Talk:Glossary of sumo terms

Removed text to be inserted into other articles

Chankonabe

Chankonabe is usually served with beer and rice. Leftover chankonabe broth can also later be used as broth for somen or udon noodles. It is not usually made according to a fixed recipe, and often has a reputation for containing whatever is available to the cook (who is usually a junior wrestler). It is also a popular restaurant food, often sold by restaurants started by retired sumo wrestlers.

Dohyo

is a ring in which the sumo wrestlers hold their matches. The dohyō is made of a mixture of clay and sand spread over the top. It is between 34 and 60 cm high. A new dohyō is built prior to each tournament. The circle in which the match takes place is 4.55 meters in diameter and bounded by rice-straw bales called tawara (俵), which are buried in the clay. The rice bales are ⅓ standard size and are partially buried in the clay of the dohyō.

Fusensho, fusenpai

fusensho (不戦勝 fusenshō lit. no fight win) and 'fusenpai' (不戦敗 fusenpai lit. no fight loss) are a win by default due to absence, and a loss by default do to absence, respectively. In sumo, when a rikishi (or sumo wrestler) withdraws from a tournament due to injury, illness or retirement, his opponent on the following day gains a fusensho victory, while he receives a fusenpai loss. A wrestler who obtains a fusensho victory receives no prize money for the bout, but is credited with a win. The wrestler who withdrew and suffered a fusenpai loss is credited with a loss. He then has his name removed from further bout scheduling in the tournament until he is able to re-enter it. Thus a rikishi withdrawing from a tournament will only give only one fusensho victory to another wrestler regardless of how many days he is absent.

If the withdrawal of a rikishi leads to an odd number of wrestlers in a division then a wrestler from the next division down will be given a bout with a wrestler in the upper division. (Towards the end of a tournament such match-ups are quite common in any case, in order to help determine promotions and demotions between divisions.) In such case a Juryo wrestler fighting in Makuuchi will have the opportunity to win bout prize money. For a Makushita wrestler having a bout against a Juryo opponent his hair will be done in the oichio style of chonmage normally only accorded to sekitori.

Kimarite

are winning techniques in a sumo bout. For each bout in a Grand Sumo tournament (or 本場所 honbasho), a sumo referee, or gyoji, will decide and announce the type of kimarite used by the winner. It is possible (although rare) for the judges, or shimpan to modifiy this decision later. Records of the kimarite are kept and statistical information on the preferred techniques of different rikishi (or sumo wrestlers) can be deduced easily.

Kachikoshi

means a majority of wins in a professional sumo championship. In sumo, promotion and relegation depends on performance in the previous 15 day tournament, where senior wrestlers (Juryo and above) compete once a day, and junior wrestlers (makushita and below) seven times over the duration of the championship. The first aim of the majority of wrestlers is to make kachikoshi (a majority of wins or a score of 8-7 or better for a senior wrestler), which usually guarantees a promotion up the ranks. In contrast, makekoshi almost always leads to relegation.

Makekoshi

means a majority of losses in a professional sumo championship. In sumo, individual promotion and relegation depends on performance in the previous 15 day tournament, where senior wrestlers (Juryo and above) compete once a day, and junior wrestlers (Makushita and below) seven times over the duration of the championship. The first aim of the majority of wrestlers is to make kachikoshi (a majority of wins or a score of 8-7 of better for a senior wrestler), which usually guarantees a promotion up the ranks. makekoshi almost always leads to individual relegation. The size of the relegation will depend how bad the score was. There are exceptions to this rule for ozeki and yokozuna: For ozeki a wrestler must make two makekoshi in a row before being relegated. yokozuna can never be relegated regardless of match outcomes. However, it is considered disgraceful for a yokozuna to go makekoshi and he is expected to withdraw from the tournament at an early stage if he is in danger of doing so. Consistent poor performances will lead to his retirement.

