The Rebranding of Tōdi
In Chinese, 唐 was primarily pronounced Tang and referred to the Chinese Tang Dynasty. The Tang Dynasty lasted from 618 to 907 but its influence, particularly of education and the characters the Japanese and other Japonic tribes borrowed, held over to this day. That character is kind of short hand to point towards Chinese or Chinese influence. For practitioners of Taika Seiyu Oyata’s art, it is similar to the use of 琉手 Ryūte being short for Ryukyuan hand or hand of Ryukyu even though the kanji for kyu is not part of it. Tōdi would be Chinese Hand as pronounced in the Uchināguchi language.
Te is Japanese for Hand but, the Ryukyu Kingdom which did much of its trade with China was populated with people speaking several different languages. All these languages, though rooted in in the same Japonic ancestor as Japanese, were their own individual languages. There are 55 islands in the Ryukyu Kingdom. The main language on the largest island, Okinawa (Uchināguchi) did not have the vowell ‘e’ sound but instead used ‘i' sounds. Of the various Ryukyu languages, some only had three vowels while others had five like Japanese. Uchināguchi only shares 60% of the same vocabulary with Japanese. The word hand in Uchināguchi was pronounced either Ti or Di. Ti would be the root pronunciation unless proceeded by other sounds, in this instance, Tō. Thus, it was called Tōdi, Chinese Hand.
The Movement for the Enforcement of Normal Language (Futsūgo reikō undo), began in 1931. By 1937 it was renamed the Movement for the Enforcement of Standard Language. This movement went as far as outlawing the use of foreign languages during WWII and made speaking languages such as Uchināguchi illegal on Okinawa during the war. This was a kill on sight order by the end of the war. As a child in Osaka, Taika was repeatedly punished for speaking the languages of the Ryukyu islands which were prolific on the islands where he was born and raised and the root languages of his family.
On Oct 15, 1936 a group of senior Tōdi instructors met in Okinawa to discuss a name change of Tōdi due to previously mentioned political reasons. The Japanese propaganda machine was taking steps in various forms of linguistic endeavors to squash non-Japanese concepts including languages such as Uchināguchi and references to China.
The character 空 which can be pronounced as kara or ku has several meanings such as void or sky. Taika talks about this in the video and states that a sky is typically empty, thus Kara or Ku can also mean empty. He also references an empty can of soda in the video. With this Japanese political rebranding, the art became Karate or Empty hand.
In attendance were weapons experts and local educational, military and police officials, and event organizer Nakasone Genwa. The significance of the military and police officials cannot be overstated when you consider the “Movement for the Enforcement of Normal Language’ push within the government. This came just 5 years into the occupation of and Japanese invasion of Manchuria. China was a dirty little word at this time in Japanese culture.
Lee Richards
PDF Text in regards: toudi.oyatate.com
Selected References:
Intro to Okinawan Language at Wikipedia - multi
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Okinawa...
Ryukyu Language History: - Lee Richards
www.kenshukai.org/ryukyu-lang...
LANGUAGE SHIFT IN THE RYUKYU ISLANDS - Mark Anderson
www.academia.edu/41138204/Lan...
1 июн 2024
