小木刀

[grikdog]

How do I transliterate this? Is it Shoubokutou? Or something "obvious" and more familiar? At any rate, it seems to be a cultural thing I found it in a game, but Google search turns up lotsa hits from eBay style pages, none of which use furigana!

This is my first post here. Just found JREF! TIA!

 

[Elizabeth]

小木 is "Ogi" so definately not commonplace or modern.
刀 might be tou, chi or gatana?

 

[grikdog]

Well, the clear meaning from context in the game is "small wooden sword," but the problem is, Japan has a long history of swordsmanship. I think the three characters form an idiomatic expression that is probably not best rendered by using the on-yomi of the characters. Thanks for trying!

 

[Elizabeth]

OK, well all I answered absolutely for were the first two which definately do carry おぎas at least one of their readings.

 

[undrentide]

Yes, Elizabeth san, it is true that "o" is one of the pronunciation for 小, and "gi" for 木.

I think in this context, however, it is 小 + 木刀, not 小木 + 刀.
木刀 means wooden sward, and can be pronounced either "bokutou" or "kidachi", and I think bokutou is more common.
小木刀 would mean smaller 木刀, and in this case "shoubokutou" seems to be the most likely pronunciation.

 

[Kid Chrono]

My first instinct would be to read this as shoubokutou as well. However, as I looked on google for more usages of this word I noticed that every link that I saw was in Chinese, so this leads me to believe that this might be a more common Chinese compound? I'm almost totally unfamiliar with Chinese, but perhaps someone who speaks Chinese here would be able to chime in on this?

 

[undrentide]

Having read Kid Chrono-san's post, I also tried google. Maybe because I'm using Japanese version, the first result page shows only Japanese websites referring to 小木刀. (Later I tried "Japanese language only" and the result was about 270 hits.)
Most Japanese websites are auction or e-shopping sites, offering the small wooden swards made in Japan.
Chinese may have the same words, but definitely 小木刀 exists as a Japanese word.

 

[Elizabeth]

Yes, Elizabeth san, it is true that "o" is one of the pronunciation for 小, and "gi" for 木.

Yes, it is one pronunciation, and it is evidentially both a personal and place
name as おぎ小木？Anyway, I checked the Yahoo phone book online and there are multiple listings for that spelling.

 

[Kid Chrono]

Undrentide, I wasn't trying to imply that 小木刀 wasn't a Japanese compound, just that I found that it was apparently much more common in Chinese. This made me wonder if it was actually a fairly common word/compound in Chinese, and if it had the same meaning as the Japanese equivalent ^^.

 

[undrentide]

Yes, it is one pronunciation, and it is evidentially both a personal and place
name as おぎ小木？Anyway, I checked the Yahoo phone book online and there are multiple listings for that spelling.

Yes, Elizabeth san, you are right.
小木 (ogi) is a name for both places and persons.

Undrentide, I wasn't trying to imply that 小木刀 wasn't a Japanese compound, just that I found that it was apparently much more common in Chinese. This made me wonder if it was actually a fairly common word/compound in Chinese, and if it had the same meaning as the Japanese equivalent ^^.

I see, Kid Chrono san, sorry for my misunderstanding.
I also wonder if it has the same meaning in Chinese. Maybe it does, but I don't understand the language and cannot tell where the word starts or ends within a sentence.

 

[Elizabeth]

木刀 means wooden sward, and can be pronounced either "bokutou" or "kidachi", and I think bokutou is more common.
小木刀 would mean smaller 木刀, and in this case "shoubokutou" seems to be the most likely pronunciation.

「しょうぼくとう」か「こぼくとう」ですね。

 

[moofs]

小木刀 is 小木刀 in any language that uses 漢字. Not a special word/compound, its just saying that the wooden sword is small.
It's just a 'small wooden sword'. That's about it. 小 in 小木刀 in Chinese would be an adjective modifying the word 木刀 (otherwise it'd just be a normal wooden sword), like 小さい木刀 in Japanese. 同じでーす。

My intial reaction to how it'd be pronounced was 'kobokutou' but if you type that with IME it comes out as 古木等, so I'd guess that 小木刀（しょうぼくとう） would be the most likely pronunciation.

 

[undrentide]

My intial reaction to how it'd be pronounced was 'kobokutou' but if you type that with IME it comes out as 古木等, so I'd guess that 小木刀（しょうぼくとう） would be the most likely pronunciation.

You guessed correctly.
Since 木刀 （ぼくとう） is on pronunciation, it is most natural to pronounce 小 in on i.e. しょう.
お is one of kun pronunciations for 小.