Rikishi

is the term most commonly used to describe a professional sumo wrestler. The Japanese characters making up the name literally mean "strong man", or, "a gentleman of strength", which is highly appropriate given the size and strength required to participate in this sport at the highest level. During their active careers rikishi live in "stables" run by a trainer, who is always a former sumo wrestler himself. The life can be quite strictly controlled, and for junior wrestlers, would by today's standards in Japan (or in the west) be considered quite harsh.

Sanyaku

literally means 'the three ranks' and represents the titleholder, or champion, ranks at the top of the sumo ranking system. Despite the name, there are technically four ranks in sanyaku: yokozuna, ozeki, sekiwake and komusubiThe numerical discrepancy results from the fact that Yokozuna was traditionally regarded as an ozeki with a special license to wear a particular rope around his waist and perform a separate ring entry ceremony. Promotion and relegation exists between the ranks (promotion to ozeki and yokozuna have strict criteria, and a yokozuna cannot be relegated once he has achieved the rank).

Torinaoshi

The gyoji makes a decision as to the winner, which the judges are entitled to challenge (as are any of the active rikishi sitting on the dohyo edge awaiting their bouts, although this is an extremely rare occurrence). In the case of a challenge, the five judges step onto the dohyo and have a mono-ii (talk about things) in order to discuss the match and the result. The chief judge also can also receive advice through a microphone from a further two judges in a video room with access to replays of the bout. The options available to the judges are to declare a winner by either agreeing with the decision of the gyoji or by reversing his call. However, in extremely close matches where both wrestler's appear to fall simulateneously, if in the judges opinion even the video replay cannot give a definitive outcome then they can declare a torinaoshi. In making their decision the judges do not need to simply decide who fell out of the ring or touched the ground first. They can declare that one wrestler was a shini-tai (dead body) who lost by merit of his opponent's superior sumo regardless of who touched/stepped out of the dohyo first. They can also disqualify one of the wrestlers if they ajudge him to have used an illegal technique.

Verify

Since I don't know Japanese, when I can only find information in Japanese or have to derive the kanji on my own where I only have romaji, I may well screw up someplace. So it would be good for someone who reads Japanese to check anything I add. (I rely heavily on [1] and [2], as well as the tables in hiragana.) TCC (talk) (contribs) 00:24, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

I'll be sure to take a look.Malnova 01:40, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

This is actually turning into a great way to learn some kana. TCC (talk) (contribs) 01:06, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

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This is a very good glossary and is accurate and informative. General observation: Wikipedia needs to come off the pseudo-academic gate-keeper pose and focus on the storage and dissemination of useful information. Now, of course, some gate-keeper will ask my what my credentials are. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kawika88 (talk • contribs) 19:29, 19 October 2014 (UTC)

Needed?

Is this article really needed? Couldn't/Shouldn't these terms be described in a word or two within the main sumo article? Time spent writing the sumo terms in the glossary could be better spent fixing the sumo article. Soon we'll have glossaries for every custom, cultural event and traditional game played in other countries.DDD DDD 03:59, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Yes. The idea is to provide a place where a reader can go to remind himself of an unfamiliar word when he encounters it, and that's much simpler in glossary form than trying to find it by combing through a set of related articles. And there are glossaries for various sports on Wikipedia. Glossary of American football Glossary of Water polo Glossary of basketball terms Golf glossary etc. TCC (talk) (contribs) 04:09, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Are those glossaries that you mentioned of non-English words that a native speaker of English wouldn't understand? These words are quite obscure, even for Japanese native speakers. Every time a reader meets a sumo word, you expect them to go to the glossary? What a waste of time! This isn't a glossary of sumo terms, it is a Japanese-English dictionary related to sumo. I still don't see how or why this is appropriate. How about a Glossary of kabbadi or a Glossary of Sepak Takraw?DDD DDD 04:16, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Actually, yes. That is to say, many of them are familiar words, but are used in a technical way within these sports where they have a specific meaning apart from their everyday use. Your average English speaker will have no trouble defining the words "dime" and "back" for you, but unless he was an American Football fan he'd have little clue what a "dime back" is. Such phrases are otherwise meaningless.

