Navigating the Maze That Is the Japanese Language

THE WORD EMPI presents a good example. Many Black Belt readers will be familiar with it because it was Gichin Funakoshi’s name for a karate kata originally — and, in Okinawan dojo, still — called wanshu.

That original name referred to an expatriate Chinese martial artist who taught in the Tomari region of Okinawa. Funakoshi changed the name when he introduced karate to mainland Japan in the 1920s. Why? Probably because wanshu sounded Chinese to Japanese ears. Given the era, a time when Japan was becoming fervently nationalistic, it would be more patriotic to