowledge, augmented by quite a bit of looking through Japanese references, short vowels, NOT long vowels, become shorter when followed by certain sounds. So, ho + take = hotake. Ba + kari = bakari. But bo + chi = bocchi or botchi if you prefer. So, ho + chiku = hocchiku/hotchiku.

Checking through my best reference, I found that 法 does indeed have the alternate pronunciation with the truncated vowel, written ホッ in pronunciation guides. THAT is why hocchiku, as Josh pointed out, is a possible alternative. Other words, or kanji, pronounced hou, like 方, don't have this alternative pronunciation and thus are ALWAYS pronounced hou, regardless of which sound follows.

That said, while 法 can be pronounced with the truncated vowel, every example in the dictionaries I consulted gave only one pronunciation for every combination listed, including those with ch/j as the next sound, namely hou. So hocchiku is indeed very alternative, the probable whys and wherefores for that pointed out by earlier posters. But again, the rule is that long o's--ou--do not become shorter than short vowels! Aside from rare exceptions  they retain their length; it's short vowels that become shorter.

Because I don't speak Japanese fluently, I oringally checked with a number of native speakers before tossing my comment into the Roman forum (after misinterpreting the kanji on Brian's flute I learned to check with native speakers first!) And I phrased my comment as a question because I wasn't 100% sure, which is a good way not to be 100% wrong. This isn't about who's right or who knows more; like accuracy in playing traditional shakuhachi techniques (and if your sensei doesn't like the particular way you play tsu-re he WILL point it out to you), accuracy in the language has value, and it's important that those with some knowledge of either carefully transmit that to those who haven't had the opportunity to live and study in Japan. This, at least, is the extent of what I see as my work with shakuhachi.

I also asked native speakers. They may not know all of the obscure things, like rare alternative pronunciations, but they also are incapable of making fundamental mistakes, like saying that long vowels get truncated to be shorter than short vowels. So I believe your professor is either mistaken or you misunderstood him.

As far as the ou vs. oo, or cch vs. tch, distinction on the webpages you referred to, that has nothing to do with the vowel shortening or lack thereof.

I'm niggling about it despite 40-plus years of evidence that it runs most people wrong because of my deep respect for Chinese and Japanese culture and because in 25 years of studying both I've seen a lot of misinformation come into Western fora. And Japanese is a rare language in using vowel length this way, like ancient Greek did. It's a very old-style language, almost completely synthetic vs. analytic like almost all modern languages (Finnish being a major exception). Kind of like the culture itself. Along with pitch, both of them maddening difficulties for non-native speakers, it's a bit like the melody and ma of music, another reason IMO to pay close attention to it.

At the risk of driving even more readers out of their seats and through the exits, let's look at why Taoism is pronounced "Daoism." The Chinese don't have a d/b/g sound, those are like in French, they're not voiced, like English b/d/g; however, they're much closer to the English equivalents than to p/t/k. So an Englishman decided to write the Chinese d with a t, and the Chinese t with a t'. We all know how well that worked, all these words we Westerners love, like Taoism and  T'ai-chi, get mispronounced.

Once the Chinese decided to do their own romanization, in part as a way of partially recouping their language and culture after 200+ years of colonization and general mistreatment by foreigners (or maybe they just got tired of calling Beijing "Peking"), they created a much more clever and comprehensible, if not more accurate (to scholars), representation of their spoken language. To me, I think it's part and parcel of Westerners looking up and down at Japanese and Chinese simultaneously, and too rarely looking at them eye to eye.

My original question was based on considering that history. So technically I was mistaken, but perhaps there was still some value in the question.

I've also heard a lot of "farang" in Thailand say Phuket like it was spelled Foo-ket. The same falang who seem to talk to every Thai (Thigh?) in English. No wonder the most common saying I've heard from Thais about foreigners is "falang baa"--and not just in reference to me! Baa is "crazy" and it's not a positive word at all like it can be in English.

But I digress. I'll leave the validity of this word for a later thread!

FWIW on a Mac option-i will call up the circumflex ˆ which is an accepted alternative for long vowels. I couldn't find the straight line either!


