Jujutsu, Jujitsu, Jiu-Jitsu...Which is correct?

by George Arrington

Depending upon the source you will see a variety of spellings of the name of the Japanese martial art which is translated, "gentle art". One can see "Jujutsu", "Jujitsu", "Jiu-Jitsu" and others. Why is there such a variety?

The Japanese language consists of both Kanji (Chinese ideograms) and Kana (phonetic symbols). Each kanji can have several pronounciations and so it is often necessary for written Japanese to include the kana to show the intended reading. For example, the character for "gentle" may pronounced phonetically as "jyoo". As is the case with many Japanese words there isn't one single kana that has this pronounciation. Instead, several things are done to make this sound. The base kana for this term is "chi". Two small tick marks are then added to the upper right of the kana which "voices" it. This results in the sound, "ji". Then kana for the syllable "yu" is then added to the lower right of the base kana to produce the required sound. Finally the "oo" sound is lengthened by adding the kana for "u" to the right of the previously described kana combination.

In the early 1950's, the Japanese government standardized the romanization of Japanese syllables. Prior to this time, a wide variety of spellings existed. For example, a famous book was written in the early 1900's called The Complete Kano Jiu-Jitsu by Higashi and Hancock.

Using the correct standard for romanization, JU JUTSU is the proper spelling and is pronounced "joo-joots". The "u" at the end of "jutsu" is pronounced lightly. Also, "jutsu" should be prounced "joots" and not "juts".

This page is maintained by George Arrington - DanzanRyu@yahoo.com.
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