You brought up an issue you clearly do not understand well, and I have tried to inform you. No one asked you or forced you to bring it up in the first place.
On "Osu!" vs. "Oss" (Linguistic Disambiguation)
- Thread starter RavenDarkfellow
- Start date
RavenDarkfellow
Orange Belt
Yes, I've read the studies, and seen the plethora of comments online about it. Three things come to mind, in response:
1 ) As I mentioned, this is specifically about the linguistics of it. There are plenty of other posts about its meaning and usage.
2 ) On the topic of its meaning and usage, it is not a rude term by default-- it's possibly multiple polite terms rudely shortened (ohayoo gozaimasu, onegaishimasu). Regardless, I wouldn't say it to a Japanese person unless they were younger and/or lower rank than me, and it were in a context in which that person understood it to be encouragement.
3 ) While it comes 100% from Japanese lexicon, like many loan (and shared) words throughout the world, its meaning is clearly regional. I learned it originally from Kyokushin Karate (studied in Canada), which was the second art I studied seriously (after TC Kenpo). That school was where I learned many of the Japanese-Martial-Art traditions, and both genuine and bastardised ettiquette and terms.
"Osu!" was strongly encouraged there, and meant a plethora of positive things: affirmative, respect, I understand, I will comply, etc. It has become its own tradition in North America, and is no less valid just because it isn't used that way in Japan, than any of the other terms we use in our culture.
You know what a fag is, right? (I imagine that word's gonna get filtered out by the bot.) If it does, it furthers my point, because the three-letter word I wrote means a stick or cigarette in England. In fact, its origin is to mean a stick you specifically intend to burn on a fire (which, incidentally, is probably the origin of why it's so offensive-- as that IS a horrible thing to call a person).
Of course, in North America, it's a homophobic slur. Same word, even from the same language.
So who dares claim the right to decide that Osu! can't be used as a term of respect and tradition in North America? Seems a pretty arrogant and pointless claim, to me.
That said, it's still a good idea to be aware that it can be rude when used in Japan! So I'm not knocking spreading that awareness; I just believe in dualistic natures.
Osu!
In my experience, no two languages are fully translatable. Translatability decreases as roots diverge (English and Japanese share none I’m aware of). 25% of the language being designed to accommodate other languages will help, but that’s a small portion of the language.
This isn’t what I was told by a native speaker. I remember a language lesson video with a similar message. I’ll see if I can find it.
RavenDarkfellow
Orange Belt
Beyond which, if people had to create a system which then became 25% of the modern language just to accommodate for the inherent differences, it pretty much proves my original statement that they are "wildly inherently incompatible".
If they weren't, nobody would have needed to spend so much effort deliberately constructing methods of compatibility, in a natural language.
RavenDarkfellow
Orange Belt
Regarding that, honestly, I'm just going by memory from when I started teaching myself Japanese back in around 2006. I stumbled across a reference to language families, which lead me down a rabbit hole of researching linguistic associations, and ultimately to a long-forgotten desire to figure out how the hell all those squiggly symbols in languages like Japanese are supposed to make sounds. So I copied all the hiragana and katakana by hand from what I saw on a computer screen, then copied them again, and again, etc.
I counted them back then, but if my count is off, it's only by up to four-- and I thought the " and ° were included in that, but I might be mistaken. Then of course, there's the "chisai tsu" (for which I believe there is another more technical name that I can't recall... again, I'm posting from memory here, I'm not rushing off to research everything online before I say it). That chisai tsu however, is more for doubling the following consonant than really "changing" a sound. There's also long dashes which, when used in katakana signify a doubling of the vowel. (Again, I don't recall the terms for these markers, keep in mind I taught myself, so the focus of my learning was on the stuff I was most interested in.)
Also, if you count all the combination characters "kya, sha, nya" etc., and all the variations of those with " or °, yeah, it comes out to a lot more than 42-- although now I'm thinking it was 44. Regardless, the more Hiragana characters you add, the more relevant my statement which addressed them. The point of that comment was that the language without the written constructs for adding the phonemes of new languages comprises far more than 75% of Japanese. Further, it's utterly irrelevant even if the written language was 25% constructed, since all written language is a construct, and doesn't change the nature of whether a given language is considered "natural" or "constructed".
Finally, regarding English-- given the amalgamation of five languages and the codification which may have taken place in the 1600s for the purpose of unifying the Bible in one language, it still seems to me that English is far more constructed than any of its composites. So I think that's interesting enough for me to study more thoroughly.
The truth is pretty much the opposite.
Steve
Mostly Harmless
I don’t think English was for trade as much as it is an amalgam of the many cultures that invaded and settled there, from the Picts to the Vikings to the Normans and all kinds of folks in between.
Steve
Mostly Harmless
It’s taken on a new life in BJJ.
_Simon_
Senior Master
Very interesting, thanks for sharing @RavenDarkfellow .
Yep, in Kyokushin we said it..... ALOT. Got very very used to it, it was very much a sign of respect, a greeting, an acknowledgement or that you understand. It was actually impolite NOT to say it haha. When working in retail I've accidentally said it to customers haha.
And then when I trained in a traditional Goju Ryu dojo, the instructor told me it was a very disrespectful term not to be used in his dojo or haha, was a term used by young, rude, boisterous men. Very interesting how it's used and received totally differently.
Osu
Yep, in Kyokushin we said it..... ALOT. Got very very used to it, it was very much a sign of respect, a greeting, an acknowledgement or that you understand. It was actually impolite NOT to say it haha. When working in retail I've accidentally said it to customers haha.
And then when I trained in a traditional Goju Ryu dojo, the instructor told me it was a very disrespectful term not to be used in his dojo or haha, was a term used by young, rude, boisterous men. Very interesting how it's used and received totally differently.
Osu
Osu: the "u" part indicates that the "s" has to be emphasized strongly, almost as if it were multi-syllabic.
And this is the reason why people thing osu and oss are not the same.
Osu is how it is iterated, o-SS is how it's spoken.
I don't do it, nor did we do it in the dojo. It is more a Japan-ocentric thing.
And this is the reason why people thing osu and oss are not the same.
Osu is how it is iterated, o-SS is how it's spoken.
I don't do it, nor did we do it in the dojo. It is more a Japan-ocentric thing.
It is not a karate thing. It is a Japanese thing, and not even in every Japanese martial art.
I've only ever heard it from Karate folks.
Steve
Mostly Harmless
It's ubiquitous in BJJ, though (like most things in BJJ), it has been thoroughly appropriated by Western practitioners by way of Brazil.
Exactly!