“Many people come, looking, looking. Some people come, see.”
                        —Nepalese saying

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#35 2009-01-07 10:30:18

Zakarius
Member
From: Taichung, TAIWAN
Registered: 2006-04-12
Posts: 361

Re: Where did "hocchiku" come from?

Peter Kororo wrote:

At the risk of driving even more readers out of their seats and through the exits, let's look at why Taoism is pronounced "Daoism." The Chinese don't have a d/b/g sound, those are like in French, they're not voiced, like English b/d/g; however, they're much closer to the English equivalents than to p/t/k. So an Englishman decided to write the Chinese d with a t, and the Chinese t with a t'. We all know how well that worked, all these words we Westerners love, like Taoism and  T'ai-chi, get mispronounced.

Actually, the spellings & pronunciations of Taoism and T'ai-chi fall perfectly into place if one is familiar with the incredibly outdated Wade-Giles romanization system. In their antiquated mode, a t sounds like the English "d" and a t' carries the t sound. As linguists, Wade and Giles thought this system of spelling was better suited to distinguish the slight difference in sound between Chinese and British English. Of course, this was in the late 1800s and early 1900s and as you may know, the pronunciation of Chinese was anything but standard around the country at that time. As for the ch of T'ai-chi, it sounds more like the English j sound -- so it should be pronounced: tai-ji.

Peter Kororo wrote:

Once the Chinese decided to do their own romanization, in part as a way of partially recouping their language and culture after 200+ years of colonization and general mistreatment by foreigners (or maybe they just got tired of calling Beijing "Peking"), they created a much more clever and comprehensible, if not more accurate (to scholars), representation of their spoken language. To me, I think it's part and partial of Westerners looking up and down at Japanese and Chinese simultaneously, and too rarely looking at them eye to eye.

I'm not sure the pinyin system is all that "clever and comprehensible" -- try asking a foreigner who hasn't studied pinyin to pronounce words like: xing, quan or zhuei!

Zak


塵も積もれば山となる -- "Chiri mo tsumoreba yama to naru." -- Piled-up specks of dust become a mountain.

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#36 2009-01-07 12:28:55

Peter Kororo
Member
Registered: 2008-06-21
Posts: 82
Website

Re: Where did "hocchiku" come from?

Zakarius wrote:

Peter Kororo wrote:

At the risk of driving even more readers out of their seats and through the exits, let's look at why Taoism is pronounced "Daoism." The Chinese don't have a d/b/g sound, those are like in French, they're not voiced, like English b/d/g; however, they're much closer to the English equivalents than to p/t/k. So an Englishman decided to write the Chinese d with a t, and the Chinese t with a t'. We all know how well that worked, all these words we Westerners love, like Taoism and  T'ai-chi, get mispronounced.

Actually, the spellings & pronunciations of Taoism and T'ai-chi fall perfectly into place if one is familiar with the incredibly outdated Wade-Giles romanization system.

Exactly my point: IF you're familiar with this very scholarly system. Outdated is outdated, but the bigger point is that it's not as intuitive, even one could say reasonable, as pinyin. I anticipated the comment below about q and x, while you have to learn them (as well as zh and r and ch), you do with their W-G equivalents as well, and in pinyin each sound has a distinct letter or pair of letters, no need for hs/sh, ch'/ch, t'/t, and so on. And aside from q, x, and zh the pinyin equivalents are more in line with international spellings: r is closer than j to the retroflex sound in Chinese it represents, and ch is ch only.

This is why Peking is a good example; the king is "ging" in pinyin (like Legge), the rest the same as W-G, so it's a "perfect" romanization of how Beijing was pronounced.....500 years ago. Scholars have always liked that kind of thing, with the attendant exclusivity.

Zakarius wrote:

In their antiquated mode, a t sounds like the English "d" and a t' carries the t sound. As linguists, Wade and Giles thought this system of spelling was better suited to distinguish the slight difference in sound between Chinese and British English. Of course, this was in the late 1800s and early 1900s and as you may know, the pronunciation of Chinese was anything but standard around the country at that time.

