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March 06, 2005
Funakoshi and Language Change
Philosophers of language often think of language in very abstract, idealised ways, and so it can be useful for us to have a stock of stories about language "in the wild" to keep our feet on the ground. (Gareth Evans' Madagascar story seems like a good example of this; it makes us much more careful about how we formulate the causal theory of reference.) So here is a real-world story about language change:
In his autobiography, Gichin Funakoshi (1868-1957), the founder of shotokan karate, reports on a controversy over the interpretation of the expression 'karate.' First he tells us how the controversy arose:
The Japanese language is not an easy one to master, nor is it always quite so explicit as it might be: different characters may have exactly the same pronunciations, depending upon the use. The expression 'karate' is an excellent example. 'Te' is easy enough, it means 'hand(s).' But there are two quite different characters that are both pronounced kara; one means 'empty,' and the other is the Chinese character referring to the Tang dynasty and may be translated 'Chinese.' [...] So should our martial art be written with the characters that mean 'empty hand(s)' or with those that mean "Chinese hand(s)"?
It turns out that a case can be made for both these interpretations. Funakoshi relates that before he moved from Okinawa to Tokyo in the 1920's:
it was customary to use the character for 'Chinese' rather than that for 'empty' to write 'karate'
But anyone who has seen The Karate Kid might recall that Daniel's sensei, Mr Miyagi, explains the meaning of 'karate' as empty hand, and indeed, when I was a kid, everyone (that is, everyone under 4 feet tall,) knew that 'karate' meant 'empty hand(s).' So how did we get from the predominant 'Chinese' interpretation on Okinawa, to 'empty' in popular Western culture?
Answer: Funakoshi found 'empty' more appropriate (Chinese boxing is very different from karate, karate is the art of fighting without weapons (with empty hands) and he appreciated the connection with the Buddhist doctrine of emptiness) and he simply decided to start writing it that way.
My suggestion initially illicited violent outbursts of criticism in both Toyko and Okinawa, but I have confidence in the change and have adhered to it over the years. Since then, it has in fact gained such wide acceptance that the word 'karate' would look strange to all of us now if it were written with the Chinese 'kara' character.
Funakoshi then goes on standardise the names of shotokan kata, but finishes the section modestly:
I have no doubt whatsoever that in the future, as times change, again and then again, the kata will be given new names. And that, indeed, is as it should be.
I think part of the reason that Funakoshi was successful in establishing the 'empty hand(s)' interpretation was the social deference offered him by the small linguistic community that is comprised of karate-ka worldwide. Hollywood probably deferred to them, and all the under-four-feet-tall humans of my acquantence deferred to Hollywood.
If everyone had ignored Funakoshi, the language would not have changed. So this seems to be a real-world example of deference as a mechanism of language change.
(I wonder what would have happened if Hollywood had made up an alternative interpretation of 'karate' from scratch?)
Posted by logican at March 6, 2005 03:32 AM
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