Talk:Enpi (kata)

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[edit] Empi vs enpi

"Empi [...] should not be confused with enpi"

That's false. Empi and enpi are just different romanizations of the same Japanese word. (See also Talk:Enpi)Lelkesa 15:46, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

That is incorrect. They are homophones, but are spelt with different characters. Are you suggesting that Japanese does not distinguish between birds and elbows? RogueNinja 08:28, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps the articles should be merged.Peter Rehse 02:50, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

They are spelt different with characters in English. In Japanese, it's the same word. Do you know anything about the Japanese writing system? Lelkesa 09:12, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

As I said before: Are you arguing that Japanese does not have different words for "bird" and "elbow"?

1. Maybe you've heard of homonymy.
2. As you don't seem to know anything about the Japanese language, let me explain some aspects of the writing system. Three scripts are used (kanji, hiragana, katakana), two of them (hiragana, katakana) are syllabaries, so they represent the pronounciation of the words, while kanji is a logogram (it represents the meaning). So two diferrent words can have the same pronouncation (and so the same romanized form) but a different kanji character.
3. Are you arguing that English does not have different words for fluke (the fish) and fluke (part of the tail of a whale)?
4. Please sign your comments.
Lelkesa 19:42, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

That is correct. English does not have separate worlds for fluke(the fish) and fluke (part of the tail of a whale)? The same word has multiple meanings. Regardless, according to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Naming_conventions : "Generally, article naming should give priority to what the majority of English speakers would most easily recognize, with a reasonable minimum of ambiguity, while at the same time making linking to those articles easy and second nature."

Given that 1) Numerous Japanese authored and translated books (such as the Best Karate Series, by Nakayama, the Karate do Kyohan, by Funakoshi himself) make the distinction between empi and enpi and 2) Almost all karate students (indeed, every one that I have met) pronounce them differently. the articles should remain separate.

On the japanese wikipedia, it may make sense to combine the two. RogueNinja 05:26, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

Well, I suppose the best solution is to ask a Wikipedian who is a native speaker of Japanese and maybe who is also practicing karate or another Japanase martial art. Lelkesa 10:19, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

The techniques may be different, and they may be established in English with different spellings, and they may be spelled with different kanji (and thus may not be homonyms) - I know nothing about martial arts, so I can't say. However, they are homophones as noted above... to say that the pronunciations are different in Japanese is wrong. Therefore, you need to decide if these (spurious) separate spellings are adequately established in English. If they aren't, the terms must be disambiguated. If they are, they can be left alone. Dekimasu 11:13, 2 January 2007 (UTC)
Dekimasu is correct. If people are pronouncing these two words differently, they are wrong. They are written with different kanji, but they are homophones. Actually, the word that refers to the kata doesn't even appear in the dictionary at all (it is in neither the Kojien or the Daijirin, two of the most well known Japanese dictionaries). Rather, it appears to be a very esoteric word that is only used in the martial arts. Please, don't anyone go around thinking that the typical Japanese would ever use this word to refer to some sort of bird, or at all for that matter. The second sense of the word, athough it does appear in the dictionary, is quite uncommon. And it doesn't simply mean "elbow", which is "hiji" in Japanese. It is formed from the kanji for "monkey" and for "elbow" and refers specifically to someone who, like a monkey, has very long forearms. In any event, both words can be spelled "enpi" or "empi", depending on how you choose to romanize the word, and the pronunciation is the same for both. Note also that the "n" of "enpi" is not really a hard "n" at all. And when it appears before a "p", it actually becomes an "m" sound, which is why "empi" is probably the better way to romanize it. If people are pronouncing it enn-pee, with a hard "n", they are wrong. It should be pronounced em-pee.-Jefu 12:25, 2 January 2007 (UTC)
"Empi" is not the better way to romanize the word. It is only one of the possible romanizations. In English, the Hepburn romanization is the most commonly used. In traditional Hepburn, the syllabic n is written as m before b, m or p. In revised Hepburn, syllabic n is always written as n. So empi is a deprecated form, enpi should be used. So I think that this article should be merged into Enpi. Lelkesa 12:41, 2 January 2007 (UTC)
"Enpi" is the mandated romanization (if it is agreed to be simply Japanese, and not English) per the MOS. However, if these are different techniques, they should not be merged. They should be disambiguated with parentheticals. Dekimasu 13:16, 2 January 2007 (UTC)
+1 Dekimasu. Speaking as a competent Japanese speaker (but not a martial arts practitioner), I can say that the differences in romanization between the two techniques is entirely an artifact of English. The MOS calls for both to be romanized "enpi." I would say, however, that if "empi" is well-established among English-speaking martial arts practitioners for one technique, it's worth mentioning that. Still, Wikipedia should help non-experts get up to speed; for that to work, we need predictability, and we cannot expect pre-knowledge of all the intricacies of how these words got romanized. adamrice 23:34, 2 January 2007 (UTC)
Agreed. Which is why I created a disambiguation page and mention both spellings in both articles. If the kata is in fact more commonly romanized as empi, I leave it to someone else to note that in the article. I couldn't tell from a few Google searches (I found both spellings). I have martial arts experience in both karate (2nd degree green belt) and iaidō (black belt), but not in Shotokan, and I've never come across the term empi myself.-Jefu 00:02, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

Best solution - thanks.Peter Rehse 00:23, 4 January 2007 (UTC)