Correct reading of 拳禅一如

[Ewok85]

Hi guys

Having a small argument with a bloke about the correct reading of 拳禅一如

Just need an unbiased 3rd party translation..
What it is in romaji and hiragana please

Regards
Leon

 

[NANGI]

Konnichiwa Ewok85-san!

Having a small argument with a bloke about the correct reading of 拳禅一如
Just need an unbiased 3rd party translation..
What it is in romaji and hiragana please

It is "Kenzenichinyo", "けんぜんいちにょ" in Hiragana. :note:

NANGI

 

[Ewok85]

Cheers mate, have a guy insisting its 'kobushi zen ichinyo', seems to think that kenzen is not a compound and that its ok to mix on and kun yomi.

 

[Scrivener]

That was quite a funny (?) thread...

I would bet you money that the phrase is either taken from a Chinese source or was written by a literati Japanese in classical Chinese. "Nyo" is common in classical Chinese, as is that four-character format. Therefore it is natural to use Chinese readings.

Before I went to read the thread, the phrase immediately made me think of Shaolin temple, which is the home of kung-fu and was founded by Bodhidharma who brought Zen from India, so it makes sense that it is in the Shorinji tradition. I would have translated it as "kung fu is the same thing as Zen" or something.

Basically the guy saying it is "kobushi" is wrongly extrapolating based on his mistaken understanding of how on-yomi and kun-yomi work.

 

[Glenn]

Yeah, that was quite an interesting read. That guy has to be a troll.

 

[Scrivener]

Besides trolls there is a forum personality-type that treats being proved wrong as the end of the world, and will go to any lengths to avoid it...

 

[okaeri_man]

have a guy insisting its 'kobushi zen ichinyo', seems to think that kenzen is not a compound and that its ok to mix on and kun yomi.

well actually it is "ok" to mix on and kun yomi. not whenever you feel like it of course, but some words are a mixture of both yomis.

from one of my old text books:
In general, words made up of 2 or more kanji together, either use all ON or all KUN-YOMI. (The ON-YOMI is used in more than 80% of cases such as these, but mixes of ON and KUN-YOMI are very rare.)

 

[Ewok85]

The on-kun mixes tend to be 'on noun'/'kun verb' I think. Kun-Kun is verb/verb... got a list in my grammar dictionary somewhere, they are cool words (don't have them in english)

Anyhow this guy just wont back down, its annoying but funny as all hell because he is becoming more and more specific (こぶし is now the on-yomi of 拳) and digging himself deeper and deeper