"yes" is absolutely correct. This article/glossary has been drastically slashed (removing interesting and useful information) and it has been suggested that it be absorbed into a larger article on sumo. To what end? Wikipedia needs to come off the pseudo-academic gate-keeper pose and focus on the storage and dissemination of useful information. Now, of course, some gate-keeper will ask my what my credentials are. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kawika88 (talk • contribs) 19:32, 19 October 2014 (UTC)

As you say, these are not common Japanese words. This is therefore rather far from a "Japanese-English dictionary related to sumo" since by reading it you don't end up with much of a useful Japanese vocabulary. It's a glossary of words, many of which are used almost exclusively in sumo and are therefore specifically sumo terms. It's not intended to relate much to the articles, since the articles will avoid the more obscure terms in favor of translations, but is precisely supposed to give definitions of Japanese words someone new to Sumo may encounter elsewhere. TCC (talk) (contribs) 09:43, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

And as for your examples, if there is sufficient interest, and enough specialty terms in these sports, to merit a glossary, why not? TCC (talk) (contribs) 10:16, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Fair enough. I don't wiki to exclude.

Have you thought about how you would link to the glossary? A See also at the bottom of each sumo-related page is a possibility but people but might meet too many infrequent terms before then and give up, forget... You could write link it near the top of each sumo-related page. But I find those annoying. Another way to link it would be in parenthesis after the first sumo-related term in the body of each sumo-related article .

For example, from Takanohana

Takanohana (II) Koji (貴乃花 光司, Takanohana Kōji, born August 12, 1972 as Koji Hanada (花田 光司 Hanada Kōji)) is a former sumo wrestler who held the rank of Yokozuna ("grand champion"). ]].(For a complete list of sumo related terms, see: Glossary). He is the younger son of the late Takanohana Kenshi (formerly Ozeki Takanohana, whose name after retirement was Futagoyama oyakata). DDD DDD 23:44, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

That's one good way. As I said, we'd avoid the more obscure terms in the articles anyway where a good English translation exists (e.g. "wrestler" instead of "rikishi" or "sumotori"). Some will be impossible to avoid, such as "mawashi" -- I don't think the usual translation "belt" really conveys the idea adequately -- and yes, in those cases the glossary link would be good. It would also be linked from the portal page if we ever develop one, so that someone researching sumo from an outside starting point can find it easily. I find that the online sumo fan community tends to use the Japanese terms even when they don't speak Japanese otherwise, so these are things someone is likely to want to look up. Good glossaries exist elsewhere, but here we can link back to relevant articles that can go into more detail than is possible in a glossary.

In typing that, it occurred to me that it would be a good idea to put a link in each definition to where the term is first encountered/defined, once the articles are developed. TCC (talk) (contribs) 01:05, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

WP:NOT I'm pretty sure this falls under wikipedia is not a dictionary. Call it a glossary or whatever you will, this is plainly an article that exists solely to define words.--Crossmr 21:50, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

You mean you object to all of these? TCC (talk) (contribs) 08:42, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

Like I said in the discussion page, marking this as a 'wikipedia is not a dictionary' would be the same as saying that the fastball can be properly defined in wiktionary. The fact is, these are not words that can easily be translated into another language. They require a discussion of their meaning beyond what a one sentence translation plus example can provide. --Yuu.david 09:23, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

Layout, content, format

There's nothing wrong with Kappa's recent series of edits really, but I wonder if we want quite so much detail as is now in the dohyo-iri entry, or illustrations. Would we be better off keeping this to a more austere set of definitions, and save some of this material for articles where we can expand on the subjects, and make more room for the images? TCC (talk) (contribs) 08:47, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

P.S. I've got the NSK stream going in another window. I suppose Kotooshu had it coming, but that was really a vicious henka Kaio just let him have.