Many dialiects and pronunciations within Mandarin, but still, the sound (in pinyin) zh, ch, r, q, x, (any I'm forgetting?) were no doubt perfectly distinct at least amongst the educated. W/G weren't hanging out with peasants, you can trust.

Zakarius wrote:

As for the ch of T'ai-chi, it sounds more like the English j sound -- so it should be pronounced: tai-ji.

Again, I think you've completely missed my point! That's exactly what I meant, taiji is just a better way to write it than T'ai-chi. Yes it's not an English j, it's higher, like x, like q....but ji is closer than chi--unless....you....know....the....(antiquated)......system....sigh.

Zakarius wrote:

Peter Kororo wrote:

Once the Chinese decided to do their own romanization, in part as a way of partially recouping their language and culture after 200+ years of colonization and general mistreatment by foreigners (or maybe they just got tired of calling Beijing "Peking"), they created a much more clever and comprehensible, if not more accurate (to scholars), representation of their spoken language. To me, I think it's part and partial of Westerners looking up and down at Japanese and Chinese simultaneously, and too rarely looking at them eye to eye.

I'm not sure the pinyin system is all that "clever and comprehensible" -- try asking a foreigner who hasn't studied pinyin to pronounce words like: xing, quan or zhuei!

True, I should have added "mostly," those are the exceptions, and while hsing might be easier to guess, but ch'üan or especially chuei might be no closer. And I wrote more clever because in pinyin the classes of consonants are demarcated by the letters used: q/x/z and ch/sh/zh, to use in the very examples you chose from W-G. To take the second one, the the difference between ch and q in pinyin is indicated not by the consonants themselves but by the following vowel: ü vs. u. Not so clever. wink


“Many people come, looking, looking. Some people come, see.”
                        —Nepalese saying

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#37 2009-01-07 12:51:17

Zakarius
Member
From: Taichung, TAIWAN
Registered: 2006-04-12
Posts: 361

Re: Where did "hocchiku" come from?

Peter Kororo wrote:

Tell me that--okay, those couple sounds aside--reading something in pinyin is harder to learn than W-G or god forbid Legge and I'll eat a thin volume written entirely in bopomofo. smile

I think this all ultimately boils down to learning a system of pronunciation suited to the language itself. In many cases, using the 'Roman alphabet' doesn't cut it for grasping the pronunciation of various languages... and when it seems to for American English speakers, it may not for British English speakers, let alone for the French, Spanish, Germans, Poles, etc. Until people start using the International Phonetic Alphabet with its 100+ 'letters' and 50+ diacritics, it seems safe to say that close is good enough.

Zak


塵も積もれば山となる -- "Chiri mo tsumoreba yama to naru." -- Piled-up specks of dust become a mountain.

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#38 2009-01-07 19:35:26

chikuzen
Dai Shihan/Dokyoku
From: Cleveland Heights,OH 44118
Registered: 2005-10-24
Posts: 402
Website

Re: Where did "hocchiku" come from?

Good stuff guys. Peter, what reference did you find the Hou to have the small tsu written in? My dictionary doesn't have it and my son stole all my other ones for college.


Michael Chikuzen Gould

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#39 2009-01-08 02:00:52

Lance
Member
Registered: 2008-01-18
Posts: 74

Re: Where did "hocchiku" come from?

Somehow, after all that, I'm glad I only speak English...  whew.


“The firefly is a good lesson in light, and darkness”

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#40 2009-01-08 02:48:16

Josh
PhD
From: Grand Island, NY/Nara, Japan
Registered: 2005-11-14
Posts: 305
Website

Re: Where did "hocchiku" come from?

