What's in a Name: Jiu - What - tsu?

"The world only goes 'round by misunderstanding." - Charles Baudelaire

Of all the martial arts in the world, there seems to be none out there that have a bigger linguistic identity crisis than jūjutsu.  Think about it, I've seen it spelled jūjutsu, jiujutsu, jujutsu, jiujitsu, jujitsu, jyujyutsu, jyuujyutsu, jyujitsu and several other combinations, and that's not even counting differences in the use of hyphens (jiujitsu vs. jiu-jitsu).  So what's going on here?  Which one is the right spelling?

Well, without getting up on my old linguist's soap box, first off there isn't necessarily any such thing as a right spelling from a linguistic standpoint.  I know this gets on a lot of people's nerves, just like how we're all going to have to accept that social pressure will eventually make 'brung' a word and how a lot of people would argue that 'aint' has already made that jump.  Instead of assuming the role of spelling dictator and telling you how you need to spell jujutsu, I'm going to teach you a little about Japanese and let you make your own decision.

The Perils of Romanization

Like so many issues when it comes to the names of martial arts, this one stems largely from English's habit of assimilating words that we just don't have a proper calque or translation for.  We take words like kindergarten, tsunami and kung fu and we make them a part of the English language.  The problem is, the language we borrow these words from don't always match up perfectly with English.  Sometimes the languages have sounds that English has some trouble with, like the initial 'ts' sound in tsunami.  Sometimes there is no easily accessible phonetic writing equivalent to get spelling clues from, as is the case with Chinese words like kung fu.  Other times, due to differences in reading and orthography, English warps the pronunciation of borrowed words over time.  Listen to a native German speaker say kindergarten, or a native Japanese speaker say karate, and you'll see what I mean.

When it comes to Japanese, there are a number of different romanization systems people have used to try and accurately capture the sounds of Japanese and transcribe them into English accurately.  The main one, in the U.S. anyway, is the Hepburn system.  In addition to the Hepburn system, there is the Kunreishiki system which is has been standardized by the Japanese government and is taught to schoolchildren in Japan, and the Nihonshiki system, which is the least often used.  On top of these three different methods, the Hepburn system has a variety of modified or revised forms, each with slightly different spelling conventions.

I'm not going to get too bogged down in the differences between the types of romanization, as it's not really the focus of the article, however if you're interested in them I would suggest doing some follow up research on the differences.

Japanese Orthography

The Japanese orthography has at least three different orthographies (maybe sub-orthographies would be a better way to describe it) within its whole orthography.  If this is confusing, for now just think of it as the difference between print and cursive writing in English.  The first, kanji, uses the logographic symbols Chinese uses.  The word 'kanji' literally meaning 'Han characters,' i.e. the characters of the Han Chinese (Hànzì in Mandarin).  The second is hiragana, the first of the Japanese syllabaries.  Unlike kanji, which is logographic, hiragana is syllabic.  That means that each character represents a syllable, rather than a particular meaning.  'Hiragana' translates out to something along the lines of 'common syllabary' or maybe 'common script.'  This is a lot closer to the English alphabet.  The next orthography is katakana, which really doesn't have any good translation into English.  Katakana is also syllabic, and has a one to one pairing with hiragana.  The katakana characters are used in Japanese for loan words from other languages.  For instances terebi (television/TV) would be written in katakana (テレビ) instead of in hiragana (てれび).  Unlike Chinese, Japanese is almost never written entirely in kanji.  Due to the high number of differing word conjugations, (something not present in Chinese) standard Japanese uses kanji for the root of the word and hiragana for any parts which change.  Take the word 'to go' for example:

Will Go                ikimasu           行きます

Went                   ikimashita       行きました

Want to Go          ikitai               行きたい

etc.

Now, in the Japanese orthography jujutsu is written as 柔術 in kanji, and as じゅうじゅつ in hiragana.  Phonetically represented in IPA, this is pronounced /dʒjuːuːdʒjuːtsuː/.  For anyone not familiar with IPA (I'm betting most people) it's pronounced roughly as 'jew-oo-jew-tsu' (like the jew in jewel).  We can break it down based on the hiragana as well.

じ = 'ji' (like the 'gee' in 'gee whiz' or the 'jee' in 'jeep')

う = 'u' (like the 'oo' in 'cool' or 'boot')

つ = 'tsu' (the same 'tsu' that's in 'tsunami' it's similar to saying the 'ts' in 'cats' followed by the 'oo' in 'boot')

ゆ = 'yu' (just like saying 'you' or the 'yu' in 'yule')

When a hiragana character is written smaller than others, it indicates that it forms a glide with the previous character.  For non-linguists, this basically means that the two sounds are blended together, making じゅ sound like 'jyu' or the 'jew' in 'jewel' rather than a disconnected 'ji-yu.'