I haven't seen those edits. I guess if you mean all the pics he has put up. I rather like them, gives the article a little color. More would probably be overkill. Anyway, more importantly, I can't forgive Kaio that henka. Especially for the bout to tie on the all time basho wins list. But maybe I'm being picky. Malnova 08:51, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

You can see what the edits were by going to the history page and taking the diff between the current version and the last of his edits. [3] He's added more since I posted, and I have to say that now that he's added more images the look has improved greatly. The ones related to just the dohyo and dohyo-iri looked lonely by themselves, but it looks as if we'll effectively end up with a column of illustrations on the right side, and it looks pretty good. He's also re-started dohyō, which is no longer anywhere near as stubby as it had been, so that's good.

It would be totally unforgivable if Osh wasn't such a henka artist himself, although to be fair he's obviously been trying to get away from it and back into some proper sumo this basho. He seemed genuinely embarrassed by that one on day 6 against Wakanosato, and not just because he lost. He'd apparently spent all morning working on ways to meet his tachi-ai and getting uwate. I think he honestly hadn't intended to henka; it was a blind reflex against an opponent he'd had some trouble with in the past, in Waka's better days. But really! Where did Osh end up -- the 10th row or something? He flew! Hasn't Kaio been doing a bit of that lately? I wonder why he wasn't prepared for it. TCC (talk) (contribs) 22:23, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

Oyakata, toshiyori

I'm a bit confused about the terms oyakata and toshiyori-- do they mean exactly the same thing or is there a subtle difference? I notice oyakata isn't in the glossary yet-- it would be handy if it was there as I think it's the more common of the two terms. Pawnkingthree 09:14, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

In a sumo context they're synonymous, but not otherwise. Oyakata means "coach", "master", or "boss" -- I think the literal meaning is someone who stands in the place of your parents -- while toshiyori means "elder". You have to be an elder in the Nihon Sumo Kyokai to be a coach in a heya. But Malnova would know much better than me. I know how to look things up, but that doesn't mean I understand them. TCC (talk) (contribs) 05:02, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, that's pretty much it. As far as I understand it - a toshiyori doesn't have to be an oyakata, but an oyakata is always a toshiyori. Malnova 05:10, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

I think they're synonymous. The first line of the Japanese article on toshiyori says "toshiyori is the formal name for a sumo oyakata". --Auximines 19:18, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

gunbai

I was looking for more info on gunbai, and went to Japanese wikipedia and discovered that Japanese wikipedia itself does not have a "gunbai" article. We even have one up on them! Hee. Malnova 03:40, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

That's kind of weird if you think about it. It's like the English Wikipedia not having an article on signal flag or Bugle (instrument) or something similar. TCC (talk) (contribs) 04:23, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

A tiny nitpick

Tachi-ai on this page is not written conistently with how it's written on the page that its definition is linked to. It's written as 立合い there and as 立ち合い here. I've seen it both ways, and as a non-expert I am hesitant to make any changes to sumo pages myself, so I thought I'd at least leave a note here. Absurdist1968 (talk) 10:14, 24 September 2018 (UTC)

Power water?

What is power water? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.95.7.131 (talk) 17:59, 4 December 2020 (UTC)

Various page issues

1. Entries

   For example, in Japanese it seems oicho-mage is more often referred to as oicho, whereas in English both seem well represented; Tenno-hai is Shihai or Tenno-shihai, but Emperor's Cup in English; Yokozuna Shingi Iinkai is often Yokoshin, whereas in English it's often Yokozuna Deliberation Council (YDC). Should Japanese usage or English usage be prioritized in entry naming? Should we use the most common form or the full, unabbreviated form?

2. Romanization

   It's not clear if there is a standard for - (hyphen) usage and long vowels, for example hyoushi-gi, for which the corresponding wiki page has hyōshigi

3. Japanese orthography

   It's not orthography per se but rather the use of kanji, and is related to the first point. For example kachiage would often be かち上げ instead of 搗ち上げ, wanpaku would be in full hiragana わんぱく.