Hi Michael,
  I found a few variants also using the small tsu in the Kenkyusha's New College dictionary (5th edition), in the kanji section 広辞苑 (the Kojien).
A few examples are:
法体 (ほったい  Hottai)
法華 (ほっけ   Hokke)
Or something actually related to law:
法家 (ほっけ、ほうけ Hokke)

I also asked a Shingon priest and he said he has heard of more words and we should check a Zen vocabulary dictionary. I didn't, but I just get the feeling that the usage is so specific and related to religion that the average person would obviously just deny the different linguistic possibilities because of unfamiliarity. 
It's just my thought but it may have been deriven from either the older pronunciation of it or from different regions as well. Like Peter mentioned, Ba+kari (Bakari) gets shortened and you don't add the small tsu. But in pronunciation in the Kansai area Bakkari is often used.
I think I may have just ran over the horse, backed up, and ran over it again just for kicks!

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#41 2009-01-08 03:24:39

Kiku Day
Shakuhachi player, teacher and ethnomusicologist
From: London, UK & Nørre Snede, DK
Registered: 2005-10-07
Posts: 922
Website

Re: Where did "hocchiku" come from?

Peter Kororo wrote:

Kiku,

To the best of my knowledge, augmented by quite a bit of looking through Japanese references, short vowels, NOT long vowels, become shorter when followed by certain sounds. So, ho + take = hotake. Ba + kari = bakari. But bo + chi = bocchi or botchi if you prefer. So, ho + chiku = hocchiku/hotchiku.
Checking through my best reference, I found that 法 does indeed have the alternate pronunciation with the truncated vowel, written ホッ in pronunciation guides. THAT is why hocchiku, as Josh pointed out, is a possible alternative. Other words, or kanji, pronounced hou, like 方, don't have this alternative pronunciation and thus are ALWAYS pronounced hou, regardless of which sound follows.

Peter, I agree with all this. My input was regarding the rules of spelling as I had only a few month previously been corrected by a linguist/ethnomusicologist on exactly that spelling. The rules of spelling varies too though and I have used hocchiku more than hotchiku in writing becuase I personally think it 'looks' better. But in my thesis it has to be written hotchiku.
As I wrote, I came late to the thread and I just wanted to tell the David Hughes story which was an example of how to spell the word. Nothing more than that. smile

Justin wrote:

Hi Kiku
I had no intention to joint this thread, but now I would love to ask you - what do you do exactly on your keyboard to get that line above the "o"? I've been trying to figure it out for ages!

Justin, I use a Mac, so I have no idea how to write macrons (that's what the straight lines over letters are called) on a PC. On a Mac it can be written like this: Click on the little flag top right on your screen, that shows what language your keyboard is writing in. Choose the option 'Show Character Palette'. In this you can find the macrons. You can put it into your favourites and save you looking for it each time. If your Mac doesn't have this option, I think it might have something to do with the unicode option you have to activate.... but I can't remember any longer. Any resonably new Macs should have this ready to use... I think. Otherwise I have been told that you can search for macrons on the net and download the font. Good luck!

Lance wrote:

Somehow, after all that, I'm glad I only speak English...  whew.

You'd be surprised if you knew just how hard the rules in English are when you are not native.... wink


I am a hole in a flute
that the Christ's breath moves through
listen to this music
Hafiz

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#42 2009-01-08 07:43:29

Priapus Le Zen M☮nk
Historical Zen Mod
From: St-Jerome, Quebec, Canada
Registered: 2006-04-25
Posts: 612
Website

Re: Where did "hocchiku" come from?

As far as I am concerned and involved with Buddhism the small TSU is normally used in Sutra books for recitation in order to give you the pointer to either shorten/link the sounds of a kanji or just add TSU to your recitation. Those TSU/Hiragana are usually part of the furigana caption to somehow Japanize a Chinese based text some version of the texts will have the furigana to help and when they do not it just implies you know how to read without the training wheels.There is no definite rule also to know if you need to alter the sound or add TSU you just need to know the words and the text also. I suspect other fields might be using this system as well since I saw so many old text that had the same type of furigana.


Sebastien 義真 Cyr
春風館道場 Shunpukan Dojo
St-Jerome, Quebec, Canada
http://www.myspace.com/shunpukandojo

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#43 2009-01-08 10:30:26

Peter Kororo
Member
Registered: 2008-06-21
Posts: 82
Website

Re: Where did "hocchiku" come from?

