BUNGO TAKEDA vs BUNGO TAKADA

Bazza · January 17, 2010

Dear Boarderos,

Browsing through the Board I've noticed many inconsistent usages of Takeda/Takada when speaking about the Bungo group of swordsmiths. So, being somewhat of a usage pedant (putting myself up as a target here!!) I've put together a little piece that I hope some will find useful and interesting.

Best regards,

BaZZa.

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Japanese is a most precise language – I learnt that in my short two year study of it in my university daze. So poor was I at it, I realised that I could never speak Japanese fluently unless I gave up everything and went to live in Japan. How I admire those people who do just that – where are you my young friend Andrew Ickeringill?? Having introduced my own failings I feel a certain reluctance to address the issue of English spellings of Takeda/Takada, but in deference to our newer collectors I pray indulgence in my attempt to do so.

I find that google is a good test of how something should be spelt/spelled/speld. If I have an issue with a spelling the biggest number of google hits gets the guernsey (try ‘despatch’/‘dispatch’ as an example). I’m also amazed at how many WRONG spellings there are “out there”. In searching for things I often employ a stratagem of misspelling words… More a little further on.

So, Takeda. As an example, this refers to Takeda Shingen, the Daimyô of Kai in the Sengoku Jidai. His name is spelt 武田信玄.

Now for Takada. We have been talking about the Bungo Takada school. This is spelt 豊後高田.

TAKE-da 武-田

TAKA-da 高-田

On using misspellings, as I was typing bungo takada into the search window, a populated, auto-completion list popped up and by the time I got to ‘bungo ‘ (that’s bungo followed by a space), the list included bungotakada (one word). Clicking on that gave some sword references.

By the time I had typed ‘bungo tak’ the dropdown list included only bungotakada (one word) and ‘bungo taketa’ (two words). Each link gave quite different results – 65,500 and 10,600 hits respectively. Taketa-shi is a city in Japan, and its kanji is 竹田市. (-ta can also be -da. Ah, Japanese...)

I’ll leave it to interested Boarderos to follow these variations up if they wish, but I found these two links to be good and interesting reads:

http://www.pref.oita.jp/10400/guide-o/e ... keta_j.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S%C5%8Dsuishi-ry%C5%AB

I hope this ramble has been of some interest, and let me finish with a pet grumble. The rendering of Japanese into English is called rômaji, not romanji. I recommend the following as an important read in this regard:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romanization_of_Japanese

Jumanji…

John A Stuart · January 17, 2010

You are right Barry, Takada is the proper romaji.

高田【たかだ】 Takada (p,s) 【たかた】 Takata (p,s) 【こうだ】 Kouda (p,s) 【たかやす】 Takayasu (s) 【たつた】 Tatsuta (s) 【なおと】 Naoto (s)

John

Mark Green · January 22, 2010

Ahhh, Bungo Takada.

Love that pure power of steel. :D :D :D

Mark ' Tomoyuki' G

BUNGOTO · April 21

my understanding = takada is a town in bungo province (Takada swordsmiths ) = Takeda is a clan name main island 16th cent period or earlier Yamanashi prefecture .= taketa is a town in Oita as well .

ROKUJURO · April 22

Lenny,

welcome on board the NMB!

How did you manage to dig out a 15 years old thread? :dunno:

Bazza · April 22

Jean - same way I do - look at the thread and not the date!! Welcome Lenny and you've already discovered that there is A LOT of good stuff here. An ancient thread is known as a necropost. Quite often these can be a real re-discovery...

Best,

BaZZa.

aka Barry Thomas

Melbourne, Australia.