What's In A Name

"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.

"What's in a name? That which we call a rose, by any other name would smell as sweet." - Romeo and Juliet (II, ii, 1-2) William Shakespeare

What is in a name? Does it matter whether we call it 'kung fu,' 'gung fu' or 'gong fu'?  Who really cares as long as we all know what we're talking about?  Well, to a point, that's true.  The problem is everywhere I go, even when talking to very experienced knowledgeable martial artists, there seems to be an abundance of misinformation floating around about this topic.  As a speaker of Mandarin and Cantonese, I feel it's time some of these misconceptions were cleared up.  While it may not matter what we call it, it's important to know where all these different words come from.  This article will explain the differences between the three different forms, and maybe even teach you a little Chinese along the way.