4. English gloss

   The gloss format isn't standardized throughout the page and the glosses aren't clear in whether they are a gloss for the entire term or if it is word-for-word.

--Xie1995 (talk) 17:44, 30 December 2020 (UTC)

Prime minister's cup/sōridaijin-hai

The article states "Prime Minister's Cup. Ceremonial cup presented by the sitting Prime Minister or an intermediary to the makuuchi champion at every tournament held in Ryōgoku." (emphasis mine); this implies the cup is only given out at basho taking place at the Kokugikan in Tokyo, but this is clearly not the case: at Kyushu Basho 2019 (the last basho to not take place in Tokyo, due to the coronavirus situation), Hakuho is clearly presented with the Prime Minister's Cup as seen here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n2S-DinFToI Unless someone can clarify what this sentence means, I'll edit it in a couple of days time to remove this wording which is at best ambiguous (though I can't figure out what else it could mean) and at worst incorrect. Thanks. Hidenotora (talk) 03:06, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

Since nobody has objected, I removed "at every tournament held in Ryōgoku." If someone can clarify the statement please post in here what is meant by it, thanks. There's more stuff to fix on this page which I'll get around to doing at some point. Hidenotora (talk) 01:25, 2 April 2021 (UTC)

Kōshō seido (公傷制度) translation issue

This was pointed out to me a while back, but I was just looking at this page now and it reminded me: kōshō seido does not translate to "public injury system". While seido is indeed system, kōshō (公傷) translates to "occupational injury", as seen here:

https://jisho.org/search/%E5%85%AC%E5%82%B7

And defined in the Daijirin Japanese dictionary as "公務中に負ったけが" ("an injury suffered while on duty"), and translated in the Widsom Japanese-English Dictionary as "an injury at work ; an industrial injury ; an injury suffered while on duty."

"Public injury" is a calque of these two characters, which separately do mean "public" and "injury". Sadly, it is repeated on a variety of websites, including by people like John Gunning, who is the most reputable English source for sumo journalism. This is probably part of why it's become so widespread, but it's not an accurate translation of the term, and doesn't really make any sense either.

I think that this wiki article is the source used by other websites too, as the definition they give is identical or similar to the one we have here. But it isn't correct, so I propose we change it and hopefully this has the effect of getting other sites to follow suit.

The issue then is what to change it to: seems like "occupational injury system" is the best and most literal translation for this case, as "industrial" has other connotations in English. You could also perhaps say "official injury system" (as in Jisho), "work(place) injury system", "duty injury system", and maybe some others.

However, there is the possiblity that the term means "public" in the sense of "annouced and known to the public", as in the rikishi officially declared they were injured, and obtained a medical note stating their diagnosis. I've made a thread on Sumoforum, the only English speaking place on the internet that's likely to know, you can see it here:

http://www.sumoforum.net/forums/topic/40976-kosho-seido-%E5%85%AC%E5%82%B7%E5%88%B6%E5%BA%A6-bad-translation-of-public-injury-system/

If they can't confirm the term means public as in publicly announced, or confirm that the English translation is bad, I'll edit the article.

I'll leave my Sumoforum thread up a few days and then post my findings here. Hidenotora (talk) 05:59, 16 July 2021 (UTC)

It definitely didn't originate with Wikipedia - I have English language sumo books from the early 1990s that call it "public injury." I've never seen any other translation. As a comment in the Sumo Forum thread says, the system only recognized injuries on the dohyo in official competition - not in exhibitions, not in training, not even having someone fall on top of you while you're waiting your turn, as Fujinoshin found to his cost. So "occupational" or "workplace" would be misleading, as that could imply training injuries were covered. Only honbasho, which I guess you could call "public" tournaments, qualify. Maybe it's being used as shorthand for "official public performance"? Pawnkingthree (talk) 12:04, 16 July 2021 (UTC)

Yeah, seems other people on the forum verified that term has been around for a lot longer than wikipedia. However, only one person has so far given the reasoning of it being public because it refers to injuries sustained during a honbasho, and not given any evidence for it.