Zakarius wrote:

Peter Kororo wrote:

Tell me that--okay, those couple sounds aside--reading something in pinyin is harder to learn than W-G or god forbid Legge and I'll eat a thin volume written entirely in bopomofo. smile

I think this all ultimately boils down to learning a system of pronunciation suited to the language itself. In many cases, using the 'Roman alphabet' doesn't cut it for grasping the pronunciation of various languages... and when it seems to for American English speakers, it may not for British English speakers, let alone for the French, Spanish, Germans, Poles, etc. Until people start using the International Phonetic Alphabet with its 100+ 'letters' and 50+ diacritics, it seems safe to say that close is good enough.

Zak

I edited that sentence out while you were responding to it....partially because of the stupid joke but also because I didn't want to speak of harder/easier. My point was that the pinyin is more accurate. Since you live in Taiwan, think of bopomofo; the classes of consonants are clearly demarcated. In W-G, and others created by Westerners, two distinct classes of sounds, at least as relates to q vs. ch, and ch vs. zh, are represented by the same consonants.

So, the Chinese, both in Taiwan and the mainland, created systems that recognize these categories, because it's how they see their language, whereas Westerners either missed this or didn't consider it worth preserving in their romanization.

And this brings me back to my original question: the  long vs. short vowels in Japanese are very, very distinctly different for them, it's analogous to how important tone is in Chinese, and so originally I was wondering whether a Westerner, i.e. a non-native speaker, had mis-heard  hou as ho.

Josh showed this word can be shortened in a number of combinations; I wonder about other long-vowel words like it. My less-comprehensive dictionary didn't cough up any examples for me.


“Many people come, looking, looking. Some people come, see.”
                        —Nepalese saying

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#44 2009-01-08 10:51:39

Peter Kororo
Member
Registered: 2008-06-21
Posts: 82
Website

Re: Where did "hocchiku" come from?

Josh wrote:

Hi Michael,
  I found a few variants also using the small tsu in the Kenkyusha's New College dictionary (5th edition), in the kanji section 広辞苑 (the Kojien).
A few examples are:
法体 (ほったい  Hottai)
法華 (ほっけ   Hokke)
Or something actually related to law:
法家 (ほっけ、ほうけ Hokke)

I also asked a Shingon priest and he said he has heard of more words and we should check a Zen vocabulary dictionary. I didn't, but I just get the feeling that the usage is so specific and related to religion that the average person would obviously just deny the different linguistic possibilities because of unfamiliarity. 
It's just my thought but it may have been deriven from either the older pronunciation of it or from different regions as well. Like Peter mentioned, Ba+kari (Bakari) gets shortened and you don't add the small tsu. But in pronunciation in the Kansai area Bakkari is often used.
I think I may have just ran over the horse, backed up, and ran over it again just for kicks!

Yes, once you pointed out this possible pronunciation, and since I've seen it's somewhat unique to this word, considering that truncating of the vowel with a small-tsu, so to speak, can be a kind of emphasis, Watazumi possibly went with that pronunciation to emphasize that its a DHARMA-bamboo: I guess to hit you over the head with it without having to actually hit you over the head with it!

Funny you mention bakari vs. bakkari. I was just in Kyoto, and discussing shakuhachi with another player, from Kansai; he used the term  "ni-bakari" and I was sure he pronounced it "ni-bakkari," and that all these years I'd been saying bakari incorrectly. So I asked him, "did you say ni-bakkari?" Emphasizing the double consonant and he said "no, I said ni-bakari." Now I'm not so sure he did!


“Many people come, looking, looking. Some people come, see.”
                        —Nepalese saying

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#45 2009-01-08 12:21:03

edosan
Edomologist
From: Salt Lake City
Registered: 2005-10-09
Posts: 2185

Re: Where did "hocchiku" come from?




My, but this is riveting.




[those are rivets...]


Zen is not easy.
It takes effort to attain nothingness.
And then what do you have?
Bupkes.