One of the unique features of Japanese is its reliance on differentiating between long and short vowels.  The initial 'ju' in 'jujutsu' is pronounced the same as the second 'ju'.  However, the first is a long vowel, while the second is short.  That means that if you were counting out beats while saying the word, it would have a total of four beats, with the 'ew' of the first 'jew' lasting twice as long as the 'ew' in the second 'jew', i.e. 'jew oo jew tsu.'

Pronunciation Problems

Now, here's where we get some problems. Because of issues of mishearing, jujutsu has frequently been transcribed as jujitsu.  Because of how most people read English, the 'ji' oten gets pronounced like the 'ji' in 'jilted,' with the 'i' pronounced like the 'i' in 'it.'  The problem with that is that the 'i' as in 'it' sound just doesn't exist in Japanese.  Every 'i' is pronounced like the 'ee' in 'beet' or 'feet.'

Additionally, the standard Hepburn system for romanization marks long vowels, those held for an extra beat, with a macron above the letter (that little bar).  The problem is, there isn't exactly an easily accessible macron button on most keyboards, so in general when people are writing the word they change the jū in jūjutsu to macron-less ju (jujutsu) for simplicity sake.  The problem this causes, is that people no longer have anything to signal them that the initial ju is long and the second short, which changes the meaning of the word.

So if you pronounce it joo-jitsoo with the 'jit' rhyming with 'pit' does that make you wrong, dumb, or what you're training in any less valid?  Certainly not.  It just means you're speaking American English.  It's the same with 'kah-rah-tee' vs. 'kah-rah-tay.'  Technically, kah-rah-tay is the proper Japanese pronunciation, but 'kah-rah-tee is the English pronunciation.  Neither is more 'right' or 'wrong' than the other, just different.  However, if you do want to actually pronounce it the Japanese way, it has to be jew-oo-jew-tsu.

The Brazilian Factor

Now I have heard some suggest that jiu-jitsu/jujitsu/jiujitsu and every other 'jitsu' instead of 'jutsu' variant only refers to Brazilian jujitsu, while all of the 'jutsu' forms only refer to Japanese jujutsu.  This may be a convention that's starting to pop up, but there is no linguistic differentiation that I can find to give a reason for it, other than people are too lazy to tag the 'Brazilian' on the front and want some other way to differentiate.

Interestingly, Brazilian jujutsu was born by way of Mitsuyo Maeda who was not a student of traditional Japanese jujutsu but was actually a student of Kano Jigoro, the founder of judo.  When Maeda was sent by Jigoro to the West to spread Judo, it was still known alternately as Kano jiujutsu or, following an older romanization system, Kano jiujitsu.  This was later changed to jiu-do/jūdō, however the Kano jiujitsu name stuck in Brazil, where the Kano was later dropped becoming Brazilian jiujitsu, Gracie jiujitsu, or one of the other several names that can be applied to it.  Incidentally, the 'ju' (柔) in jujutsu (柔術) is the same 'ju' that is in 'judo' (柔道).  For whatever reason, even though they're the same kanji and pronunciation in Japanese, you almost never see 'jiudo' instead of 'judo' while you do often see 'jiujutsu.'

Another thing I've heard on occaison is that the jiujitsu spelling as applied to Brazilian jiujitsu is due to the way Brazilian Portuguese romanizes Japanese.  Now, while I speak Japanese I do not speak Portuguese, so I can't speak personally one way or another for this theory.  That being said, in all of my research I can't find a single source backing up this claim.  If there's anyone out there who is a native speaker of Brazilian Portuguese, leave a comment and let me know if there's any possible truth to that claim.

So Which One Is Right?

None of them!  At least, technically.  In the grand scheme of things, if you want to sound Japanese, you should pronounce is 'jew-oo jew tsu' and spell it along the lines of one of the more standard romanization systems (jūjutsu).  If you're involved more in Brazilian jujutsu, than you may want to stick to the 'jew-jit-su' pronunciation and the jiujitsu or jiu-jitsu spellings since those seem to be standard in that particular community.

Overall, the most important thing is that now you know the origins of the word and the original Japanese pronunciation.  I'll leave the decision as to which spelling/pronunciation you choose to use up to you.

Was there anything I missed?  Any Portuguese speakers out there want to weigh in on how Japanese traditionally gets romanized into your language?  Let us know in the comments.

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