One member thinks it could possibly be a relic of older English language terms, such as calling yokozuna "grand champions" and ozeki just regular "champions". Also of further note is that even the official kyokai's website is littered with bad English ("have you ever seen the sumo?"), so it's clear not much though is put into English by them. Yokozuna does not mean "grand champion" in any way, but it's a close analogue and gives a general sense of what the term refers to (exceptional, probably multi-time winners).

It bothers me that in every single other instance, 公傷 would be translated into English as "occupational injury", and the term+kanji used here are exactly the same as that word. If they wanted to mean "public" as opposed to private, they could have used a different term and kanji. "Public injury system" sounds like a Google Translate attempt at translating the term, and is unclear in terms of what it is ("public injury" in English sounds slightly odd, but you'll find it used on various "injury lawyers" type websites referring to an injury you get walking in the street, like tripping over a loose paving stone or whatever; that's not what this is at all), hence the observation that where you see the term, its usually followed by the definition. Not every term on this page needs a direct translation for the term, so I was thinking maybe it would be better to just remove the translation and leave the definition of what it is? For example, hanamichi 花道 literally means something like "flower path", but this literal translation isn't necessary because it doesn't tell you anything about what purpose the hanamichi actually serves (though there is a historical reason for it being called this which could be added to the article with some referencing). I'll wait for more feedback on the forum post first though, but just an idea? Hidenotora (talk) 17:48, 17 July 2021 (UTC)

@Hidenotora: Seems the Sumo Forum thread has petered out for the moment. I think the main issue is our policy on no original research. If the sources go with "Public injury system" (as the book Grand Sumo from 1992 and John Gunning's article recently do) then that's what we should go with, even if it's not the best literal translation. Pawnkingthree (talk) 23:23, 22 July 2021 (UTC)

Yes, you're right, the term goes back a lot further than I thought (to at least the late 80s apparently), so it's definitely not a Wikipedia invention. I don't think it's original research to say 公傷 means "occupational injury" since that's the definition in literally every JP>EN dictionary, and to translate it in any other way in any other context would lead to confusion. My opinion is that "public injury" is an incorrect calque made by someone simply translating the two characters individually, but it's somehow stuck; my opinion IS original research however and I've no evidence to back that up (and no evidence for it would probably exist, finding the original guy who messed up the translation sometime in or before the 80s and hoping he justified his decision somehow). It's far from the only issue on the page anyway and ultimately of minor importance, so I'm happy to leave it as it is. It'll never be the "public injury system" to me though! Thanks for your input on the matter Pawnkingthree. Hidenotora (talk) 04:46, 23 July 2021 (UTC)

Transliteration tags

Could I ask that any editors adding, or modifying, entries on this glossary article make use of the {{transliteration}} and {{nihongo}} templates for Japanese terms? I'm trying to keep MOS:ACCESS but this article is insanely long and I can't do it alone if I'm the only one adding these templates in all the time. It would be a huge help. Thanks!—Ineffablebookkeeper (talk) ({{ping}} me!) 17:32, 3 January 2023 (UTC)

Dosukoi

I added “dosukoi” to this article and it seems to have disappeared. Is it not considered sumo terminology? Ciro13 (talk) 13:44, 22 May 2023 (UTC)

Dosukoi is indeed a term related to sumo, so it has its place in the glossary. When did you add the definition ? It is possible that the edition has been overwrited when another user edited the entire page. Feel free to add it again. Thanks for contributing ! - OtharLuin (talk) 07:20, 23 May 2023 (UTC)

You don't have any edits on this page: in fact, your post here asking the question is the only edit you've ever made to Wikipedia with this account. Are you sure you added it? Dosukoi is a sumo term, but there's very little to say about it: even the JP wiki just has a one-line entry on a disambiguation page saying "a sumo jinku shout of encouragement". If you can make an interesting entry for it though, go for it. Hidenotora (talk) 01:52, 24 May 2023 (UTC)