Spelling?
Okay, what is the proper way to spell the art we do with the staff? Is it "j-o-d-o" or "j-
Y-o-d-o"? Our own homepage has it spelled both ways, which I believe would be a little confusing to outsiders. All of our sites are mainly "Jyodo", but I believe our sign out front has "JODO". I'm going with JODO, since it seems to be more widely accepted. Just curious where or when the "Y" came into play.
From what I understand (and Jack may be able to answer this better), there are a couple of different methods of transliterating Japanese sounds into English letters (namely Hepburn romanization and Kunrei-shiki romanization), so you'll see words spelled two or more ways. I believe "jodo" is the most prevalent and probably the most preferred (and probably correct), but I have over time seen it with a "y" in a couple of places (including with Mr. Geis) and so both ways have slipped out. You're right, I should probably change all the references to "jodo" (if anything, just to be consistent).
Maybe it's just the "teacher" side of me, but I think it would be good to be consistent with our terminology and its spelling.
Sure, sure, I agree. I'm on it like white on rice...
Yeah, it's two different romanizations being applied. Fugakukai chose to use JYODO to distinguish it from JUDO.
Literally, the JA/JU/JO sounds in kana are spelled as JI with a small YA/YU/YO next to it. So you could just as easily have JUDO spelled JYUDO or JIYUDO, or JIUDO as I have seen it in old British forms. However JIYU usually indicates two kanji, as in JI-YU-SHIN-KAI.
Just about everyone else spells it JODO. Most Japanese have never heard about it, and think you mean Judo even after you explain it's a stick, TSUE, and draw the kanji. They just inhale through pursed lips and shake their heads.
JI-ya-tsu-KU (Jack)
If you see it spelled in hiragana which is phonetic, you will see: Ji and a small yo underneath it because there isn't a character for Jo in hiragana. In some Romanized versions you therefore get Jyo leaving off the i completely. Other's you will just see Jo-do.
Hiragana - じょうどう which I would write as Jyodo or Jyoudo. All the online dictionarys pull up the kanji by searching with the Engligh/romanji JYO.
Looking in the dictionary I find the kanji in jyodo to be 杖. The word for a cane or staff using this kanji is actually つえ TSUE. Interesting.
I find it is a rare kanji, ranked 2387 of 2500 most used kanji in newspapers, and I bet many Japanese folks would have to look it up.
I like Jeff Duncan's pronunciation best. He calls it Jai-yodo. He is an artist with interpreting the Japanese language to central Texas standards. I personally endorse Jeff's pronunciation as the official Texas Ryu version.
Simliar experience I could never find a Japanese person who knew what Jujitsu was. They would give a puzzled look and repeat back Judo? Specialized language here. Also Japanese people ALWAYS spell it Judou which is really the closest direct translation from the kana. The extra U is goofy in English though.
I love the old-timers who call everything with a weapon "kendou".