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#46 2009-01-08 13:02:31

jaybeemusic
Member
From: Moncton, New Brunswick, Canada
Registered: 2006-06-22
Posts: 145

Re: Where did "hocchiku" come from?

Yes.....but what about an African swallow?


It's better to keep your mouth closed and let people "think" that you're stupid, than to open it, and remove all doubt.

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#47 2009-01-08 17:34:33

Tairaku 太楽
Administrator/Performer
From: Tasmania
Registered: 2005-10-07
Posts: 3226
Website

Re: Where did "hocchiku" come from?

edosan wrote:




My, but this is riveting.




[those are rivets...]

Yes I feel another bout of "HBIUHG*IBUT&TUYBIUB*YUGYTFFV*^&^F VF TFVUHGVHGHGHVFIYUT IGY" coming on! wink


'Progress means simplifying, not complicating' : Bruno Munari

http://www.myspace.com/tairakubrianritchie

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#48 2009-01-08 17:37:04

Priapus Le Zen M☮nk
Historical Zen Mod
From: St-Jerome, Quebec, Canada
Registered: 2006-04-25
Posts: 612
Website

Re: Where did "hocchiku" come from?

edosan wrote:




My, but this is riveting.




[those are rivets...]

Ok what is the relation with the whole conversation? Am I missing something? Maybe most of the stuff is what I call trying to copulate with a fly but in the end it has been helpfull to inform and give precision to some individual for the ones that think it was useless I feel they should refrain from posting uselss comments.


Sebastien 義真 Cyr
春風館道場 Shunpukan Dojo
St-Jerome, Quebec, Canada
http://www.myspace.com/shunpukandojo

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#49 2009-01-08 19:11:22

edosan
Edomologist
From: Salt Lake City
Registered: 2005-10-09
Posts: 2185

Re: Where did "hocchiku" come from?

Gishin wrote:

edosan wrote:




My, but this is riveting.




[those are rivets...]

Ok what is the relation with the whole conversation? Am I missing something? Maybe most of the stuff is what I call trying to copulate with a fly but in the end it has been helpfull to inform and give precision to some individual for the ones that think it was useless I feel they should refrain from posting uselss comments.

Gishin, my lad, what's 'useful' to you ain't necessarily useful to anyone else.

And anyway: who made you the decider of what's useful? Hmmmm?

Last edited by edosan (2009-01-08 19:13:51)


Zen is not easy.
It takes effort to attain nothingness.
And then what do you have?
Bupkes.

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#50 2009-01-08 20:00:49

Priapus Le Zen M☮nk
Historical Zen Mod
From: St-Jerome, Quebec, Canada
Registered: 2006-04-25
Posts: 612
Website

Re: Where did "hocchiku" come from?

edosan wrote:

Gishin wrote:

edosan wrote:




My, but this is riveting.




[those are rivets...]

Ok what is the relation with the whole conversation? Am I missing something? Maybe most of the stuff is what I call trying to copulate with a fly but in the end it has been helpfull to inform and give precision to some individual for the ones that think it was useless I feel they should refrain from posting uselss comments.

Gishin, my lad, what's 'useful' to you ain't necessarily useful to anyone else.

And anyway: who made you the decider of what's useful? Hmmmm?

Gotta love a smart ass and cherish it for what it is worth when I see one. What does get to me is when you have a discussion going into details about a given subject and all goes well and then you have a TROLL that comes in and says such stuff as yabadabdoo, my ass is itchy, rose are red violets are blue I am a moron and so are you etc...

If the discusssion is too detailed or meaningless for you then dont join. It is a simple as that. Let the fools or people that think the stuff is meaningfull discuss and do mental masturbation in peace with what they chose to discuss about. You would probably look like a total fool to interrupt with such stuff in a real conversation involving people that try to study and learn Japanese language. If the thread was about goofing off or connected with it it will be all good but in reality you are the one butting in with crap to deteriorate and lead the thread in a meaningless direction.


Sebastien 義真 Cyr
春風館道場 Shunpukan Dojo
St-Jerome, Quebec, Canada
http://www.myspace.com/shunpukandojo

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